3 ms·

What this has to do with state/country level politics (sure, besides everything, but)? You are simply saying to your employer (or potential employer) that I hav

by pas 7y ago

What this has to do with state/country level politics (sure, besides everything, but)? You are simply saying to your employer (or potential employer) that I have this need (healthcare, mothers' room, 4 day workweek, whatever), and that were they willing to provide that you are going to work there. Naturally if many people band together that constitutes a better bargaining strategy. (Sounds familiar?) But unions and all the formal groupings are problematic, because they quickly regress to representing only the very common issues and/or smaller issues themselves become bargaining chips. Solidarity organically grows these flocks of people banded together, and thus pragmatically these kinds of ad-hoc organizations have the same bargaining power as formal unions. (And the fact that Google fears this so much that they are willing to risk breaking the law because of it shows this.)

baq 7y ago
google (or any large organization) feels it needs to be in control of itself. having an out-of-band organization like an union is in direct opposition to that goal. note that HR is an organization that does for employers what the union is supposed to do for employees. no wonder HR will make most aggressive moves to not allow any union to form at almost any cost.
flukus 7y ago
> You are simply saying to your employer (or potential employer) that I have this need (healthcare, mothers' room, 4 day workweek, whatever), and that were they willing to provide that you are going to work there. You are simply saying to your employer (or potential employer) that I have this need (disabled toilets, minimum wage, safe working conditions, whatever), and that were they willing to provide that you are going to work there. Should we end government disability regulations and let workers negotiate it for themselves? Is it really too much too ask governments to provide a base regulation for prayer rooms like they do disabled toilets? Minimum working conditions have always been set by government, especially for people who lack job mobility, which is why I consider a privileged few campaigning to do it at there tech corp to be selfish.
- pas 7y ago
  The problem with minimums is that they not necessarily make sense. Eg. if no one would use the prayer room, why provide it? But if one employee wants to go to the nearby mosque at specific times maybe let them agree on that, even if that's not guaranteed. The lack of diversity of workplaces and work structures is a very big problem. (It results in dumb congestion problems, like rush hours, high tuition and student debt because of the super popular signals, peer pressure for uniformization and conforming, etc.) Unions would just provide another very big hammer instead of incentivizing meaningful dialogue and custom agreements. I'm not saying they would be worse than the status quo though.

by pas 7y ago

baq 7y ago

google (or any large organization) feels it needs to be in control of itself. having an out-of-band organization like an union is in direct opposition to that goal. note that HR is an organization that does for employers what the union is supposed to do for employees. no wonder HR will make most aggressive moves to not allow any union to form at almost any cost.

flukus 7y ago

> You are simply saying to your employer (or potential employer) that I have this need (healthcare, mothers' room, 4 day workweek, whatever), and that were they willing to provide that you are going to work there. You are simply saying to your employer (or potential employer) that I have this need (disabled toilets, minimum wage, safe working conditions, whatever), and that were they willing to provide that you are going to work there. Should we end government disability regulations and let workers negotiate it for themselves? Is it really too much too ask governments to provide a base regulation for prayer rooms like they do disabled toilets? Minimum working conditions have always been set by government, especially for people who lack job mobility, which is why I consider a privileged few campaigning to do it at there tech corp to be selfish.

pas 7y ago
The problem with minimums is that they not necessarily make sense. Eg. if no one would use the prayer room, why provide it? But if one employee wants to go to the nearby mosque at specific times maybe let them agree on that, even if that's not guaranteed. The lack of diversity of workplaces and work structures is a very big problem. (It results in dumb congestion problems, like rush hours, high tuition and student debt because of the super popular signals, peer pressure for uniformization and conforming, etc.) Unions would just provide another very big hammer instead of incentivizing meaningful dialogue and custom agreements. I'm not saying they would be worse than the status quo though.