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> In the email, Google said it was canceling the meeting because the company prefers to only host events on the topic organized in partnership with Google’s si
by dahdum 7y ago
> In the email, Google said it was canceling the meeting because the company prefers to only host events on the topic organized in partnership with Google’s site leadership team.
So this was a meeting organized solely by employees, using company property, on the company campus, on a workday, with the only speakers allowed being the union reps?
I’m not surprised management would try to cancel that, it sounds like a pro-union propaganda party at Google’s expense.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago> pro-union propaganda party Typically you just say "organizing".
- Porthos9K 7y agoThis should not be grayed, but HN is full of bootlickers.
- tdb7893 7y agoMy experience is that HN often aligns with more Libertarian ideologies in the comment section.
- Porthos9K 7y agoReal libertarians, or the "privatize tyranny" crowd?
- claudeganon 7y agoI’ve seen people downvoted for highlighting that “libertarian” was a term invented in the context of anarchist and socialist struggle before being co-opted by the right, so I’m going to go with the latter...
- Porthos9K 7y agoThere are a lot of techies on HN with no sense of history. I blame the "STEM uber alles" educational agenda we've been pushing in the US ever since Sputnik.
- gfdgsgaagrhstrs 7y ago> privatize tyranny Unquestionably this.
- vkou 7y agoI can't take that claim too seriously, because a real Libertarian would welcome a free, and non-coercive association between employees as much as they welcome the free, and completely non-coercive association between an employee, and their employer... (I am, of course, not at all coerced to work under the conditions my employer sets upon me!) But for some reason, many Libertarians have nothing but contempt for the former. It could be that the ideology has been a bit subverted...
- dahdum 7y agoThis hypothetical “real libertarian” would welcome far more than that, and most of it not for the benefit of workers. I’m simply stating it’s foolish to expect Google to actively work against their best interests. To provide material support and a platform for unopposed speech on a viewpoint they actively oppose. There’s nothing stopping these employees from doing this on their own free time and with their own resources.
- Porthos9K 7y ago> I’m simply stating it’s foolish to expect Google to actively work against their best interests. I think you're indulging in reification here. Google has no best interests because Google is just a legal fiction with no real-world existence apart from its constituent individuals. The investors have their interests. Management has their interests. The workers have their interests. But Google itself has no interests, and for too long we've conflated the interests of Google's management and investors with those of the company as a whole while disregarding those of the vast majority of the people associated with Google: the workers whose work makes Google's billions in revenue possible while getting pennies on every dollar of value they provide. > To provide material support and a platform for unopposed speech on a viewpoint they actively oppose. Management has no business having an opinion on unionization one way or the other. If anything, most managers should be pro-union since they're as likely to get thrown under the bus to keep profits up as their direct reports. > There’s nothing stopping these employees from doing this on their own free time and with their own resources. From an opsec viewpoint, the smart thing to do would be to organize outside Google offices and then blindside the company with a wildcat strike, but that's easier said than done when you're expected to work twelve hours a day to prove you're passionate.
- Kiro 7y agoI have the complete opposite experience so I guess the reality is in between.
- claudiawerner 7y agoI upvoted your comment, but only because I think it agrees with the person you're replying to.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago"Libertarian ideology" = "bootlicker" to you? I question the validity of your classification system. Or did I misunderstand your comment?
- pavlov 7y agoI don't know about Switzerland, but most European countries have laws that explicitly require companies to permit unions to operate on company property. Many countries even mandate that stewards (union representatives) must be allowed to spend part of their working time on union work.
- s3nnyy 7y agoUnions in Switzerland are not very common compared to France or Germany.
- CydeWeys 7y agoMore than half of Swiss workers are covered by collective bargaining agreements. That's much higher than in the US at least; not sure about France/Germany.
- riffraff 7y agoAre the mechanics the same in Europe and the US? For example, in Italy most people have a contract which follows the collective agreement obtained by the unions for that specific sector (i.e. commerce, textile worker, metal worker etc) even if people are not part of any union. If you are a member of the Union you may get some extra legal help or such, but not a different contract. From what US people say it seems instead that members of a union live in a separate world.
- chimeracoder 7y ago> From what US people say it seems instead that members of a union live in a separate world. Not really. Because of the way labor laws work in the US, the unions seek exclusive representation over members within a bargaining unit, which means that all employees within the bargaining unit are members of the union as soon as 51% of the bargaining unit votes in favor of the union. That precludes the possibility of employees having the choice between two different unions to represent them (or none at all), which is common in most European countries. It's pretty rare to have union and non-union members working in the same role (as opposed to at the same company, or at the same jobsite but under different employers), and even less common to have two people in the same role represented by two different unions.
- claudeganon 7y agoIt’s amazing to me how much Americans have swallowed this kind of “they deserve it,” management line. People seem to immediately imagine themselves as executives in the boardroom, quashing the rebellion before it begins. As others have pointed out, protections for organizing at workplace sites are common through out Europe. Google employees built Google into what it is, not their senior management (especially given what has come to light). And the company would be better off if workers co-determined its future.
- stvswn 7y agoIt's amazing to me how much Europeans do not identify with management, as if management is a class separate from them and not just people who were like them before getting promoted. Do Europeans see themselves as confined in their careers to a "class," and not invested in the competitiveness and profitability of the company they've voluntarily joined? I'm sure these sorts of things are more common in Europe, and it's amazing to me how Europeans don't independently realize that it's not a coincidence that the battle lines are about trying to exact concessions from American companies, since there aren't really any relevant European tech companies anyway.
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoThe concerns of management are not identical to the concerns of employees, even in white-collar jobs. This isn't a moral judgement, it's just business reality. For instance, labor is always a cost center. The argument "I cost X but bring in 10X" is great for you (assuming it's true), but from your accounting department's standpoint, replacing you with two less productive workers is better if it turns out that together they cost 1.6X but bring in 18X. This calculation doesn't change a whit even if all your company's top-level executives started in the mail room.
- perl4ever 7y agoWell, this is exactly why I can't truly support "common sense" worker's rights like a higher minimum wage or whatever - I might be that less productive worker, or at least be assumed to be.
- unethical_ban 7y agoAs opposed to the anti-union propaganda handed to management, fed down to workers, every day in corporate America?
- zaarn 7y ago>So this was a meeting organized solely by employees, using company property, on the company campus, on a workday, with the only speakers allowed being the union reps? As required by the law.