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I think you’re applying a “conspiratorial” vibe that isn’t necessary - employers are naturally incentivized to keep employees insecure and underpaid (relative t

by bbor 4y ago

I think you’re applying a “conspiratorial” vibe that isn’t necessary - employers are naturally incentivized to keep employees insecure and underpaid (relative to what they’d be paid if they organized, at least). It sounds like you’re knowledgeable on these topics, so I’d be surprised if you disagreed with any of these assertions: 1. Big tech would be willing to burn billions of dollars to crush any chance of tech unions forming. 2. Big tech is known to collude (even to conspire! ) to keep tech wages depressed. 3. Big tech’s biggest cost, by a huge margin, is labor; any reductions there could easily dwarf other shareholder-appeasing cost cutting measures. 4. Tech worker salaries have skyrocketed since they lost their collusion lawsuit, and the general sense among big tech workers was (in most cases) “they need me more than I need them, I could find another amazing job no problem by just responding to one of the many recruiters badgering me on LinkedIn”. Speaking just for google, 6 months ago all the internal forums were obsessed with the idea that SWEs were underpaid, that google should give raises to match inflation, and that google no longer paid top of market. Today I’m pretty sure 100% of the top posts on the biggest internal forum are about layoffs - how random they seemed, how anxious people are to see if they’re going to be cut, and how vastly their perception of the company has changed. If this writer’s take is close, it seems like it kinda worked.

mjburgess 4y ago
Employers are incentivised to retain the employment of their staff, which given the existence of other companies, means they're strongly incentivised NOT to have their employees "insecure".
- malfist 4y ago
  That's only true if there's no cost to the employee of changing jobs. And that's not true. Changing jobs is expensive and costly to the employee, especially in terms of time and stress.
- bbor 4y ago
  If an employee is insecure in their position as a “senior Big Tech dev” (read: top 1-2% income earner), they’ll be less likely to look for other jobs, slack off knowing they could get another job, or fight for raises / process improvements / anything, really. I guess the real point I’m making is that the “industry-wide” nature of these layoffs are an essential component.
theptip 4y ago
It's not me that's applying the conspiratorial vibe, it's the OP, and that's what I'm complaining about: > “Controlling labor costs via periodic layoffs is like breathing for Silicon Valley: cyclical, necessary for life"... The layoffs, Harris says, have “very little to do with long- or even medium-term strategy except as it pertains to cultivating an insecure workforce.” This article is explicitly claiming that the layoffs are not about stock price, they are about an intentional cultivation of insecurity in the workforce and an attempt to crush unions. I'm aware of the no-poach collusion case, but I'm a bit unclear on exactly how much that impacted wages; do you have any go-to sources supporting your claim 4. that this case had a big impact? A quick search gives https://angel.co/blog/software-engineer-salary https://angel.co/blog/software-engineer-salary for example that doesn't show any appreciable impact in 2011 when the class-action suit was filed. (There is a massive jump in 2020 when everyone started hiring like crazy in the Covid bull market.) I'm not claiming this factor has zero weight in the causal model, but the OP is saying something like "this is mono-causal; it's not stock prices, it's an anti-union/anti-labor conspiracy". If pressed to guesstimate I'd say the anti-union factors can't be more than 10% of the explanation, and I'd be surprised if it's even that high.
- bbor 4y ago
  I agree that it isn’t mono-casual (cool word!), but I’m still convinced worker sentiment (which I’d classify union membership as a derivative issue of) is the main reason. I have lots of thoughts about where this fits into their priorities in general, but most of my proof is already discussed above, so I’ll focus on this instead: These companies are not anywhere close to laying off enough people to get back to pre-COVID headcount, and if these layoffs were intended to boost the stock price, they don’t seem to have had much of an impact. Google (sorry I think about this one more than the others, for obvious reasons) is up 11% MoM compared to 5% for the S&P 100, which is good, but… idk seems hard to say that’s worth the trade off. Especially considering the huge swings the stock has taken over the past few years and months Re: impacting wages I can try to come back to this once I’m done making ads for the day. My general narrative is “the lawsuit settled, then meta started offering progressively larger packages for experienced devs, which drove up other companies offers for the same devs” but I do not have source on hand.
gruez 4y ago
I don't think the parent was disagreeing with the fact that tech companies want to oppress workers, he's disagreeing that this specific instance wasn't motivated by oppression because there's a more straightforward financial incentive (ie. cutting spending on employees in light of macroeconomic conditions changing). An analogy from the flip side: I think it's reasonable to think that most consumers want to drive a hard bargain when it comes to megacorps or even businesses in general. However, if some engineer sees the tech layoffs and starts canceling some of the SaaS subscription he doesn't need, it doesn't seem accurate to paint that as "Tech workers are using SaaS cancellations to crush corporate power".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
hintymad 4y ago
> employers are naturally incentivized to keep employees insecure and underpaid Aren't the management also employees? They may have different incentives from those of the large shareholders too. Case in point, so many managers chase scopes by hiring as much as possible but firing as little as they can. I remember Googlers used to joke that "VPs will protect us" when it comes to downsizing teams.

by bbor 4y ago

mjburgess 4y ago

Employers are incentivised to retain the employment of their staff, which given the existence of other companies, means they're strongly incentivised NOT to have their employees "insecure".

malfist 4y ago
That's only true if there's no cost to the employee of changing jobs. And that's not true. Changing jobs is expensive and costly to the employee, especially in terms of time and stress.
bbor 4y ago
If an employee is insecure in their position as a “senior Big Tech dev” (read: top 1-2% income earner), they’ll be less likely to look for other jobs, slack off knowing they could get another job, or fight for raises / process improvements / anything, really. I guess the real point I’m making is that the “industry-wide” nature of these layoffs are an essential component.

theptip 4y ago

It's not me that's applying the conspiratorial vibe, it's the OP, and that's what I'm complaining about: > “Controlling labor costs via periodic layoffs is like breathing for Silicon Valley: cyclical, necessary for life"... The layoffs, Harris says, have “very little to do with long- or even medium-term strategy except as it pertains to cultivating an insecure workforce.” This article is explicitly claiming that the layoffs are not about stock price, they are about an intentional cultivation of insecurity in the workforce and an attempt to crush unions. I'm aware of the no-poach collusion case, but I'm a bit unclear on exactly how much that impacted wages; do you have any go-to sources supporting your claim 4. that this case had a big impact? A quick search gives https://angel.co/blog/software-engineer-salary https://angel.co/blog/software-engineer-salary for example that doesn't show any appreciable impact in 2011 when the class-action suit was filed. (There is a massive jump in 2020 when everyone started hiring like crazy in the Covid bull market.) I'm not claiming this factor has zero weight in the causal model, but the OP is saying something like "this is mono-causal; it's not stock prices, it's an anti-union/anti-labor conspiracy". If pressed to guesstimate I'd say the anti-union factors can't be more than 10% of the explanation, and I'd be surprised if it's even that high.

bbor 4y ago
I agree that it isn’t mono-casual (cool word!), but I’m still convinced worker sentiment (which I’d classify union membership as a derivative issue of) is the main reason. I have lots of thoughts about where this fits into their priorities in general, but most of my proof is already discussed above, so I’ll focus on this instead: These companies are not anywhere close to laying off enough people to get back to pre-COVID headcount, and if these layoffs were intended to boost the stock price, they don’t seem to have had much of an impact. Google (sorry I think about this one more than the others, for obvious reasons) is up 11% MoM compared to 5% for the S&P 100, which is good, but… idk seems hard to say that’s worth the trade off. Especially considering the huge swings the stock has taken over the past few years and months Re: impacting wages I can try to come back to this once I’m done making ads for the day. My general narrative is “the lawsuit settled, then meta started offering progressively larger packages for experienced devs, which drove up other companies offers for the same devs” but I do not have source on hand.

gruez 4y ago

I don't think the parent was disagreeing with the fact that tech companies want to oppress workers, he's disagreeing that this specific instance wasn't motivated by oppression because there's a more straightforward financial incentive (ie. cutting spending on employees in light of macroeconomic conditions changing). An analogy from the flip side: I think it's reasonable to think that most consumers want to drive a hard bargain when it comes to megacorps or even businesses in general. However, if some engineer sees the tech layoffs and starts canceling some of the SaaS subscription he doesn't need, it doesn't seem accurate to paint that as "Tech workers are using SaaS cancellations to crush corporate power".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

hintymad 4y ago

> employers are naturally incentivized to keep employees insecure and underpaid Aren't the management also employees? They may have different incentives from those of the large shareholders too. Case in point, so many managers chase scopes by hiring as much as possible but firing as little as they can. I remember Googlers used to joke that "VPs will protect us" when it comes to downsizing teams.