4 ms·

> Have you ever been in a union workplace? why would he want to be in a union when he is a top earner compared to great majority of people in the same country?

> Have you ever been in a union workplace? why would he want to be in a union when he is a top earner compared to great majority of people in the same country? and aside from a relative freedom of speech he works in very favourable conditions with a lot of perks and a generous severance package if he gets fired? working at google is the very definition of privilege.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Maybe then he would not have to tow every pr line in fear of being dismissed
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  Heaven help him, though, if he says anything critical of the union. Tire slashing and other forms of intimidation routinely made newspaper headlines in UAW territory in the era before the Big 3 automakers collapsed. At least dismissal doesn't involve people following you to your home. It isn't businesses that make US unions look bad, they did it to themselves.
  - dls2016 6y ago
    What other balance to corporate power do workers have?
marcus_holmes 6y ago
Unions are for more than just getting higher pay. If Google (perish the thought) decided to pull some shady reviewing stunts and make your work life so intolerable that you felt your only option was to force the issue and threaten to resign - being part of a union could have helped with that. HR is a bunch of people who represent the company's interests in negotiations and transactions. Unions are the same thing for employees. We've been told, repeatedly, that unions are socialist organisations that want to destroy capitalisim and bankrupt employers. This isn't true.
whimsicalism 6y ago
> union when he is a top earner compared to great majority of people in the same country Why does that make creating a union/engineer council less desirable? It seems good to have a democratically elected representative of Google engineers who can talk to management, even if those engineers don't feel like negotiating on wage stuff, they still have a real avenue to air concerns.
dls2016 6y ago
> why would he want to be in a union when he is a top earner compared to great majority of people in the same country? Didn't Google get busted fixing wages along with other tech companies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Maybe then he would not have to tow every pr line in fear of being dismissed

ThrowawayR2 6y ago
Heaven help him, though, if he says anything critical of the union. Tire slashing and other forms of intimidation routinely made newspaper headlines in UAW territory in the era before the Big 3 automakers collapsed. At least dismissal doesn't involve people following you to your home. It isn't businesses that make US unions look bad, they did it to themselves.
- dls2016 6y ago
  What other balance to corporate power do workers have?

marcus_holmes 6y ago

Unions are for more than just getting higher pay. If Google (perish the thought) decided to pull some shady reviewing stunts and make your work life so intolerable that you felt your only option was to force the issue and threaten to resign - being part of a union could have helped with that. HR is a bunch of people who represent the company's interests in negotiations and transactions. Unions are the same thing for employees. We've been told, repeatedly, that unions are socialist organisations that want to destroy capitalisim and bankrupt employers. This isn't true.

whimsicalism 6y ago

> union when he is a top earner compared to great majority of people in the same country Why does that make creating a union/engineer council less desirable? It seems good to have a democratically elected representative of Google engineers who can talk to management, even if those engineers don't feel like negotiating on wage stuff, they still have a real avenue to air concerns.

dls2016 6y ago

> why would he want to be in a union when he is a top earner compared to great majority of people in the same country? Didn't Google get busted fixing wages along with other tech companies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...