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Consider what happens if everyone who has a moral complaint about their employer immediately quits rather than staying around and attempting to chase the compla

• paxys 7y ago
  > Consider what happens if everyone who has a moral complaint about their employer immediately quits This is in fact the quickest way to ensure that this behavior immediately stops
  • baddox 7y ago
    I don't think that's true, precisely because the employee with a complaint can potentially increase their leverage significantly by educating and organizing other employees around the cause. Your analysis seems to assume that there's some fixed percentage of employees who think some action from their employer is bad, and if that percentage is high enough, then all those employees could quit, which would either somehow signal to the employer that their action was bad or would damage the company so much that they would need to change their actions. I think that's wishful thinking, and of course the percentage of employees with a complaint is not fixed and can be directly increased by internal efforts to organize. That applies not just to internal awareness, but also public awareness: note that we're only having discussions about cases where employees attempted to organize other employees.
    • ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      If everyone who participated in the Google Walkout (20% of their workforce) stayed out until Google addressed their complaints, rather than returning to work after their lunch hour was over, all seven demands would've been met, instead of one. (And they probably would've still got paid!) I have my doubts that tech companies could operate with a sudden loss of 20% of their workforce and talent base. If a company knows you will return to work no matter how much you complain, they are not going to take you seriously. (This was the Walkout's mistake.) And if, as an individual, you make too much noise, you'll just get fired. (See numerous individual examples.) Decisive collective action works, and that's what unions figured out a long time ago.
      • fao_ 7y ago
        This sort of action is precisely the reason why we have, in the UK, the ability for working men to vote (Originally, they couldn't, it was won by the Chartists in the 1800s), the ability for women to vote, human rights laws, worker's rights laws, and the NHS. More recently McDonalds workers went on a mass strike in the UK for a living wage, and got a pay rise: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mcdonalds-worker-pay-rise-wages-strike-bakers-union-fast-food-restaurant-a8141151.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mcdonalds-w...
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • jimthrow 7y ago
        Considering the massive over supply of labor, I’d say they could very easily replace that 20% several times over before they had any problems finding more engineers.
        • maest 7y ago
          Techies work in a seller's market (as evidenced by the comparatively huge salaries they command). There is definitely no "over supply of labor". One of Google's biggest assets is their huge army of talented techies. I'd go so far as to say losing that would be an existential threat to the business.
          • geofft 7y ago
            Comparative to what? Big tech companies are wildly profitable for their owners. Techies make a lot of money compared to other professions because we genuinely produce a disproportionate amount of value, but that doesn't imply we're in a seller's market. One way you can tell that there's no dearth of labor is that most companies round an "unsure" in the interview process to "no," not "yes."
            • perl4ever 7y ago
              A large part of supply and demand is the amount of immediate liquidity. Employers seem to have the upper hand when hiring typically because they have a bunch of options right then whereas few applicants have multiple simultaneous offers and if they do, they don't have many. But that's not the same as supply and demand of labor on a longer timescale. Somebody who's thought more and more clearly about this could write something better about it, but I felt like pointing out what I think is overlooked.
    • paxys 7y ago
      What do you think is the end result of all the "educating and organizing"? Do you think Google would make major policy decisions (which had massive financial and competitive impacts) because of employees emailing the CEO to voice their displeasure with what they are assigned to do (while they continue to do it regardless)?
  • eyelidlessness 7y ago
    If a critical mass of the employees both share your view and act in kind. But if you have that much power organized already, you've effectively already got the internal power to make the change you want to achieve rather than resigning. If you do not have that critical mass, and resignation is the only moral choice, then all you achieve is eliminating that voice from the inside and eliminate any inside power to influence.
  • anarchodev 7y ago
    It's really not. This decision is a very personal one unique to each employee. Internal activism can be very effective especially if done in a way that gets more attention among existing employees. On the other hand, this is extremely risky to their employment (and in America that means their housing and healthcare) and on top of that it's a ton of work. It's great when someone who quits has the resources to also try to bring some attention to the reasons why.
  • velcrovan 7y ago
    Your labor is your only real political power.
    • lunias 7y ago
      Sadly, labor is not that powerful anymore... especially when the company has the capital to replace you with 5 people tomorrow. I think the political power can only be regained by pooling your labor with your peers.
      • samsonradu 7y ago
        Like an union, it has been brought up in tech from time to time. https://mobile.twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1172279395035308032?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1172279395035...
        • lunias 7y ago
          Yup, but one brought together by morals and ethics for the sake of morals and ethics. As Jeff points out, tech is not known for poor compensation or working environments. Tech is pervasive because convenience is a hot commodity. Technology disrupts, tech can make or break monopolies / monopsonies by changing the status quo. Having the ability to get another job on a whim doesn't matter much if you one day unintentionally end up serving the parent company that you resigned from; as big fish swallow small fish through acquisition etc. I wish there was another way, but I can't really think of one that's within our control... Unions are certainly not above corruption either. I see Republicans / Democrats as two opposing unions; instead of making rational decisions on each issue independently everything gets encoded into a binary choice. Red or blue and all the good / bad that comes with either choice. The real solution is smaller companies. Local businesses that you can simply stop using / move away from. That seems like a pipe dream though; it's more convenient to buy your internet from Comcast and support a monopoly than start your own ISP - even if you do and it gains traction, Comcast will come knocking and you'll take the money and retire.
          • 7y ago
  • swivelmaster 7y ago
    Or you end up just leaving behind all the people who don't really care about it, and thus it is never fixed.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • nswest23 7y ago
    such a pat, real world workable answer. /s
• koheripbal 7y ago
  The problem is that as long as you remain an employee, you have a LEGAL obligation to act in the interests of the Corporation. That is the nature of Fiduciary Duty - something all employees are legally bound by. You may "voice your concerns" all you like, but while you're an employee, it is your duty to ACT in accordance with the directions you're given, and in the absence of explicit direction, in the interests of the company.
  • chipotle_coyote 7y ago
    At risk of being the "[Citations Needed] Guy," I don't think this is true. This sounds an awful lot like the canard that corporations have a legal duty to act in the interests of their shareholders, but there is no fact no such legal or even regulatory obligation for that. This misapprehension comes from a paper written by Milton Friedman in 1975 in which he argued corporations have a moral duty to maximize shareholder value and to prioritize that over all other concerns. While that argument has been widely accepted by corporations and often used as a rationale for their behavior, it's never been codified as an SEC regulation, let alone written into law. It's literally just Friedman's opinion, and one that's come under increasing challenge. If you're an employee of a company you are contractually obligated to fulfill the terms of your contract, but there is no legal -- or if you prefer, LEGAL -- requirement for you to do so. You may be reprimanded or even fired for spending too much time on Hacker News at the office, but you are not breaking any law by doing so. More to the point in this case, you are absolutely not breaking any law by telling your employer that you don't agree with their decisions, or even by trying to organize fellow employees to put pressure on management to change their behavior. If your employer fires you because of your speaking out or organizing, in fact, the law may very well be on your side, not theirs.
    • perl4ever 7y ago
      "It's literally just Friedman's opinion, and one that's come under increasing challenge" If you are flexible enough about what "maximizing shareholder value" means, then it's not an endorsement of any behavior anyone disapproves of. You could say the real issue is just that people do bad stuff and say that it is maximizing value. Corporations often say they have to do stuff to maximize shareholder value, but they also often say they have to act in the worst possible way permitted by law, because that is the standard the law sets. That is, without referencing shareholder value. Maybe it's all just nonsense excuses by people who do bad stuff? Bondholders (as well as employees and others) come before shareholders in bankruptcy, so it seems like in a very concrete way, maximizing shareholder value is not a feature of it and never has been.
• Waterluvian 7y ago
  "Lisa, maybe if I'm part of that mob, I can help steer it in wise directions." Whenever Homer gives out advice the odds are its bad advice.
• dhdejejdhfyx 7y ago
  >I think utilizing one's power as a worker and aligning other workers to increase workers' power ... This sounds terrible. You're not increasing worker power as a whole you're just increasing the power of workers with similar political agendas. If successful, the unaligned workers don't even get the material benefit of a raise or added employee benefits like they would from a real union. The unaligned are basically just expected to roll with whatever mayhem the preachy workers cause.
• Proven 7y ago
  That is completely wrong. The only natural right you have to keep them honest is to utilize your power as a customer or consumer. As a worker you have the duty to do what you're told, and if you do, you get your wage. It's a quid pro quo, nobody owes you more than you deliver.
• qbaqbaqba 7y ago
  >Consider what happens if everyone who has a moral complaint about their employer immediately quits Holocaust would not happen. Modernity and the Holocaust by Z. Bauman should be obligatory read for corporate workers.
• dyeje 7y ago
  This seems like a fantasy. Are there any examples of workers collectively changing the moral character of a company?