5 ms·

Unions are political pressure groups. The entire point of a union is to pressure employers to not shoot their employees, give them fair wages and working hours,

Unions are political pressure groups. The entire point of a union is to pressure employers to not shoot their employees, give them fair wages and working hours, and so on; the union is a political actor on par with the employer. By questioning whether a group of employees really is a union, you are attempting to strip them of federal protection from retaliation.

bioinformatics 6y ago
I am pretty sure the work environment at Google is extremely oppressive, with low salaries and and top-down evil capitalist only approach. After all how can millionaires Google employees can have their voices heard if they don't unionize? Maybe they will demand better snacks in the cafeteria and a new foosball table at the end of the indoor slide.
- bo0tzz 6y ago
  Unions are not just for the purpose of getting fair pay, but rather about a broad case of being on equal footing with an employer, as stated in the parent comment. Besides, this union is not just for salaried google employees, but also contractors etc - this will include for example cleaners and cafetaria employees, which are much more likely to be in need of the sort of union support that you mention.
- xtian 6y ago
  Google was one of the participants in a corporate wage-fixing scandal. Do snacks and foosball tables justify that?
  - option 6y ago
    and they got sued for that and lost. No union was involved in holding them accountable
    - xtian 6y ago
      Yeah, they got a small slap on the wrist for that one. My point is the presence of snacks and perks does not preclude the exploitation of labor.
    - myWindoonn 6y ago
      Because there's no union who represents Google, Apple, etc. employees as a single cohesive block, there couldn't have been a union holding folks accountable. You're implying that the courts were successful, but only after Googlers had an employee revolt (read: a non-union-organized strike!) against being taken to forced arbitration.
corty 6y ago
Well, by a sufficiently lax definition, any gardening club is a political pressure group, because they are of course interested in their members not getting shot, gardens not being outlawed and fair prices for seeds... The one thing that makes unions special imho is the focus on workplace issues in a specific industry or company. That is the area where a union also has legal protection. Anything else they do isn't necessarily protected, and I find it very odd that that "union" does everything _but_ the protected stuff.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  I don't doubt gardening clubs can and will pressure politicians concerning relevant issues such as local politics about community gardening. A small group of 12-15 people can have large swings on public space usages or lobby a low-paid public official that manages approving public or private gardening law in that county/town.
- myWindoonn 6y ago
  Well, like you say, that's your opinion. And history has a dim view of your opinion. I am not being facetious about protecting people from violence; unions came about in the USA partially because of the Coal Wars [0], an armed conflict between employers and employees. Gardening clubs are clearly not political pressure groups. I recommend that you do some reading on the history of unions in the USA; it is written in blood. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    The question is what the history of unions in the USA has to do with the Alphabet Workers Union. In particular I just don't get what you're trying to say about the Coal Wars; Google employees are not at risk of being gunned down by their management.
    - myWindoonn 6y ago
      The average tenure of a sysadmin at Google is 2yrs. They burn out. In the USA, the shortening of work weeks and work hours, the reduction of unfair responsibilities, and the overall improvement in health and safety for working conditions are all directly attributable to union action. Googlers suffered Apple's Techtopus salary-fixing collusion. In the USA, collective bargaining is an important component of breaking wage-fixing situations, and "labor union" is legal shorthand for such collective-bargaining groups. Google routinely appropriates code from its employees using a Microsoft Clause, which reassigns employee-produced code to Google unless the employee can rigorously prove that Google had nothing whatsoever to do with the production of the code. Thousands of commits are appropriated every year, and there is an internal lawyer-driven process for automating the appropriation. Labor unions of artists have successfully attacked such practices in the USA before. Google owns Youtube and Doubleclick, large advertising systems which both inspire great amounts of abuse and also themselves are abusive tools of user coercion. If Googlers wanted for Google employees to not damage their mental health by working in user moderation for hours on end, or wanted Google to be less of a part of our societal disinformation and spam problem by reforming advertising policies, then a union would be the natural place to start that argument. It sounds like you've never worked at Google before. Just because Google does not threaten its employees with regular violence, does not mean that Google is a stellar employer above reproach and without need for redress. Your overall attitude towards unions reminds me of a classic movie scene where disgruntled and confused folks wonder whether the Romans ever did anything for them. Here [0] is but one of many lists enumerating exactly what unions did for us. [0] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/5/15/1092027/-Thanks-a-Union-36-Ways-Unions-Have-Improved-Your-Life https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/5/15/1092027/-Thanks-a...

bioinformatics 6y ago

I am pretty sure the work environment at Google is extremely oppressive, with low salaries and and top-down evil capitalist only approach. After all how can millionaires Google employees can have their voices heard if they don't unionize? Maybe they will demand better snacks in the cafeteria and a new foosball table at the end of the indoor slide.

bo0tzz 6y ago
Unions are not just for the purpose of getting fair pay, but rather about a broad case of being on equal footing with an employer, as stated in the parent comment. Besides, this union is not just for salaried google employees, but also contractors etc - this will include for example cleaners and cafetaria employees, which are much more likely to be in need of the sort of union support that you mention.
xtian 6y ago
Google was one of the participants in a corporate wage-fixing scandal. Do snacks and foosball tables justify that?
- option 6y ago
  and they got sued for that and lost. No union was involved in holding them accountable
  - xtian 6y ago
    Yeah, they got a small slap on the wrist for that one. My point is the presence of snacks and perks does not preclude the exploitation of labor.
  - myWindoonn 6y ago
    Because there's no union who represents Google, Apple, etc. employees as a single cohesive block, there couldn't have been a union holding folks accountable. You're implying that the courts were successful, but only after Googlers had an employee revolt (read: a non-union-organized strike!) against being taken to forced arbitration.

corty 6y ago

Well, by a sufficiently lax definition, any gardening club is a political pressure group, because they are of course interested in their members not getting shot, gardens not being outlawed and fair prices for seeds... The one thing that makes unions special imho is the focus on workplace issues in a specific industry or company. That is the area where a union also has legal protection. Anything else they do isn't necessarily protected, and I find it very odd that that "union" does everything _but_ the protected stuff.

TeaDrunk 6y ago
I don't doubt gardening clubs can and will pressure politicians concerning relevant issues such as local politics about community gardening. A small group of 12-15 people can have large swings on public space usages or lobby a low-paid public official that manages approving public or private gardening law in that county/town.
myWindoonn 6y ago
Well, like you say, that's your opinion. And history has a dim view of your opinion. I am not being facetious about protecting people from violence; unions came about in the USA partially because of the Coal Wars [0], an armed conflict between employers and employees. Gardening clubs are clearly not political pressure groups. I recommend that you do some reading on the history of unions in the USA; it is written in blood. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The question is what the history of unions in the USA has to do with the Alphabet Workers Union. In particular I just don't get what you're trying to say about the Coal Wars; Google employees are not at risk of being gunned down by their management.
  - myWindoonn 6y ago
    The average tenure of a sysadmin at Google is 2yrs. They burn out. In the USA, the shortening of work weeks and work hours, the reduction of unfair responsibilities, and the overall improvement in health and safety for working conditions are all directly attributable to union action. Googlers suffered Apple's Techtopus salary-fixing collusion. In the USA, collective bargaining is an important component of breaking wage-fixing situations, and "labor union" is legal shorthand for such collective-bargaining groups. Google routinely appropriates code from its employees using a Microsoft Clause, which reassigns employee-produced code to Google unless the employee can rigorously prove that Google had nothing whatsoever to do with the production of the code. Thousands of commits are appropriated every year, and there is an internal lawyer-driven process for automating the appropriation. Labor unions of artists have successfully attacked such practices in the USA before. Google owns Youtube and Doubleclick, large advertising systems which both inspire great amounts of abuse and also themselves are abusive tools of user coercion. If Googlers wanted for Google employees to not damage their mental health by working in user moderation for hours on end, or wanted Google to be less of a part of our societal disinformation and spam problem by reforming advertising policies, then a union would be the natural place to start that argument. It sounds like you've never worked at Google before. Just because Google does not threaten its employees with regular violence, does not mean that Google is a stellar employer above reproach and without need for redress. Your overall attitude towards unions reminds me of a classic movie scene where disgruntled and confused folks wonder whether the Romans ever did anything for them. Here [0] is but one of many lists enumerating exactly what unions did for us. [0] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/5/15/1092027/-Thanks-a-Union-36-Ways-Unions-Have-Improved-Your-Life https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/5/15/1092027/-Thanks-a...