4 ms·

>> It really does look like this was an opportunity for capital to regain some leverage they lost and crack the whip. Which, to be fair, at least in the tech se

>> It really does look like this was an opportunity for capital to regain some leverage they lost and crack the whip. Which, to be fair, at least in the tech sector was probably warranted. But not really what the Fed should be enabling. Railroad workers had to strike to get a single sick day. Across the board American labor has been getting flogged for years. Maybe Google's people should be flogged a little, but not because of the financial balance.

datavirtue 4y ago
Let's not wish any workers to be "flogged." Google workers deserve their pay and others deserve more. What happens to them happens to me. Don't take the "divide and conquer" bait.
- spacemadness 4y ago
  It gets me that there are so many people on HN against labor, then I remind myself that the site exists due to founding tech companies and that there are folks on here that just want a bigger whip.
  - treis 4y ago
    Or some of us see echoes of Detroit 1950 in today's tech industry.
    - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
      I'm curious which specific aspects you are referring to that have echos?
      - treis 4y ago
        Companies that dominated their sector, got fat and lazy, and then were disrupted by foreign competition.
        AndrewKemendo 4y ago
        At this point I think it's clear to say this is not correct. In fact the capital class lobbied hard for China being admitted to the WTO pushed hardest by Kissinger, NAFTA [1] and other legislation and restructuring to make offshoring easier in order to suppress both wages and labor power. This was Ross Perot's entire platform [2]: “You implement that NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay people a dollar an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls,” Perot said during the second presidential debate in October 1992, “and you’re going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country.”" [1] https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-learned-from-nafta/nafta-lowered-wages-as-it-was-supposed-to-do https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-l... [2] https://theconversation.com/the-giant-sucking-sound-of-nafta-ross-perot-was-ridiculed-as-alarmist-in-1992-but-his-warning-turned-out-to-be-prescient-120258 https://theconversation.com/the-giant-sucking-sound-of-nafta...
        treis 4y ago
        The car companies were crushed by the Japanese decades before NAFTA.
        spacemadness 4y ago
        It’s interesting that you seem to think that’s a fault of labor and not a fault of management. There are folks on here that go straight to blaming the workers as if management can do no wrong as they themselves are presumably part of the management class or aim to be. You can have workers push for better treatment without pointing to threats of foreign competition to stop progress.

datavirtue 4y ago

Let's not wish any workers to be "flogged." Google workers deserve their pay and others deserve more. What happens to them happens to me. Don't take the "divide and conquer" bait.

spacemadness 4y ago
It gets me that there are so many people on HN against labor, then I remind myself that the site exists due to founding tech companies and that there are folks on here that just want a bigger whip.
- treis 4y ago
  Or some of us see echoes of Detroit 1950 in today's tech industry.
  - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
    I'm curious which specific aspects you are referring to that have echos?
    - treis 4y ago
      Companies that dominated their sector, got fat and lazy, and then were disrupted by foreign competition.
      - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
        At this point I think it's clear to say this is not correct. In fact the capital class lobbied hard for China being admitted to the WTO pushed hardest by Kissinger, NAFTA [1] and other legislation and restructuring to make offshoring easier in order to suppress both wages and labor power. This was Ross Perot's entire platform [2]: “You implement that NAFTA, the Mexican trade agreement, where they pay people a dollar an hour, have no health care, no retirement, no pollution controls,” Perot said during the second presidential debate in October 1992, “and you’re going to hear a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country.”" [1] https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-learned-from-nafta/nafta-lowered-wages-as-it-was-supposed-to-do https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-l... [2] https://theconversation.com/the-giant-sucking-sound-of-nafta-ross-perot-was-ridiculed-as-alarmist-in-1992-but-his-warning-turned-out-to-be-prescient-120258 https://theconversation.com/the-giant-sucking-sound-of-nafta...
        treis 4y ago
        The car companies were crushed by the Japanese decades before NAFTA.
      - spacemadness 4y ago
        It’s interesting that you seem to think that’s a fault of labor and not a fault of management. There are folks on here that go straight to blaming the workers as if management can do no wrong as they themselves are presumably part of the management class or aim to be. You can have workers push for better treatment without pointing to threats of foreign competition to stop progress.