6 ms·

Yeah, let's focus on the company that pays their employees 15x minimum wage and has top tier vacation, healthcare, and maternity/paternity leave.

by mrits 5y ago

mrweasel 5y ago
Is that also the case for their janitorial staff?
cool_dude85 5y ago
None of that makes it ok to bust unions.
- ergocoder 5y ago
  But it does point out that this is not a union that will improve worker's condition like a regular union. The Google union aims to stop Google to work on certain projects. Many don't agree with unions. What should those people do? Make another union? If people don't want to work on DoD contract, they can transfer to other teams. There are like 1000 teams in Google. Internal transfer is not hard.
vmception 5y ago
Its a trillion dollar company with some/many employees delivering quite a bit more value than they are paid 1) Collectively getting the better stake of the pie influences other organizations compensation methods/amounts 2) the market is telling employees what to do, meaning that it doesn’t matter that an individual can do far more work for less pay somewhere else - just don’t do those things.
- sonotathrowaway 5y ago
  The underpayment was a top priority of google, to the point that individual executives committed crimes that should have led to their incarceration - had the DoJ interpreted the law according to its text rather than according to their political ideology. As it stands, all the DoJ was capable of was issuing guidance that acknowledged that crimes were committed that should have led to jail time, and politely asks corporate executives to not commit those crimes again, on pain of another chiding letter.
  - vmception 5y ago
    DoJ and other parts of the government have been successfully convinced that consequential enforcement is counterproductive to their greater anti-trust goals. basically, because the government also wants competition in the market, they can't be the reason why there is no competition after they curb stomp one of the major few competitors in many fields. there is some degree of truth in this, but it has also been co-opted to prevent any meaningful consequence for people and their organizations, once they are big enough
- tootahe45 5y ago
  I always thought most Google employees would be creating less value than what they earn, with a few of Google's money printer products enabling such high remuneration for everybody.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  > trillion dollar company with some/many employees delivering quite a bit more value than they are paid Companies structurally and intentionally pay the average employee less than that employee generates in value. (If they paid more on average, they'd obviously either decide to never start or would go bankrupt. If they paid people working equal to their contributions on average, they'd show no profit and would have no reserves to cover for employees who are out on paid leaves that society or the employees want companies to cover the costs of.) The underpayment relative to value delivered is a necessary condition (at least in my opinion, by simple math above). If you want to capture all the net value you create, you should work for yourself. For many (including me), I'd rather trade away some of the upside in exchange for a much lower stress existence.
  - vmception 5y ago
    over 50% of the compensation is in shares, wall street - as a colloquialism for the capital markets - can tolerate much much more dilution
yunwal 5y ago
Unions also don't need to be used for personal compensation and benefits. Plenty of software unions fighting for the ethical interests of the employees, which is an area where Google leaves a lot to be desired.
- dekhn 5y ago
  What if I disagree with the union's position on ethics? For example, I do not agree with Google's decision to avoid some DoD contracts (I worked in Google at the time). I'd only want a union to handle my work aspects (and even then... it's not clear they would provide me with all the wonderful things I have received over the years from Google and other tech employers).
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    As a member of the union, you have a vote on the union's position on issues. This differs from your options outside the union, where your only "vote" is to quit, which (pathologically) concentrates within the company the opinion you would have voted against.
    - ergocoder 5y ago
      It is the same problem, isn't it? If I want to work on those projects and don't agree with the union, and 50% of the Union vote the other way, my only choice is also to quit. I don't agree with the union's direction of forbidding company to work on a perfectly legal project. If you want the project to be illegal, maybe call your senate instead?
      - _wolfie_ 5y ago
        I don't know how the union law works in the US. Over here (Europe), you can have multiple unions in one company. It takes minimal 3 people to form one. So you could probably form a union for pro-DoD people?
        5y ago
drawfloat 5y ago
Apart from the majority of their workforce who are classed as TVCs and do not enjoy most of those benefits/only enjoyed some since staff walked off two years ago. Hell, in many places they haven't even been paying what they legally are required to: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/10/google-underpaid-workers-illegal-pay-disparity-documents https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/10/google-un...
- jfim 5y ago
  The reason for the separate treatment of TVCs and full time employees is likely due to the Microsoft independent contractor lawsuits a long time ago. Microsoft used to treat independent contractors similarly to full time employees, except for a few benefits such as participation in their stock benefits. When the IRS ruled that the independent contractors were really employees due to them being treated similarly as full time employees, independent contractors sued Microsoft to get stock benefits as well. See https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-dont-treat-c-idUSTRE53063S20090401 https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-...
mandmandam 5y ago
While helping ICE traumatize kids for life, and illegally surveilling employees who quit over it. Ew.
- mrits 5y ago
  I hope your comment goes to the top. It highlights the real reason for hating these large corporations. Ignorance.
- EricE 5y ago
  You know what really traumatizes kids for life? "compassionate" policies that encourage parents to sell their kids to the cartels who then sell them to people to use as shields to get across the boarder. When DHS does bother to paternity test "families" coming across the boarder some horrendous percentage of the kids were not related to the "parents". You want to not traumatize kids? Have proper boarder control and don't tell people if they manage to sprint across the boarder they will get a bunch of free stuff.
  - mandmandam 5y ago
    You can't spell 'border', but want to debate immigration policy? Why would I hope for intelligent or even articulate thought from you on this? Do you have anything less batty and more interesting than "ICE should paternity test families that cross the border" to offer here?
AlexandrB 5y ago
Could also be rephrased: let's focus on the company that was probably colluding with its competitors to keep wages artificially low[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo...
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Isn't that really just the inverse of a union, which facilitates collusion between the sellers of labor (employees) to raise the price (wages)?
eli_gottlieb 5y ago
Yeah, let's break the oligopolist up and give workers more bargaining power.
na85 5y ago
Yeah it's all okay because you got yours.
- BuckRogers 5y ago
  For some people, holding others down is the fun of it all.
shadowgovt 5y ago
Yes, let's. Because it's the same company that colluded with other Silicon Valley firms to keep the pay artificially low relative to market value through non-solicit handshake agreements (https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po...). The best trick management plays against workers is to convince them that their opponents in the game of capitalism are other workers, not management. Are software engineers over-payed? It's entirely possible, but that isn't justification for their company illegally screwing them any more than Amazon is justified in screwing its warehouse employees. And as a movement, the message for labor organization would be powerful if Google employees successfully unionized: that even well-compensated employees deserve the benefits of collective bargaining against a corporation that is structurally incentivized to screw them when it can get away with it.

Yeah, let's focus on the company that pays their employees 15x minimum wage and has top tier vacation, healthcare, and maternity/paternity leave.

by mrits 5y ago

Yeah, let's focus on the company that pays their employees 15x minimum wage and has top tier vacation, healthcare, and maternity/paternity leave.

mrweasel 5y ago

Is that also the case for their janitorial staff?

cool_dude85 5y ago

None of that makes it ok to bust unions.

ergocoder 5y ago
But it does point out that this is not a union that will improve worker's condition like a regular union. The Google union aims to stop Google to work on certain projects. Many don't agree with unions. What should those people do? Make another union? If people don't want to work on DoD contract, they can transfer to other teams. There are like 1000 teams in Google. Internal transfer is not hard.

vmception 5y ago

Its a trillion dollar company with some/many employees delivering quite a bit more value than they are paid 1) Collectively getting the better stake of the pie influences other organizations compensation methods/amounts 2) the market is telling employees what to do, meaning that it doesn’t matter that an individual can do far more work for less pay somewhere else - just don’t do those things.

sonotathrowaway 5y ago
The underpayment was a top priority of google, to the point that individual executives committed crimes that should have led to their incarceration - had the DoJ interpreted the law according to its text rather than according to their political ideology. As it stands, all the DoJ was capable of was issuing guidance that acknowledged that crimes were committed that should have led to jail time, and politely asks corporate executives to not commit those crimes again, on pain of another chiding letter.
- vmception 5y ago
  DoJ and other parts of the government have been successfully convinced that consequential enforcement is counterproductive to their greater anti-trust goals. basically, because the government also wants competition in the market, they can't be the reason why there is no competition after they curb stomp one of the major few competitors in many fields. there is some degree of truth in this, but it has also been co-opted to prevent any meaningful consequence for people and their organizations, once they are big enough
tootahe45 5y ago
I always thought most Google employees would be creating less value than what they earn, with a few of Google's money printer products enabling such high remuneration for everybody.
sokoloff 5y ago
> trillion dollar company with some/many employees delivering quite a bit more value than they are paid Companies structurally and intentionally pay the average employee less than that employee generates in value. (If they paid more on average, they'd obviously either decide to never start or would go bankrupt. If they paid people working equal to their contributions on average, they'd show no profit and would have no reserves to cover for employees who are out on paid leaves that society or the employees want companies to cover the costs of.) The underpayment relative to value delivered is a necessary condition (at least in my opinion, by simple math above). If you want to capture all the net value you create, you should work for yourself. For many (including me), I'd rather trade away some of the upside in exchange for a much lower stress existence.
- vmception 5y ago
  over 50% of the compensation is in shares, wall street - as a colloquialism for the capital markets - can tolerate much much more dilution

yunwal 5y ago

Unions also don't need to be used for personal compensation and benefits. Plenty of software unions fighting for the ethical interests of the employees, which is an area where Google leaves a lot to be desired.

dekhn 5y ago
What if I disagree with the union's position on ethics? For example, I do not agree with Google's decision to avoid some DoD contracts (I worked in Google at the time). I'd only want a union to handle my work aspects (and even then... it's not clear they would provide me with all the wonderful things I have received over the years from Google and other tech employers).
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  As a member of the union, you have a vote on the union's position on issues. This differs from your options outside the union, where your only "vote" is to quit, which (pathologically) concentrates within the company the opinion you would have voted against.
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    It is the same problem, isn't it? If I want to work on those projects and don't agree with the union, and 50% of the Union vote the other way, my only choice is also to quit. I don't agree with the union's direction of forbidding company to work on a perfectly legal project. If you want the project to be illegal, maybe call your senate instead?
    - _wolfie_ 5y ago
      I don't know how the union law works in the US. Over here (Europe), you can have multiple unions in one company. It takes minimal 3 people to form one. So you could probably form a union for pro-DoD people?
      - 5y ago

drawfloat 5y ago

Apart from the majority of their workforce who are classed as TVCs and do not enjoy most of those benefits/only enjoyed some since staff walked off two years ago. Hell, in many places they haven't even been paying what they legally are required to: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/10/google-underpaid-workers-illegal-pay-disparity-documents https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/10/google-un...

jfim 5y ago
The reason for the separate treatment of TVCs and full time employees is likely due to the Microsoft independent contractor lawsuits a long time ago. Microsoft used to treat independent contractors similarly to full time employees, except for a few benefits such as participation in their stock benefits. When the IRS ruled that the independent contractors were really employees due to them being treated similarly as full time employees, independent contractors sued Microsoft to get stock benefits as well. See https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-dont-treat-c-idUSTRE53063S20090401 https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-...

mandmandam 5y ago

While helping ICE traumatize kids for life, and illegally surveilling employees who quit over it. Ew.

mrits 5y ago
I hope your comment goes to the top. It highlights the real reason for hating these large corporations. Ignorance.
EricE 5y ago
You know what really traumatizes kids for life? "compassionate" policies that encourage parents to sell their kids to the cartels who then sell them to people to use as shields to get across the boarder. When DHS does bother to paternity test "families" coming across the boarder some horrendous percentage of the kids were not related to the "parents". You want to not traumatize kids? Have proper boarder control and don't tell people if they manage to sprint across the boarder they will get a bunch of free stuff.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  You can't spell 'border', but want to debate immigration policy? Why would I hope for intelligent or even articulate thought from you on this? Do you have anything less batty and more interesting than "ICE should paternity test families that cross the border" to offer here?

AlexandrB 5y ago

Could also be rephrased: let's focus on the company that was probably colluding with its competitors to keep wages artificially low[1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo...

missedthecue 5y ago
Isn't that really just the inverse of a union, which facilitates collusion between the sellers of labor (employees) to raise the price (wages)?

eli_gottlieb 5y ago

Yeah, let's break the oligopolist up and give workers more bargaining power.

na85 5y ago

Yeah it's all okay because you got yours.

BuckRogers 5y ago
For some people, holding others down is the fun of it all.

shadowgovt 5y ago

Yes, let's. Because it's the same company that colluded with other Silicon Valley firms to keep the pay artificially low relative to market value through non-solicit handshake agreements (https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po...). The best trick management plays against workers is to convince them that their opponents in the game of capitalism are other workers, not management. Are software engineers over-payed? It's entirely possible, but that isn't justification for their company illegally screwing them any more than Amazon is justified in screwing its warehouse employees. And as a movement, the message for labor organization would be powerful if Google employees successfully unionized: that even well-compensated employees deserve the benefits of collective bargaining against a corporation that is structurally incentivized to screw them when it can get away with it.