15 ms·

A woman who took on Google and won

208 points by evo_9 6y ago

claaams 6y ago
I hope unionizing against these tech giants becomes fashionable. I worked at Adobe as a contractor and one of the recruiters for the contractor had called me and told me not to discuss my pay because I was being paid very well for the job (I wasn't and in fact was underpaid but I took the job to build a resume). I immediately asked my coworkers what they made and told them what I was getting. I also asked the recruiter to send that in writing. I got a call the next day from his manager saying to ignore and disregard what he said. While they squashed the issue immediately, I suspect this practice is common and bullying people about sharing their wages in this industry is normal.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > because I was being paid very well for the job (I wasn't and in fact was underpaid but I took the job to build a resume) "I took the job to build a resume" is another way of saying "I was being paid very well for the job".
  - mjcohen 6y ago
    No. It means the opposite - not paid well.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Then ask yourself what you'd charge for the same job under an NDA specifying "you can never reveal any association between yourself and the company".
      - sp332 6y ago
        I think anyone would ask for more money in that case, right?
        sam1r 6y ago
        That's not true. There comes a time where you're willing to take a pay cut for the group of people you are working with [that of which includes experience/mentorship maybe even stable job vs overpaid exec startup position]
        thaumasiotes 6y ago
        Depends on the company. Most are worthless from a resume perspective. But stating that they were giving you something you wanted even more than money is not good grounds for complaining that you weren't getting enough money.
    - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
      There is more which has value than money.
      - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
        This whole thread shows that HN disagrees. I can't understand how you all think compensation works.
  - gbear605 6y ago
    If you make $60,000 a year for a job, you are doing decently well on a US-wide perspective (and very well on a global perspective). However if your coworkers, doing the exact same work as you exactly as well, make $120,000, you’re in fact being underpaid. And the solution to the first issue isn’t to attack the people making $60,000 but to bring everyone who is underpaid up.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      No, he's including in the compensation the experience etc. It's not strictly a free market so the market closing price will be lower than true equilibrium because a no-agreement for one negotiator (labour) results in starvation but a no-agreement for the other negotiator (employer) results in minor discomfort. Perhaps allowing the former to negotiate freely by guaranteeing life will bring negotiation outcomes closer to true market closing price. That's got its own problems, of course, but unions aren't a bad idea to attempt to increase power of labour vs employer.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - uoaei 6y ago
        "Experience" has nothing to do with compensation. You don't deserve more money just because you have been around longer. It is appropriate to make it proportional to value creation. Experience helps with this but obviously then the correlation will be lower.
        renewiltord 6y ago
        No, he was paid with getting the experience. He got compensation in the shape of "build(ing) a resume"
        nohr 6y ago
        I'll ask my landlord if they take that next time. I'm sure the company would love to earn experience from my work instead of money too since it's so valuable.
- Copernicron 6y ago
  It goes a lot further than that. I had a very brief stint at a company that looked good on the surface but was toxic as hell underneath. As part of my employment agreement I had to sign an NDA stating I could not discuss my compensation with other employees. If memory serves there was an exception for HR and my manager but I wasn’t supposed to talk about it with anyone else. I honestly don’t know if conditions like that are legal in Ontario but I also didn’t have the resources to contest it.
0xy 6y ago
Unions depress wages for top performers, and protect incompetent staff. I don't know about you, but I don't particularly want to pay dues to a union that will go to bat for incompetent coworkers dragging us all down. Teachers unions go further than protecting incompetent staff and actually protect sexual predators [1] [2], just to give you an idea of the morality of the typical union. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547313612049308 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547... [2] https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/sex-predators-remain-nyc-schools-group-article-1.1380535 https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/sex-predators...
- mhh__ 6y ago
  You aren't obligated to join a union (certainly not in tech at least)
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Almost all unions rapidly try to transition employers into a union shop. Pretty quickly language starts to arrive about 'freeloaders' and 'scabs'. Simply put, I don't trust you when you say "you aren't obligated".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- femiagbabiaka 6y ago
  It’s amusing how quickly and often someone can emerge with FUD from the woodwork, ready to create a hellthread.
  - koube 6y ago
    Hoping to avoid wading into the specifics of this issue, but have you considered that unions are unpopular among software engineers? I am the most pro-union person I know personally, and I am not pro-union.
    - 6y ago
jeffbee 6y ago
It seems like there must be something lost between Google and its contractors, because Google already doesn't have a policy against discussing wages and compensation, as evidenced by the crowdsourced salary and comp spreadsheet that's been going around for almost a decade now.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  When I first started at Google long ago, I came through an acquisition. As part of that we were all given a relocation package to move closer to the office if we needed to. When I was discussing the details with the HR/recruiter person on the phone I mentioned that I had been talking to my coworkers about the details and I had a logistical question that we couldn't figure out... and they stopped me dead in my tracks and told me point blank and very seriously: "you are not to compare or discuss any aspect of your offer with your coworkers", like I'd committed a cardinal sin. I was a bit shocked. EDIT: FWIW the relocation package terms were all the same between everyone, so it was a bit ridiculous.
  - sp332 6y ago
    That's literally against federal law. https://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-salaries/ https://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-salaries/
    - kayodelycaon 6y ago
      And people are illegally fired for it every single day. Same for trying to start a union.
- gowld 6y ago
  > something lost between Google and its contractors, Yes, that's the primary purpose of having contractors -- to slough off legal obligations. > Google already doesn't have a policy against discussing wages and compensation This was a hard-fought battle, employee + NLRB vs management.
fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
I’m generally a union supporter. I’ve noticed a trend regarding Google specifically that most of the grievances are about Google’s reaction to the union effort. “Retaliation” seems to be the main thing the union cares about. It makes me think of the snake eating its own tail. We need a union to protect us from retaliation for joining the union. I don’t think this invalidates the need for a union, but it just makes me skeptical. Reading the story about the founding of the union: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/technology/google-employees-union.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/technology/google-employe... It sounds like the purpose of the union is to create a permanent activist-class of employees, who focus on promoting the union instead of doing their jobs, and are protected from termination by the union (or the NLRB). It’s a far cry from from miners who picketed because they were dying on the job. I’m not going to cry about the mega-profitable Google having a few hundred less productive employees who spend their time on this, but it doesn’t exactly inspire me either.
- selestify 6y ago
  If you look at the history of activism at Google, a lot of former organizers have been terminated. The union is there to protect current organizers from similar retaliation.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
    I agree with that interpretation of the facts on the ground. It just seems like an unconventional reason to have a union. Generally I think the purpose of unions is to advocate for the interests of the workers at large, not to be a kind of employment guarantee for people who want to do activism instead of their job. If I worked at Google and I had some complaint about my health insurance or something, it doesn’t seem like the union would even be the right people to talk to, because they don’t seem to represent the well-being of the workers like an ordinary union.
    - selestify 6y ago
      If you were a member of AWU, that would very much be a legitimate issue to bring to your workplace unit chair. AWU does advocate for the interests of workers, as demonstrated by this article. It's just that full-time employees don't tend to have as many issues as the temps do.
tptacek 6y ago
I know that this isn't skilled labor at the level of systems or network administration, but $15/hr sounds low for data center techs swapping out hard drives. I'm sure it's all very scripted, but still, I'm surprised to learn that the grunt labor in the cages is making something resembling the Seattle minimum wage.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  According to Wikipedia, $15/hr full time amounts to the median wage in Berkeley County, South Carolina, and it is more than double that state's minimum wage.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Median housing costs are also less than 1/3 of median in King County, WA (Seattle's county).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - jariel 6y ago
    This doesn't bode well for Google, but rather, is damming for what is supposed to be one of the richest places on Earth. Just image trying to live on less than $15/hour. The story is full of the standard paradoxes: a) She's being paid 'reasonably' but probably not for such a rich company/area b) She's entitled to 'talk about comp' but people slamming the company publicly on Facebook posts are not going to last, it's reasonable that the company wold be upset buy that c) Google is full of actually quite nice people wanting to make a difference, there's a lot of moralizing about 'equity and diversity' but in their relentless pursuit of profit they create a 'tiered class system' of people, of completely secondary status and they grind them with every bit of the massive power they have. Google is not rich because they 'nickle and dime' people, they're rich because they create a globally useful product, and have enormous market power. Some things Google could do: 1) They're stinking rich. Pay good wages and give awesome benefit packages. 2) Don't intimate people but let them know if they're leaking information to the press or posting publicly that they're going to be let go. 3) Make every single person from CEO to the servers at lunch 'part of the company' and let them come to company events, and see the 'invited speakers' etc. if they want. The reason they should do that is because their supposed to be 'good people' i.e. communitarians first. It's hypocritical to virtue signal publicly if they can't make their own beds.
paxys 6y ago
"Tech workers have it great. What would a union even accomplish?" Stuff like this is exactly what unions would accomplish if they became more standard in the industry. The Google union is a couple months old and is already successfully defending their members from violations of labor laws. How many others are there who are working in unsafe conditions and/or illegally fired for "security reasons" and have no one to speak out on their behalf?
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I think this discussion of unions for tech workers glosses over a fundamental truth. While a union may be good for some people, for many (I think most) technical experts at a place like Google it would easily be a net negative, so they don't want them. A similar analogy is why "no-tipping" restaurants are so rare in the US (or why they go away so quickly when they are tried). While no-tipping may benefit some servers, your good and better servers can easily make more money with tipping, so they don't want it to go away. The same dynamic exists for software developers.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Servers like tipping because big tippers are more than the enforced average of non-tippers. It's little to do with the people being tipped, and the people who make the most tips are the ones with the largest breasts and prettiest makeup and skin color, not the ones doing the best job waiting tables.
  - onethought 6y ago
    Or you could just increase minimum wage (unions help with that!) and get rid of tipping culture. Because fucking with peoples livelihood because your muffin took a bit long to come out is insane.
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      I mean, this seems to completely miss my point. Good servers make much, much more than minimum wage.
strstr 6y ago
Discussion of salary and (iirc) discussion of working conditions are strongly protected in the US. Anyone know how universal that is?
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  I am not aware of any such protections in Europe. It may be, but in the 3-4 countries where I know the legislation there is no such thing.
  - sdflhasjd 6y ago
    There's legal protections for discussing salary in UK at least
- davchana 6y ago
  Most of the public sector jobs in India (& in California too) have published lists of every position's base rate & the rate of increase.
  - chris11 6y ago
    A lot of states have public salaries. If it's not released then organizations like newspapers will file FOIA requests.
- exolymph 6y ago
  Legally, yes. De facto it's a lot trickier, and that's always the rub.
wombatmobile 6y ago
What is the difference between a minimum wage worker and a robot?
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  1. Feelings 2. Children 3. Dignity 4. Character that makes your org great
- neolog 6y ago
  What is the difference between a high-wage worker and a robot?
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  For starters, minimum wage workers are humans and need water to stay alive.
__zephyr__ 6y ago
Are there examples of unions protecting people from being cancelled or fired for unpopular opinions?
drewg123 6y ago
When I worked at Google, I worked in Platforms, which is the division that makes the servers that populate Google datacenters. They had a program where you could spend a week or two (can't remember exactly) in a datacenter, acting as a low-level tech like this woman. The idea was that you'd see the problems they'd encounter and design servers that were easier and safer to service. I regret that I left Google before I had a chance to do this. I think they should re-target the program and make it mandatory for execs, and make them live on the $15/hr wage that they pay the techs for a few weeks.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  Sounds much better being a datacenter tech for $15/hr compared to flipping burgers for minimal wage. Where this datacenter is located it's $7.25/hr...
  - Baeocystin 6y ago
    Work at a burger place like In n' Out, and you get real benefits on top of your hourly wage. Heck, when I was in college, my part-time Starbucks job gave me good health coverage and a bunch of other perks that my first few post-college tech jobs didn't. (This was mid-90's). FWIW.
    - ctchocula 6y ago
      One of the unfortunate side effects of Affordable Care Act was that retail jobs nowadays don't provide you with any health coverage if you work part-time and they now try to limit your weekly hours at 29.5, which is the max before they have to treat you as a full-time employee.
      - imperfectcats 6y ago
        Is there a name for that, where whatever the limit is, people set things right at it? The same is true in progressive tax brackets, and the number of cancer cases that people get right when people are eligible for Medicare in the USA. Seems like it is common enough to have a name.
datavirtue 6y ago
"she worked in a Google data centre, she was actually employed by a subcontractor called Modis, part of a group of companies owned by another firm, Adecco. That complex arrangement has become increasingly common at Google." This complex arrangement is common in every large corporation. The two layers of contracting companies rarely have any contact with the workers who are fully controlled by managers at the paying company (Google in this case). However, everyone is very careful to officially document that no one at the company is the manager of the contracted employee. But they are.
cosmodisk 6y ago
This brought back some memories. Some years ago,I worked for a gas/oil infrastructure contractor. Essentially got fired for trying to cool myself too often by pouring water on my face. At the time,I was spray painting gas pipes under direct sunlight with pretty heavy PPI in the middle of hot summer. Anything below 30 degrees would have felt like heaven. In all this story,there was someone,who had a nerve to tell her that she can't have a bottle of water...
CapitalistCartr 6y ago
To all FAANG employees: Just because you personally have it good in the penthouse doesn't mean a union isn't needed. The people toiling in the cellar need you. The time to use power is while you still have it, just as the time for a backup is while everything is fine. “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” --Pastor Martin Niemöller
gundmc 6y ago
It doesn't really sound like she took on Google, but I guess "A woman who took on Modis and won" is a less engaging headline.
- wyck 6y ago
  You're still accountable to the subcontractors you hire.
- SpeakForMyself 6y ago
  Agree. What a clickbait. I thought BBC is better than this.
- m-ee 6y ago
  That undersells Googles use of these staffing firms. Years ago I interviewed for an engineering job with the self driving car team at the newly built Google X office. At the end of the interview the manager informed me that if I were brought on I would technically be employed by a staffing firm (I think Adecco). Apparently everyone on the team had to start this way and people were moved to full time on a set schedule as slots opened up. My point is you can't assume contractors at Google are independent service providers that happen to be working on site like when you call a plumber to your house. They can and do use this arrangement to keep labor costs low even when employees are working on the company's core business. Before it was Waymo I don't think anyone would have called it the Adecco self driving car project.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Yeah Adecco is used by every major software company. There was a big lawsuit though saying that you could only be contractors for 2 years if they were doing the same job as regular employees.
throwaway_4253 6y ago
Wait, I'm confused reading this. It's really hard to make out which of the abusive behaviors here are Google's, and which are Modis'. I don't really understand the relationship between those two institutions. (I'm assuming there's plenty of fault on both sides here, but it would be nice to understand the specifics) How much of her direct day to day life is set by Modis? I figure Google pays Modis and Modis pays her? (If so, how much of a cut is Modis keeping?) Did Google directly provide her water bottle, or did it need to go through Modis? It looks like the threatening email she received claiming that she couldn't discuss compensation came from a Modis manager, not a Google one? Which managers were in the room when she was fired for her Facebook post? (I'm assuming Google ones, since they're on-site?)
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  It's basically "Big Tech Bashing" at this point. She wasn't working for Google, she was working for a contractor. Go to a different datacenter and it will be staffed by a different (local) contractor. Same thing for most of the building's maintenance staff. What makes it news-worthy is that the owner of that particular server-rack was a high-profile company. Had the same thing happened at a datacenter owned by a bank, nobody would have reported on it.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    You understand that most Google DCs are owned and operated by google, and serve only google, right? So like even at best this is "Google contracted some dc operations to a company that violated labor relations law." The more newsworthy part is that she was able to get recourse.
    - pb7 6y ago
      If you get a guy to come replace your roof, it's not really your problem that his employer didn't give him a water bottle, now is it?
      - buryat 6y ago
msla 6y ago
I have one honest question regarding tech workers and unions and I hope it can get answered here: What about Open Source and Free Software? Is that non-union or is it expected that, in the event of a work stoppage, people who work on, say, nginx as a hobby will stop work, too? Neither of those options even sound possible.
- seoaeu 6y ago
  I'm not sure it would be considered a union if the people involved aren't being paid. However, there is already a public, collective, confrontational approach to dealing with an open source project with problematic leadership: forking.
  - msla 6y ago
    That doesn't really answer my question: If there's a strike, all workers go on strike, so is Open Source/Free Software development considered work? > I'm not sure it would be considered a union if the people involved aren't being paid. Open Source projects compete directly with closed-source software, sometimes very successfully. It's a big part of the industry.
    - seoaeu 6y ago
      Wait, are you talking about a general strike where all workers in an entire industry go on strike? In the US, strikes are usually limited to a single employer/workplace. So you might see all the employees of Bob's Software Shack stop working (even if their day job was to contribute to open source) until the company improves salaries/benefits/reinstates taco Tuesday. However, I have a hard time imagining that there would be a call for all software developers in the country to go on strike, so I really don't know what volunteer open source contributors would do.
fnord77 6y ago
> Google signed a statement saying the company's workers had the right to discuss pay and conditions with each other. erm, doesn't American labor law prohibit retaliatory actions for doing discussing working conditions?
- posixplz 6y ago
  Yes. Credit card companies do the same thing. They run ads stating you won’t be held liable for fraud. The implication is that the credit card company does this because it cares about you as a customer. The truth is federal law dictates cardholders can’t be held liable for fraudulent charges.
  - fnord77 6y ago
    "I don't rob banks!"
gogopuppygogo 6y ago
Jacob McPherson also sued Google and won: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://duckduckgo.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1872&context=historical https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?refer...
bigtimegames 6y ago
This is a good story for all to realize -- you CAN talk about your OWN pay to anyone you want. Every employer I know has tried to say "you can't do that" or "its in your contract" and I would rebuff and say the contract is illegal/non-binding as it goes against labor laws (in the US as per various labor laws and an executive order as recently as Obama). I get really annoyed w/ HR in firms -- their goal is to stop information from being shared to control things. On the flip side I do not agree that just because your colleague makes X that you deserve X. Pay never consistent and I have no problem with that part given we aren't clones of each other either.
- dx034 6y ago
  Is that a US think? I've worked for employers in several European countries and have never heard an employer telling me not to discuss pay. Once a manager told me not to tell everyone about a pay raise as it was out of schedule and he didn't want lengthy discussions with other employees. But that was his personal request, not a request by HR. If I had wanted to discuss it I could've done without consequences, he made that clear as well. It's still unusual to discuss pay in many companies but not because the employer prohibits it.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Is salary negation a common thing in Europe? Because in the US, it’s pervasive if you’re salaried (not hourly). The problem then becomes: if I negotiated, say, $75k/year, but my equally skilled coworker negotiated $85k/year, it doesn’t look good on the company. So the company just pushes you to not share at all. And it’s worked.
    - chakhs 6y ago
      yes salary is negotiable in Europe but mostly within a range depending on your level (which is usually not transparent, you don't know the ranges). people mostly avoid salary discussion because of cultural reasons I guess, but never due to the employer, I can't imagine HR telling someone to not discuss their salary.
    - 6y ago
harry8 6y ago
What is the win here? Is this what constitutes a win against a big corporation nowadays? "Not totally lawless ...yet" I don't see where anything got better for anyone?
- harry8 6y ago
  apparently nobody else sees a win here either.
tareqak 6y ago
This new is great, but I find one part kind of backwards: why does the declaration in pages 3-4 https://cwa-union.org/sites/default/files/20210331_nlrbsettlement_alphabet_modis.pdf https://cwa-union.org/sites/default/files/20210331_nlrbsettl... only shown in the case of a violation like here? Why can’t the declaration be posted in conspicuous places in every workplace much like how job postings, minimum wage, rules around harassment, and occupational safety are?
xyzzy21 6y ago
So much of Google's HR policies are so clearly illegal I still boggled by it. We saw this in spades with Damore but also with numerous other situations since. When I started working at HP, within 1 week we had "Neophytes Training" and that including half a day of a lawyer from corporate legal explaining all the things that needed to be common knowledge about rights, obligations and duties as an employee. That include HR rules, CA and US law, like the ones in this situation. Who the hell gets into management without knowing the general territory of NLRB and DoL rules and laws?? WHO?? Apparently Google and every one of their contractors! So how exactly has Google et al. either lost knowledge that was once very common in Silicon Valley in most corporations or never bothered with it? Wouldn't this be part of what "Adults in the Room" from VCs or hired senior managers bring to the table? The hubris daily demonstrated by "Googlers" seems a likely part of it - they naturally "know better what is what and what is right than anyone else on the planet". That's their modus operandi most of the time. There are SO MANY STORIES about this in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. But their egoes ignore a little thing called the law.

208 points by evo_9 6y ago

I hope unionizing against these tech giants becomes fashionable. I worked at Adobe as a contractor and one of the recruiters for the contractor had called me and told me not to discuss my pay because I was being paid very well for the job (I wasn't and in fact was underpaid but I took the job to build a resume). I immediately asked my coworkers what they made and told them what I was getting. I also asked the recruiter to send that in writing. I got a call the next day from his manager saying to ignore and disregard what he said. While they squashed the issue immediately, I suspect this practice is common and bullying people about sharing their wages in this industry is normal.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> because I was being paid very well for the job (I wasn't and in fact was underpaid but I took the job to build a resume) "I took the job to build a resume" is another way of saying "I was being paid very well for the job".
- mjcohen 6y ago
  No. It means the opposite - not paid well.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Then ask yourself what you'd charge for the same job under an NDA specifying "you can never reveal any association between yourself and the company".
    - sp332 6y ago
      I think anyone would ask for more money in that case, right?
      - sam1r 6y ago
        That's not true. There comes a time where you're willing to take a pay cut for the group of people you are working with [that of which includes experience/mentorship maybe even stable job vs overpaid exec startup position]
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        Depends on the company. Most are worthless from a resume perspective. But stating that they were giving you something you wanted even more than money is not good grounds for complaining that you weren't getting enough money.
  - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
    There is more which has value than money.
    - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
      This whole thread shows that HN disagrees. I can't understand how you all think compensation works.
- gbear605 6y ago
  If you make $60,000 a year for a job, you are doing decently well on a US-wide perspective (and very well on a global perspective). However if your coworkers, doing the exact same work as you exactly as well, make $120,000, you’re in fact being underpaid. And the solution to the first issue isn’t to attack the people making $60,000 but to bring everyone who is underpaid up.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    No, he's including in the compensation the experience etc. It's not strictly a free market so the market closing price will be lower than true equilibrium because a no-agreement for one negotiator (labour) results in starvation but a no-agreement for the other negotiator (employer) results in minor discomfort. Perhaps allowing the former to negotiate freely by guaranteeing life will bring negotiation outcomes closer to true market closing price. That's got its own problems, of course, but unions aren't a bad idea to attempt to increase power of labour vs employer.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - uoaei 6y ago
      "Experience" has nothing to do with compensation. You don't deserve more money just because you have been around longer. It is appropriate to make it proportional to value creation. Experience helps with this but obviously then the correlation will be lower.
      - renewiltord 6y ago
        No, he was paid with getting the experience. He got compensation in the shape of "build(ing) a resume"
        nohr 6y ago
        I'll ask my landlord if they take that next time. I'm sure the company would love to earn experience from my work instead of money too since it's so valuable.
Copernicron 6y ago
It goes a lot further than that. I had a very brief stint at a company that looked good on the surface but was toxic as hell underneath. As part of my employment agreement I had to sign an NDA stating I could not discuss my compensation with other employees. If memory serves there was an exception for HR and my manager but I wasn’t supposed to talk about it with anyone else. I honestly don’t know if conditions like that are legal in Ontario but I also didn’t have the resources to contest it.

0xy 6y ago

Unions depress wages for top performers, and protect incompetent staff. I don't know about you, but I don't particularly want to pay dues to a union that will go to bat for incompetent coworkers dragging us all down. Teachers unions go further than protecting incompetent staff and actually protect sexual predators [1] [2], just to give you an idea of the morality of the typical union. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547313612049308 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577547... [2] https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/sex-predators-remain-nyc-schools-group-article-1.1380535 https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/sex-predators...

mhh__ 6y ago
You aren't obligated to join a union (certainly not in tech at least)
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Almost all unions rapidly try to transition employers into a union shop. Pretty quickly language starts to arrive about 'freeloaders' and 'scabs'. Simply put, I don't trust you when you say "you aren't obligated".
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
femiagbabiaka 6y ago
It’s amusing how quickly and often someone can emerge with FUD from the woodwork, ready to create a hellthread.
- koube 6y ago
  Hoping to avoid wading into the specifics of this issue, but have you considered that unions are unpopular among software engineers? I am the most pro-union person I know personally, and I am not pro-union.
  - 6y ago

jeffbee 6y ago

It seems like there must be something lost between Google and its contractors, because Google already doesn't have a policy against discussing wages and compensation, as evidenced by the crowdsourced salary and comp spreadsheet that's been going around for almost a decade now.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
When I first started at Google long ago, I came through an acquisition. As part of that we were all given a relocation package to move closer to the office if we needed to. When I was discussing the details with the HR/recruiter person on the phone I mentioned that I had been talking to my coworkers about the details and I had a logistical question that we couldn't figure out... and they stopped me dead in my tracks and told me point blank and very seriously: "you are not to compare or discuss any aspect of your offer with your coworkers", like I'd committed a cardinal sin. I was a bit shocked. EDIT: FWIW the relocation package terms were all the same between everyone, so it was a bit ridiculous.
- sp332 6y ago
  That's literally against federal law. https://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-salaries/ https://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-salaries/
  - kayodelycaon 6y ago
    And people are illegally fired for it every single day. Same for trying to start a union.
gowld 6y ago
> something lost between Google and its contractors, Yes, that's the primary purpose of having contractors -- to slough off legal obligations. > Google already doesn't have a policy against discussing wages and compensation This was a hard-fought battle, employee + NLRB vs management.

fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago

I’m generally a union supporter. I’ve noticed a trend regarding Google specifically that most of the grievances are about Google’s reaction to the union effort. “Retaliation” seems to be the main thing the union cares about. It makes me think of the snake eating its own tail. We need a union to protect us from retaliation for joining the union. I don’t think this invalidates the need for a union, but it just makes me skeptical. Reading the story about the founding of the union: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/technology/google-employees-union.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/technology/google-employe... It sounds like the purpose of the union is to create a permanent activist-class of employees, who focus on promoting the union instead of doing their jobs, and are protected from termination by the union (or the NLRB). It’s a far cry from from miners who picketed because they were dying on the job. I’m not going to cry about the mega-profitable Google having a few hundred less productive employees who spend their time on this, but it doesn’t exactly inspire me either.

selestify 6y ago
If you look at the history of activism at Google, a lot of former organizers have been terminated. The union is there to protect current organizers from similar retaliation.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
  I agree with that interpretation of the facts on the ground. It just seems like an unconventional reason to have a union. Generally I think the purpose of unions is to advocate for the interests of the workers at large, not to be a kind of employment guarantee for people who want to do activism instead of their job. If I worked at Google and I had some complaint about my health insurance or something, it doesn’t seem like the union would even be the right people to talk to, because they don’t seem to represent the well-being of the workers like an ordinary union.
  - selestify 6y ago
    If you were a member of AWU, that would very much be a legitimate issue to bring to your workplace unit chair. AWU does advocate for the interests of workers, as demonstrated by this article. It's just that full-time employees don't tend to have as many issues as the temps do.

tptacek 6y ago

I know that this isn't skilled labor at the level of systems or network administration, but $15/hr sounds low for data center techs swapping out hard drives. I'm sure it's all very scripted, but still, I'm surprised to learn that the grunt labor in the cages is making something resembling the Seattle minimum wage.

jeffbee 6y ago
According to Wikipedia, $15/hr full time amounts to the median wage in Berkeley County, South Carolina, and it is more than double that state's minimum wage.
- gowld 6y ago
  Median housing costs are also less than 1/3 of median in King County, WA (Seattle's county).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- jariel 6y ago
  This doesn't bode well for Google, but rather, is damming for what is supposed to be one of the richest places on Earth. Just image trying to live on less than $15/hour. The story is full of the standard paradoxes: a) She's being paid 'reasonably' but probably not for such a rich company/area b) She's entitled to 'talk about comp' but people slamming the company publicly on Facebook posts are not going to last, it's reasonable that the company wold be upset buy that c) Google is full of actually quite nice people wanting to make a difference, there's a lot of moralizing about 'equity and diversity' but in their relentless pursuit of profit they create a 'tiered class system' of people, of completely secondary status and they grind them with every bit of the massive power they have. Google is not rich because they 'nickle and dime' people, they're rich because they create a globally useful product, and have enormous market power. Some things Google could do: 1) They're stinking rich. Pay good wages and give awesome benefit packages. 2) Don't intimate people but let them know if they're leaking information to the press or posting publicly that they're going to be let go. 3) Make every single person from CEO to the servers at lunch 'part of the company' and let them come to company events, and see the 'invited speakers' etc. if they want. The reason they should do that is because their supposed to be 'good people' i.e. communitarians first. It's hypocritical to virtue signal publicly if they can't make their own beds.

paxys 6y ago

"Tech workers have it great. What would a union even accomplish?" Stuff like this is exactly what unions would accomplish if they became more standard in the industry. The Google union is a couple months old and is already successfully defending their members from violations of labor laws. How many others are there who are working in unsafe conditions and/or illegally fired for "security reasons" and have no one to speak out on their behalf?

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I think this discussion of unions for tech workers glosses over a fundamental truth. While a union may be good for some people, for many (I think most) technical experts at a place like Google it would easily be a net negative, so they don't want them. A similar analogy is why "no-tipping" restaurants are so rare in the US (or why they go away so quickly when they are tried). While no-tipping may benefit some servers, your good and better servers can easily make more money with tipping, so they don't want it to go away. The same dynamic exists for software developers.
- gowld 6y ago
  Servers like tipping because big tippers are more than the enforced average of non-tippers. It's little to do with the people being tipped, and the people who make the most tips are the ones with the largest breasts and prettiest makeup and skin color, not the ones doing the best job waiting tables.
- onethought 6y ago
  Or you could just increase minimum wage (unions help with that!) and get rid of tipping culture. Because fucking with peoples livelihood because your muffin took a bit long to come out is insane.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    I mean, this seems to completely miss my point. Good servers make much, much more than minimum wage.

strstr 6y ago

Discussion of salary and (iirc) discussion of working conditions are strongly protected in the US. Anyone know how universal that is?

AdrianB1 6y ago
I am not aware of any such protections in Europe. It may be, but in the 3-4 countries where I know the legislation there is no such thing.
- sdflhasjd 6y ago
  There's legal protections for discussing salary in UK at least
davchana 6y ago
Most of the public sector jobs in India (& in California too) have published lists of every position's base rate & the rate of increase.
- chris11 6y ago
  A lot of states have public salaries. If it's not released then organizations like newspapers will file FOIA requests.
exolymph 6y ago
Legally, yes. De facto it's a lot trickier, and that's always the rub.

wombatmobile 6y ago

What is the difference between a minimum wage worker and a robot?

wombatmobile 6y ago
1. Feelings 2. Children 3. Dignity 4. Character that makes your org great
neolog 6y ago
What is the difference between a high-wage worker and a robot?
smnrchrds 6y ago
For starters, minimum wage workers are humans and need water to stay alive.

__zephyr__ 6y ago

Are there examples of unions protecting people from being cancelled or fired for unpopular opinions?

drewg123 6y ago

When I worked at Google, I worked in Platforms, which is the division that makes the servers that populate Google datacenters. They had a program where you could spend a week or two (can't remember exactly) in a datacenter, acting as a low-level tech like this woman. The idea was that you'd see the problems they'd encounter and design servers that were easier and safer to service. I regret that I left Google before I had a chance to do this. I think they should re-target the program and make it mandatory for execs, and make them live on the $15/hr wage that they pay the techs for a few weeks.

908B64B197 6y ago
Sounds much better being a datacenter tech for $15/hr compared to flipping burgers for minimal wage. Where this datacenter is located it's $7.25/hr...
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  Work at a burger place like In n' Out, and you get real benefits on top of your hourly wage. Heck, when I was in college, my part-time Starbucks job gave me good health coverage and a bunch of other perks that my first few post-college tech jobs didn't. (This was mid-90's). FWIW.
  - ctchocula 6y ago
    One of the unfortunate side effects of Affordable Care Act was that retail jobs nowadays don't provide you with any health coverage if you work part-time and they now try to limit your weekly hours at 29.5, which is the max before they have to treat you as a full-time employee.
    - imperfectcats 6y ago
      Is there a name for that, where whatever the limit is, people set things right at it? The same is true in progressive tax brackets, and the number of cancer cases that people get right when people are eligible for Medicare in the USA. Seems like it is common enough to have a name.

datavirtue 6y ago

"she worked in a Google data centre, she was actually employed by a subcontractor called Modis, part of a group of companies owned by another firm, Adecco. That complex arrangement has become increasingly common at Google." This complex arrangement is common in every large corporation. The two layers of contracting companies rarely have any contact with the workers who are fully controlled by managers at the paying company (Google in this case). However, everyone is very careful to officially document that no one at the company is the manager of the contracted employee. But they are.

cosmodisk 6y ago

This brought back some memories. Some years ago,I worked for a gas/oil infrastructure contractor. Essentially got fired for trying to cool myself too often by pouring water on my face. At the time,I was spray painting gas pipes under direct sunlight with pretty heavy PPI in the middle of hot summer. Anything below 30 degrees would have felt like heaven. In all this story,there was someone,who had a nerve to tell her that she can't have a bottle of water...

CapitalistCartr 6y ago

To all FAANG employees: Just because you personally have it good in the penthouse doesn't mean a union isn't needed. The people toiling in the cellar need you. The time to use power is while you still have it, just as the time for a backup is while everything is fine. “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” --Pastor Martin Niemöller

gundmc 6y ago

It doesn't really sound like she took on Google, but I guess "A woman who took on Modis and won" is a less engaging headline.

wyck 6y ago
You're still accountable to the subcontractors you hire.
SpeakForMyself 6y ago
Agree. What a clickbait. I thought BBC is better than this.
m-ee 6y ago
That undersells Googles use of these staffing firms. Years ago I interviewed for an engineering job with the self driving car team at the newly built Google X office. At the end of the interview the manager informed me that if I were brought on I would technically be employed by a staffing firm (I think Adecco). Apparently everyone on the team had to start this way and people were moved to full time on a set schedule as slots opened up. My point is you can't assume contractors at Google are independent service providers that happen to be working on site like when you call a plumber to your house. They can and do use this arrangement to keep labor costs low even when employees are working on the company's core business. Before it was Waymo I don't think anyone would have called it the Adecco self driving car project.
- sjg007 6y ago
  Yeah Adecco is used by every major software company. There was a big lawsuit though saying that you could only be contractors for 2 years if they were doing the same job as regular employees.

throwaway_4253 6y ago

Wait, I'm confused reading this. It's really hard to make out which of the abusive behaviors here are Google's, and which are Modis'. I don't really understand the relationship between those two institutions. (I'm assuming there's plenty of fault on both sides here, but it would be nice to understand the specifics) How much of her direct day to day life is set by Modis? I figure Google pays Modis and Modis pays her? (If so, how much of a cut is Modis keeping?) Did Google directly provide her water bottle, or did it need to go through Modis? It looks like the threatening email she received claiming that she couldn't discuss compensation came from a Modis manager, not a Google one? Which managers were in the room when she was fired for her Facebook post? (I'm assuming Google ones, since they're on-site?)

908B64B197 6y ago
It's basically "Big Tech Bashing" at this point. She wasn't working for Google, she was working for a contractor. Go to a different datacenter and it will be staffed by a different (local) contractor. Same thing for most of the building's maintenance staff. What makes it news-worthy is that the owner of that particular server-rack was a high-profile company. Had the same thing happened at a datacenter owned by a bank, nobody would have reported on it.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  You understand that most Google DCs are owned and operated by google, and serve only google, right? So like even at best this is "Google contracted some dc operations to a company that violated labor relations law." The more newsworthy part is that she was able to get recourse.
  - pb7 6y ago
    If you get a guy to come replace your roof, it's not really your problem that his employer didn't give him a water bottle, now is it?
    - buryat 6y ago

msla 6y ago

I have one honest question regarding tech workers and unions and I hope it can get answered here: What about Open Source and Free Software? Is that non-union or is it expected that, in the event of a work stoppage, people who work on, say, nginx as a hobby will stop work, too? Neither of those options even sound possible.

seoaeu 6y ago
I'm not sure it would be considered a union if the people involved aren't being paid. However, there is already a public, collective, confrontational approach to dealing with an open source project with problematic leadership: forking.
- msla 6y ago
  That doesn't really answer my question: If there's a strike, all workers go on strike, so is Open Source/Free Software development considered work? > I'm not sure it would be considered a union if the people involved aren't being paid. Open Source projects compete directly with closed-source software, sometimes very successfully. It's a big part of the industry.
  - seoaeu 6y ago
    Wait, are you talking about a general strike where all workers in an entire industry go on strike? In the US, strikes are usually limited to a single employer/workplace. So you might see all the employees of Bob's Software Shack stop working (even if their day job was to contribute to open source) until the company improves salaries/benefits/reinstates taco Tuesday. However, I have a hard time imagining that there would be a call for all software developers in the country to go on strike, so I really don't know what volunteer open source contributors would do.

fnord77 6y ago

> Google signed a statement saying the company's workers had the right to discuss pay and conditions with each other. erm, doesn't American labor law prohibit retaliatory actions for doing discussing working conditions?

posixplz 6y ago
Yes. Credit card companies do the same thing. They run ads stating you won’t be held liable for fraud. The implication is that the credit card company does this because it cares about you as a customer. The truth is federal law dictates cardholders can’t be held liable for fraudulent charges.
- fnord77 6y ago
  "I don't rob banks!"

gogopuppygogo 6y ago

Jacob McPherson also sued Google and won: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://duckduckgo.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1872&context=historical https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?refer...

bigtimegames 6y ago

This is a good story for all to realize -- you CAN talk about your OWN pay to anyone you want. Every employer I know has tried to say "you can't do that" or "its in your contract" and I would rebuff and say the contract is illegal/non-binding as it goes against labor laws (in the US as per various labor laws and an executive order as recently as Obama). I get really annoyed w/ HR in firms -- their goal is to stop information from being shared to control things. On the flip side I do not agree that just because your colleague makes X that you deserve X. Pay never consistent and I have no problem with that part given we aren't clones of each other either.

dx034 6y ago
Is that a US think? I've worked for employers in several European countries and have never heard an employer telling me not to discuss pay. Once a manager told me not to tell everyone about a pay raise as it was out of schedule and he didn't want lengthy discussions with other employees. But that was his personal request, not a request by HR. If I had wanted to discuss it I could've done without consequences, he made that clear as well. It's still unusual to discuss pay in many companies but not because the employer prohibits it.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Is salary negation a common thing in Europe? Because in the US, it’s pervasive if you’re salaried (not hourly). The problem then becomes: if I negotiated, say, $75k/year, but my equally skilled coworker negotiated $85k/year, it doesn’t look good on the company. So the company just pushes you to not share at all. And it’s worked.
  - chakhs 6y ago
    yes salary is negotiable in Europe but mostly within a range depending on your level (which is usually not transparent, you don't know the ranges). people mostly avoid salary discussion because of cultural reasons I guess, but never due to the employer, I can't imagine HR telling someone to not discuss their salary.
  - 6y ago

harry8 6y ago

What is the win here? Is this what constitutes a win against a big corporation nowadays? "Not totally lawless ...yet" I don't see where anything got better for anyone?

harry8 6y ago
apparently nobody else sees a win here either.

tareqak 6y ago

This new is great, but I find one part kind of backwards: why does the declaration in pages 3-4 https://cwa-union.org/sites/default/files/20210331_nlrbsettlement_alphabet_modis.pdf https://cwa-union.org/sites/default/files/20210331_nlrbsettl... only shown in the case of a violation like here? Why can’t the declaration be posted in conspicuous places in every workplace much like how job postings, minimum wage, rules around harassment, and occupational safety are?

xyzzy21 6y ago

So much of Google's HR policies are so clearly illegal I still boggled by it. We saw this in spades with Damore but also with numerous other situations since. When I started working at HP, within 1 week we had "Neophytes Training" and that including half a day of a lawyer from corporate legal explaining all the things that needed to be common knowledge about rights, obligations and duties as an employee. That include HR rules, CA and US law, like the ones in this situation. Who the hell gets into management without knowing the general territory of NLRB and DoL rules and laws?? WHO?? Apparently Google and every one of their contractors! So how exactly has Google et al. either lost knowledge that was once very common in Silicon Valley in most corporations or never bothered with it? Wouldn't this be part of what "Adults in the Room" from VCs or hired senior managers bring to the table? The hubris daily demonstrated by "Googlers" seems a likely part of it - they naturally "know better what is what and what is right than anyone else on the planet". That's their modus operandi most of the time. There are SO MANY STORIES about this in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. But their egoes ignore a little thing called the law.