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You can call it industry standard but it is blatant exploitation of workers and their rights. It is also breaking one of basic human rights, right to work, putt

by stiray 7y ago

You can call it industry standard but it is blatant exploitation of workers and their rights. It is also breaking one of basic human rights, right to work, putting them into situation where they are slaves to the company. Someone in EU should bring this to the EU court for human rights, I am sure they would win the case and stop this practice, at least for EU. For my country this is completely unenforcable and every judge would just drop the case. IT workers should form union. Seriously. We have huge power, a week of strike can bring a company down, or even internet. And based on such contracts, I wouldnt be surprised if joining union is also forbiden in states (can someone at google please check his contract?)

stiray 7y ago
Maybe just a detail for USA workers, a brief explanation how some things work in some EU states, as an alternative to union, much softer one, but it has teeth (as an extreme, it can get CEO to a jail). I am 8 years (elected, 2 mandates, around 1200 workers) in workers council (Germans might be well aware of this). This is a "political body" which as its basic description, has to work in favor of workers AND company (distinction between union - union will defend the worker even if company goes down - workers council tries to do what is best for company and worker, sometimes annoying but beneficial at most times for both - and there is always a baseball bat that it can transform to a union. The definition can make a lot of decisions hard, but at least it does take the company into account). And as most important, it can break owners decisions that are harmfull to the company. The company has obligation to get a conformation from the workers council for important decisions, like selling the company. And we can break a deal (the CEO goes to jail case). The confirmation also needs to be given for any larger lay off of employees. No we wont allow that for short boost of cash to satisfy management bonus conditions (HP). It can also effect the decisions where it can affect workers contract changes. It can veto them. Monthly reports about company financials. We are still bound to NDA, but we hava enough informations to decide. Selling a company. We can veto. There is hell of a lot more legislation behind this, buf I think it can solve a lot of issues that USA has. (I have a hell of a lot to say to this, but I dont want to translate hunderds of pages of legaslation for nothing. Please DO ask.)
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  I'm afraid this doesn't have enough corporatocracy or dystopia, but thank you.
zoobab 7y ago
Actually in the NGINX case, the former company claims (or is trying to find proofs, such as timings of git commits) that Nginx has been developed on company's paid time. Even if the sysadmin was "on call" and coding Nginx on the side. I guess the Nginx lesson should be a wake up call for all of us who are developing FLOSS on the side.

by stiray 7y ago

stiray 7y ago

Maybe just a detail for USA workers, a brief explanation how some things work in some EU states, as an alternative to union, much softer one, but it has teeth (as an extreme, it can get CEO to a jail). I am 8 years (elected, 2 mandates, around 1200 workers) in workers council (Germans might be well aware of this). This is a "political body" which as its basic description, has to work in favor of workers AND company (distinction between union - union will defend the worker even if company goes down - workers council tries to do what is best for company and worker, sometimes annoying but beneficial at most times for both - and there is always a baseball bat that it can transform to a union. The definition can make a lot of decisions hard, but at least it does take the company into account). And as most important, it can break owners decisions that are harmfull to the company. The company has obligation to get a conformation from the workers council for important decisions, like selling the company. And we can break a deal (the CEO goes to jail case). The confirmation also needs to be given for any larger lay off of employees. No we wont allow that for short boost of cash to satisfy management bonus conditions (HP). It can also effect the decisions where it can affect workers contract changes. It can veto them. Monthly reports about company financials. We are still bound to NDA, but we hava enough informations to decide. Selling a company. We can veto. There is hell of a lot more legislation behind this, buf I think it can solve a lot of issues that USA has. (I have a hell of a lot to say to this, but I dont want to translate hunderds of pages of legaslation for nothing. Please DO ask.)

ASalazarMX 7y ago
I'm afraid this doesn't have enough corporatocracy or dystopia, but thank you.

zoobab 7y ago

Actually in the NGINX case, the former company claims (or is trying to find proofs, such as timings of git commits) that Nginx has been developed on company's paid time. Even if the sysadmin was "on call" and coding Nginx on the side. I guess the Nginx lesson should be a wake up call for all of us who are developing FLOSS on the side.