6 ms·

unintended consequences 1. Fat cats. What are the due fees? %1 now?, later then? %5 of gross annually? 200 people * 300k year * %5 of salary = 3 million. They

unintended consequences 1. Fat cats. What are the due fees? %1 now?, later then? %5 of gross annually? 200 people * 300k year * %5 of salary = 3 million. They will use this on fancy dinners with Google execs? Or spend it in "wrongful terminations" law suites with google for years? What happens when 50x more join. 2. Who runs it? Will it be a 10 year long president? What is her union salary? A non-google person? Will it be full time? A slack group? They dish out favors to win elections? 3. Who gets into the union? Base is on the newest woke culture? Base it on need? Salary? Scan their social media? Popularity contests? Seems like a great way to start discrimination. 4. Will being in this union freak out future employers? If your union spends most of it's time suing - will they want you around? EG. I don't see Tesla wanting a high ranking union person from google. 5. My wife worked at a union. Unions tend to not fire - so (non blue collar) you end up with hundreds of drained, demotivated, incompetent - due payers. This is the direction people at google want to go? Who will actually do the work? Non-union Sub-contractors? 6. Will they become political? Will you have to join this political party? What if you disagree on a few things? You still pay dues right - to the Fat Cat? 7. Will they corner off work? EG. You can't be a designer level III without being in the union. One thing that wont happen: better working conditions.

whimsicalism 6y ago
1. They'll probably spend it on lawyers & negotiation teams. 2. How are those consequences? 3. > Base is on the newest woke culture? ... Scan their social media? What? If they are voted in, Google will be required to provide the employee manifest. 5. First, there are unions in numerous industries with lots of firings/seasonal firings. Second, firing is also not as common in big tech anyways. 6. You have a vote? On what to negotiate on?
rafram 6y ago
1. Members have agreed to contribute 1%, as stated in the article that you may not have read. 2. Elections 3. The article also answers this question. It’s open to anyone working for Alphabet (besides, if it works like a typical union, management). 4. Not hiring you for your union affiliation would be highly illegal. 5. She worked AT a union? Unions don’t fire people? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you mean she was a member, and that unions prevent companies from firing their members? Even that’s largely not true. 6. Yes, you’ll have to join the Communist Party of America and pledge allegiance to AOC in order to even join the zoom call, of course. Because that’s how unions work 7. No, because it’s voluntary, as you could’ve read in the article that you didn’t read.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cactus2093 6y ago
  > It’s open to anyone working for Alphabet (besides, if it works like a typical union, management). This to me kind of highlights the disconnect of unions in software engineering. In many companies including Google, there are parallel IC and management tracks. There are ICs in leadership positions but just without any reports. Does that mean, e.g. an L7 staff engineer can unionize but not an L5 manager? And then it leads to me wonder, why can't managers unionize in a typical union? Even at a big old-fashioned manufacturing company with a union, the managers are still individual people who are separate from the company itself. Presumably the reason is that they already have better conditions, they're highly paid, maybe they're already aligned with company itself because they have an ownership stake or some incentive bonus structure. All of those arguments apply to software engineers as well. This may be a cheesy analogy, but in some ways all software engineers in tech are already effectively the middle managers. They oversee the "assembly line" that generates the revenue for the business, which just happens to be software rather than people.
  - lokar 6y ago
    From my read of the situation (based on past union experience), this is not a normal union. They do not seek exclusive bargaining power for a contract. It seems more like an association of employees who seek to influence leadership on specific topics. There influence comes not from the threat of a strike, but rather just numbers (eg we have X% of workers, all willing to put up 1% of pay, you should really listen to us).
    - cactus2093 6y ago
      In that case, for an average employee making $100k-$200k a year in base salary at Google, I can't imagine paying $1-2k a year for the privilege of raising concerns without any real teeth. They can already do this anyway in retros or all-hands meetings, signing on to open letters to the executive team, etc. Not saying that the organizers here have malicious intentions, but if you did have malicious intentions then something like this could actually be a pretty good scam... Re-purposing the word "union" for something that is not really serving that role, and collecting money from people who will ideologically sign onto it without thinking because they automatically think "unions == good". Basically making money off of the current shift to the left in US politics.
pnw_hazor 6y ago
When I did employee-side employment discrimination law, the stories from the union employees who worked at a giant US airplane manufacture were the saddest. Often with local union leadership being involved in the discrimination. Eventually I learned to pass on cases that involved unionized employees because having a union involved made it much more difficult to prosecute cases.
minimuffins 6y ago
These are all real problems, especially in a lot of today's older unions that have been completely hollowed out and have become a kind of do-nothing "labor aristocracy." They don't function as democratic institutions serving laborers' interests anymore, only their own narrow, elite, institutional needs--often institutional self-preservation at the expense of their members' interests. They're decrepit, corrupt dinosaurs, just like the Right says. But they got that way by losing the fight in the 20th century. Now they're kind of useless vestiges just waiting around to slough off eventually. So the old unions are no model to emulate here. But just noting that and giving up of course leaves the problem of my lack of power in the workplace completely unsolved. > One thing that wont happen: better working conditions. I still want better working conditions though, for me and for everybody. What do you suggest?
- umvi 6y ago
  > I still want better working conditions though, for me and for everybody. What do you suggest? Well, a re-brand for one. Don't call it a "union". Call it something else if it is something else. If you make a union patterned after traditional ones, why shouldn't it become a corrupt entity 50 years later just like all the current corrupt unions?
  - shakezula 6y ago
    I'm very pro-labor/pro-worker, whatever you want to call it, and I'd be all about using a different term than union. It's a loaded term that has all sorts of negative connotation. New decade, new world of tech, new term for collectivized labor. I will admit, the police union problem is a hard counter. It's a solvable problem though, I think. Maybe we should bring "guild" back into fashion.
    - minimuffins 6y ago
      Guild has a connotation of workmanship and craft expertise, industriousness, etc. I do like that. But there is also an existing phenomenon of various things calling themselves guilds (there are various "freelancers'" guilds, e.g.), but they do not function as an economic bargaining institution at all. They're just professional organizations where people exchange contact info for networking purposes. I think there's no getting around the task at hand: rehabilitating the concept of a union of workers with shared interests and goals (even shared fraternity, if I'm gonna be super sentimental). It's capital, it's labor, it's unions. New century, same basic stuff.
8note 6y ago
8. Will the union be providing housing?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
slumpt_ 6y ago
Please read a history book. This is horrendously ill-informed based on the history of what collective action has accomplished in the US.
AshWolfy 6y ago
> One thing that wont happen: better working conditions. Some of these are true, some are not, but workers in unions make more money, have better benefits, and have better working conditions overall
- umvi 6y ago
  > but workers in unions make more money But could that be due to just paying the lowest tiers more and highest tiers less? Companies usually make salaries opaque, but say you have 9 software engineers. Your 3 underperformers are being paid $10 per year, your 3 average performers are being paid $15 per year, and your 3 top performers are being paid $20 per year. So average worker pay is $15 per year. Now a union comes in and over the years the pay structure changes so that the most senior employees make the most, not the top performers. Now 4 youngest employees make $14 per year, the 4 middle employees make $16 and the most senior employee makes $18 per year. So average worker pay is now $15.3 per year, and you can now make the claim "workers in unions make more money (on average)", but I would argue this new structure is overall worse for the company since you are basically rewarding underperformers and punishing top performers in order to raise wages.

whimsicalism 6y ago

1. They'll probably spend it on lawyers & negotiation teams. 2. How are those consequences? 3. > Base is on the newest woke culture? ... Scan their social media? What? If they are voted in, Google will be required to provide the employee manifest. 5. First, there are unions in numerous industries with lots of firings/seasonal firings. Second, firing is also not as common in big tech anyways. 6. You have a vote? On what to negotiate on?

rafram 6y ago

1. Members have agreed to contribute 1%, as stated in the article that you may not have read. 2. Elections 3. The article also answers this question. It’s open to anyone working for Alphabet (besides, if it works like a typical union, management). 4. Not hiring you for your union affiliation would be highly illegal. 5. She worked AT a union? Unions don’t fire people? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you mean she was a member, and that unions prevent companies from firing their members? Even that’s largely not true. 6. Yes, you’ll have to join the Communist Party of America and pledge allegiance to AOC in order to even join the zoom call, of course. Because that’s how unions work 7. No, because it’s voluntary, as you could’ve read in the article that you didn’t read.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cactus2093 6y ago
> It’s open to anyone working for Alphabet (besides, if it works like a typical union, management). This to me kind of highlights the disconnect of unions in software engineering. In many companies including Google, there are parallel IC and management tracks. There are ICs in leadership positions but just without any reports. Does that mean, e.g. an L7 staff engineer can unionize but not an L5 manager? And then it leads to me wonder, why can't managers unionize in a typical union? Even at a big old-fashioned manufacturing company with a union, the managers are still individual people who are separate from the company itself. Presumably the reason is that they already have better conditions, they're highly paid, maybe they're already aligned with company itself because they have an ownership stake or some incentive bonus structure. All of those arguments apply to software engineers as well. This may be a cheesy analogy, but in some ways all software engineers in tech are already effectively the middle managers. They oversee the "assembly line" that generates the revenue for the business, which just happens to be software rather than people.
- lokar 6y ago
  From my read of the situation (based on past union experience), this is not a normal union. They do not seek exclusive bargaining power for a contract. It seems more like an association of employees who seek to influence leadership on specific topics. There influence comes not from the threat of a strike, but rather just numbers (eg we have X% of workers, all willing to put up 1% of pay, you should really listen to us).
  - cactus2093 6y ago
    In that case, for an average employee making $100k-$200k a year in base salary at Google, I can't imagine paying $1-2k a year for the privilege of raising concerns without any real teeth. They can already do this anyway in retros or all-hands meetings, signing on to open letters to the executive team, etc. Not saying that the organizers here have malicious intentions, but if you did have malicious intentions then something like this could actually be a pretty good scam... Re-purposing the word "union" for something that is not really serving that role, and collecting money from people who will ideologically sign onto it without thinking because they automatically think "unions == good". Basically making money off of the current shift to the left in US politics.

pnw_hazor 6y ago

When I did employee-side employment discrimination law, the stories from the union employees who worked at a giant US airplane manufacture were the saddest. Often with local union leadership being involved in the discrimination. Eventually I learned to pass on cases that involved unionized employees because having a union involved made it much more difficult to prosecute cases.

minimuffins 6y ago

These are all real problems, especially in a lot of today's older unions that have been completely hollowed out and have become a kind of do-nothing "labor aristocracy." They don't function as democratic institutions serving laborers' interests anymore, only their own narrow, elite, institutional needs--often institutional self-preservation at the expense of their members' interests. They're decrepit, corrupt dinosaurs, just like the Right says. But they got that way by losing the fight in the 20th century. Now they're kind of useless vestiges just waiting around to slough off eventually. So the old unions are no model to emulate here. But just noting that and giving up of course leaves the problem of my lack of power in the workplace completely unsolved. > One thing that wont happen: better working conditions. I still want better working conditions though, for me and for everybody. What do you suggest?

umvi 6y ago
> I still want better working conditions though, for me and for everybody. What do you suggest? Well, a re-brand for one. Don't call it a "union". Call it something else if it is something else. If you make a union patterned after traditional ones, why shouldn't it become a corrupt entity 50 years later just like all the current corrupt unions?
- shakezula 6y ago
  I'm very pro-labor/pro-worker, whatever you want to call it, and I'd be all about using a different term than union. It's a loaded term that has all sorts of negative connotation. New decade, new world of tech, new term for collectivized labor. I will admit, the police union problem is a hard counter. It's a solvable problem though, I think. Maybe we should bring "guild" back into fashion.
  - minimuffins 6y ago
    Guild has a connotation of workmanship and craft expertise, industriousness, etc. I do like that. But there is also an existing phenomenon of various things calling themselves guilds (there are various "freelancers'" guilds, e.g.), but they do not function as an economic bargaining institution at all. They're just professional organizations where people exchange contact info for networking purposes. I think there's no getting around the task at hand: rehabilitating the concept of a union of workers with shared interests and goals (even shared fraternity, if I'm gonna be super sentimental). It's capital, it's labor, it's unions. New century, same basic stuff.

8note 6y ago

8. Will the union be providing housing?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

slumpt_ 6y ago

Please read a history book. This is horrendously ill-informed based on the history of what collective action has accomplished in the US.

AshWolfy 6y ago

> One thing that wont happen: better working conditions. Some of these are true, some are not, but workers in unions make more money, have better benefits, and have better working conditions overall

umvi 6y ago
> but workers in unions make more money But could that be due to just paying the lowest tiers more and highest tiers less? Companies usually make salaries opaque, but say you have 9 software engineers. Your 3 underperformers are being paid $10 per year, your 3 average performers are being paid $15 per year, and your 3 top performers are being paid $20 per year. So average worker pay is $15 per year. Now a union comes in and over the years the pay structure changes so that the most senior employees make the most, not the top performers. Now 4 youngest employees make $14 per year, the 4 middle employees make $16 and the most senior employee makes $18 per year. So average worker pay is now $15.3 per year, and you can now make the claim "workers in unions make more money (on average)", but I would argue this new structure is overall worse for the company since you are basically rewarding underperformers and punishing top performers in order to raise wages.