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The prevailing fixation seems to be on how unionization would help the highly-compensated engineers, when the people who need and would benefit most from unioni

by vitus 6y ago

The prevailing fixation seems to be on how unionization would help the highly-compensated engineers, when the people who need and would benefit most from unionization are the TVCs, who aren't considered Alphabet employees, don't get benefits, are regularly excluded (from all-hands, mailing lists, even affiliating with Google on LinkedIn). Suppose a barista's phone dies. Employees are not permitted by policy to chip in to buy a new one, per existing guidance, even if there are 100 people at the office all willing to chip in $10 as gratitude for years of expertly-poured coffees. Don't get me wrong -- there's absolutely value in using a staffing agency to scale hiring of support staff to fit the needs of rapidly growing sites. But if you've been employing the same worker for 1, 2, even 5 years, why not convert them to employees?

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Unions would also add additional hurdles to young engineers looking to join or move up within the company. We like to think of unions as protecting members against the corporation, but traditionally unions also protect members against outsiders looking to take their jobs. In this case, those outsiders are young people breaking into the industry or trying to move up the ranks within Google. Before going all-in on unions, consider if you’re ready to start making it harder for Googlers to get fired or make it more difficult for someone to get promoted based on their work rather than seniority (number of years worked). At this point it’s not even clear what the union is demanding or what they expect to change. Google already has industry leading pay and benefits, as well as a reputation for some of the most reasonable working hours in the industry.
- ecf 6y ago
  > ... but traditionally unions also protect the members against outsiders looking to take their jobs. Hit the nail on the head. I’ve always heard horror stories about the police union advocating for literal murderers so those murderers can get another job where they can murder again. But then I joined my first startup and had to install another access point by simply running a 15 ft Ethernet cable through the paneled ceiling. A 15-30 minute job, tops. But the building had an exclusive contract with a unionized cabling company and I could get my startup evicted if I attempted the job myself. Instead, we had to pay this cabling company $4k and wait 2 weeks for them to come onsite. I’m sure there are good unions out there. But unions people have encounters with pretty much are all rotten.
- vitus 6y ago
  Are you not proving my point by bringing the conversation back to "how will unionization impact engineers"? > Before going all-in on unions, consider if you’re ready to start making it harder for Googlers to get fired or make it more difficult for someone to get promoted based on their work rather than seniority (number of years worked). There _are_ issues around Google employees being terminated unfairly -- mostly around those who dare to speak out (most recently and notably, Dr. Gebru). While I do think that poor performers should be fired regardless of seniority, I also think that the current process for identifying and removing poor performers is both inefficient and, frankly, cruel. After receiving poor performance ratings, an engineer may have responsibilities slashed (thereby making it more difficult to demonstrate level-appropriate impact) and put onto a performance improvement plan (to demonstrate impact, but also siloed from the rest of the team). To add insult to injury, due to performance ratings, the engineer will have compensation slashed to effectively the salary band for a lower level. If the engineer does not meet the lofty goals by the end of the 3-month period, management may offer an ultimatum: take this severance package and voluntarily resign, or go through the review that you most likely will fail, and get nothing when you're fired. Meanwhile, it can take two performance cycles (i.e. a full year) to identify and remove poor performers, during which time said poor performer can drag down an entire team. It is already a meme at Google that the easiest way to achieve L+1 (i.e. get promoted) is to leave and re-apply at a higher level after a year or two at a different company. While I don't advocate promoting primarily based on seniority, I _do_ think Google does need to invest more on building up leadership by promoting from within, rather than encouraging people who want to break into senior leadership to leave Google.
my_usernam3 6y ago
I think thats because this unionization attempt is for the FTE to speak out over social justice causes and not face retaliation. Aka not about compensation. I do wish there was more focus around the contract employees, in fact I think this petition (or whatever its called where they all sign) is only for FTE.
- vitus 6y ago
  From the article: "The Alphabet Workers Union will be open to all employees and contractors at Google’s parent company."

by vitus 6y ago

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Unions would also add additional hurdles to young engineers looking to join or move up within the company. We like to think of unions as protecting members against the corporation, but traditionally unions also protect members against outsiders looking to take their jobs. In this case, those outsiders are young people breaking into the industry or trying to move up the ranks within Google. Before going all-in on unions, consider if you’re ready to start making it harder for Googlers to get fired or make it more difficult for someone to get promoted based on their work rather than seniority (number of years worked). At this point it’s not even clear what the union is demanding or what they expect to change. Google already has industry leading pay and benefits, as well as a reputation for some of the most reasonable working hours in the industry.

ecf 6y ago
> ... but traditionally unions also protect the members against outsiders looking to take their jobs. Hit the nail on the head. I’ve always heard horror stories about the police union advocating for literal murderers so those murderers can get another job where they can murder again. But then I joined my first startup and had to install another access point by simply running a 15 ft Ethernet cable through the paneled ceiling. A 15-30 minute job, tops. But the building had an exclusive contract with a unionized cabling company and I could get my startup evicted if I attempted the job myself. Instead, we had to pay this cabling company $4k and wait 2 weeks for them to come onsite. I’m sure there are good unions out there. But unions people have encounters with pretty much are all rotten.
vitus 6y ago
Are you not proving my point by bringing the conversation back to "how will unionization impact engineers"? > Before going all-in on unions, consider if you’re ready to start making it harder for Googlers to get fired or make it more difficult for someone to get promoted based on their work rather than seniority (number of years worked). There _are_ issues around Google employees being terminated unfairly -- mostly around those who dare to speak out (most recently and notably, Dr. Gebru). While I do think that poor performers should be fired regardless of seniority, I also think that the current process for identifying and removing poor performers is both inefficient and, frankly, cruel. After receiving poor performance ratings, an engineer may have responsibilities slashed (thereby making it more difficult to demonstrate level-appropriate impact) and put onto a performance improvement plan (to demonstrate impact, but also siloed from the rest of the team). To add insult to injury, due to performance ratings, the engineer will have compensation slashed to effectively the salary band for a lower level. If the engineer does not meet the lofty goals by the end of the 3-month period, management may offer an ultimatum: take this severance package and voluntarily resign, or go through the review that you most likely will fail, and get nothing when you're fired. Meanwhile, it can take two performance cycles (i.e. a full year) to identify and remove poor performers, during which time said poor performer can drag down an entire team. It is already a meme at Google that the easiest way to achieve L+1 (i.e. get promoted) is to leave and re-apply at a higher level after a year or two at a different company. While I don't advocate promoting primarily based on seniority, I _do_ think Google does need to invest more on building up leadership by promoting from within, rather than encouraging people who want to break into senior leadership to leave Google.

my_usernam3 6y ago

I think thats because this unionization attempt is for the FTE to speak out over social justice causes and not face retaliation. Aka not about compensation. I do wish there was more focus around the contract employees, in fact I think this petition (or whatever its called where they all sign) is only for FTE.

vitus 6y ago
From the article: "The Alphabet Workers Union will be open to all employees and contractors at Google’s parent company."