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Google contractors vote to unionize in historic landslide election

259 points by SirLJ 3y ago

toomuchtodo 3y ago
You love to see it. https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-hi...
- refurb 3y ago
  Wow, only 40% of union members say their union membership is “very important”? A case of theoretical versus reality?
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Having spoken to people in a union, enjoying union benefits, but also thinking they’d still have them without their union, this is not a surprising statistic. I have also spoken to people not in a union, who didn’t want a union, who were shocked to find out their bonus was (no joke) Applebees gift cards and who indicated they should be compensated more for their hard labor. If only there was a way. Humans are tricky.
    - sheepscreek 3y ago
      > I have also spoken to people not in a union, who didn’t want a union, who were shocked to find out their bonus was Applebees gift cards and who indicated they should be compensated more for their hard labor. > Humans are tricky. This made me chuckle! Reminds me of the frog in boiling water adage: If you put a frog in cold water and gradually raise the temperature, it will be imperceptible to the frog. They’d gladly boil to death. However, if you turn up the heat quickly - they’ll jump out. A long winded way of saying - with time, we become comfortable in the status quo and expect things to stay a certain way. Any gradual shift is imperceptible to us, until many changes accumulate and reach a tipping point. And that is when we become disillusioned.
      - cogman10 3y ago
        There's been a steady anti-union drum beat both from corporate media and the work place. Unions are almost always portrayed as expensive, worthless, and corrupt. Yet our current labor rights are almost entirely from unions setting strong standards and employers/politicians falling in line. Propaganda works, if it didn't, Walmart and amazon wouldn't be spending so much money on anti-union propaganda. Nothing terrifies them more than the thought of multiple stores, warehouses, or development centers unionizing.
        dehrmann 3y ago
        > Yet our current labor rights are almost entirely from unions setting strong standards and employers/politicians falling in line. But the big wins were almost a century ago.
        runarberg 3y ago
        This may be true in the USA where union membership is in an all time low, however in the rest of the world unions are still landing deals which guarantees more labor rights, this includes longer parental leaves, more sick time, longer vacations, more benefits for part time workers, more enforcement against violations, more education and guarantees for at-risk groups (such as foreign workers), equal pay certificates, 36 hour work weeks, 32 hour work weeks, anti-harassment guarantees, etc. etc.
        lostcolony 3y ago
        It also misses (well, leaves out; not sure the intent of the comment) the fact that unions have been gutted heavily in the US compared to where they were a century ago. When the US was an industrial, workers were treated poorly, unions began to form, fought for worker protections. As the US has transitioned into a knowledge/service economy, creating industries that didn't historically have unions, and industrials have been on the decline, unions have also declined. And where the US was once at the forefront of worker protections, we are sadly more like a third world country than a first world at this point.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      >who indicated they should be compensated more for their hard labor. If only there was a way. I feel like there's a missing /s there. If only we did have a way of compensating someone for their labor. Maybe we could call it a salary? If you're counting on a bonus to compensate for a lack in salary, then you should be having your union do its job and negotiate higher base salary. There's a reason a bonus is not called salary. FYI, this is in no way a show a support for unionizing on my behalf. Just pointing out the fallacy of the argument as presented
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - jesterman 3y ago
        I believe the section of the comment you are referencing was on people who weren't in a union. So they can't have a union do it's job and negotiate a higher base salary because they aren't in a union.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - Xelynega 3y ago
        It doesn't matter if it's a bonus or salary, the point was that unions help people get better total compensation.
        dylan604 3y ago
        That's not a guarantee. There are times when part of the negotiations to get a larger number of employees to a higher salary, other employees might have to take a cut. That's why it's a negotiation and not a strong arming of the employer. When a union is first voted in to a shop, that negotiation for the first ever contracts could go any where.
        danaris 3y ago
  - georgeoliver 3y ago
    Not really. 70% of members basically say their membership is "important" (5 or 4 on a 1-5 scale).
  - cogitoergofutuo 3y ago
    Only 10% of union members say “not important at all”? A case of reality?
    - Freedom2 3y ago
      [dead]
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    This is a case of "lie with statistics". Any pollster will tell you that when you give a 1-5 scale as that question was asked, you're guaranteed to get a fairly broad distribution. A total of 85% of members voted 3-5, which is a huge number.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
      Reminds me of this classic: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks https://youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
  - giantg2 3y ago
    Honestly sounds high to me. It's hard to get a "very important" rating on anything at work.
  - vosper 3y ago
    "very important" isn't a label in the results table. Here's the results, for the lazy. It uses a scale from 1-5 where (1) is labelled "Not important at all" and (5) is labelled "Extremely important". > Importance of Union Membership Among Members > How important is union membership to you? (5) Extremely important: 40% (4) 28% (3) 17% (2) 5% (1) Not important at all
timmg 3y ago
> The unionization vote passed 41-0. The National Labor Relations Board representative counting the ballots said 49 workers were eligible to vote. Slightly less impressive than what I thought it might be, from the headline.
- klyrs 3y ago
  Lots of tech companies are supported by low-pay contractors. I've heard grumblings about their miserable working conditions since the late 90s; it's good to see them taking a stand. The more successes we see in this area, others will be emboldened to stand up as well. Pretty interesting to see that revoked WFH policies was the trigger for this particular set of workers.
  - langfan 3y ago
    >Held via mail-in ballot, the election creates a bargaining unit with the Alphabet Workers Union — an organization affiliated with the Communications Workers of America that, until now, has represented only one office of unionized Google workers, a contracted Fiber retail shop in Missouri. Those workers opted to drop Google from their petition. >A spokesperson for Google said the company has no objection to Wednesday’s union vote but reiterated its stance that Cognizant is the sole employer. A Cognizant spokesperson said the company is “committed to continuing our mission as a team and delivering for our client” in the wake of the election. >“My coworkers and I have spoken, time and time again — we want, and have won, a protected voice on the job to bring both Alphabet and Cognizant to the negotiating table so that we can win the fair working conditions we deserve,” Maxwell Longfield, a YouTube Music contractor through Cognizant, said in an AWU statement. >Google and Cognizant have until May 3 to file an objection to the election. >As the unionization process moves forward in Texas, the NLRB is investigating an unfair labor practice complaint by AWU, which contends that Cognizant and Google illegally interfered with the union’s formation — a practice known as union busting. After workers filed a petition for unionization, Cognizant changed its return-to-office policy and moved work to other offices, the complaint says. >Cognizant allegedly told workers that failure to move to and work from the Austin office would be treated as “job abandonment” and a “voluntary termination.” The return-to-office change prompted 40 workers to protest with an “unfair labor practice strike” — such strikes prevent employers from laying off workers. AWU said in a statement that the costs of in-person work, from sudden relocation to child care, aren’t affordable for YouTube Music workers, who make as little as $19 an hour.
powera 3y ago
It is disappointing how all the "union victories" these days seem to involve under 100 employees, and are often motivated by "fake" grievances such as the end to temporary pandemic policies.
- rippercushions 3y ago
  The article says that Cognizant shifted to forced RTO after the union movement started, in what the union says was an intentional move to basically force people to quit.
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    How are they forced to quit? Your job involves following reasonable requests. Requesting people work on the worksite seems reasonable. Unless they were hired in areas far away.
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      I'm someone who actually enjoys going into the office, and I think for a lot of jobs a lot of things do suffer when everyone is remote 100% of the time, but for these types of jobs and these types of workers, RTO was pure retaliation, and everyone, including the employer, knows it. The types of jobs these contractors do are pretty rote, and productivity is actually pretty easily measured (which is not the case with product engineering work). It's literally that workers are given a queue of tasks they need to complete, and they are expected to finish a certain number each shift. There is literally no reasonable reason to force these folks to RTO.
    - domador 3y ago
      What if Cognizant workers shifted their lifestyles to take advantage of their ability to work from home? Going back to commuting and being pinned down to an office could now require significant, problematic adjustments for them. Also, how many of these workers are relatively recent hires, who have only experience WFH? Maybe that was a nonnegotiable reason why they took that job in the first place. If Cognizant was still doing WFH in 2023, it must mean that it's worked for them as a company. I can easily see how forcing their workers to come back to the office could steam from shady, union-busting motives.
georgeoliver 3y ago
What determines whether Google is really a 'co-employer' with the subcontractor?
- wildrhythms 3y ago
  Where did you see the term 'co-employer'?
  - georgeoliver 3y ago
    My mistake, the article uses 'joint employer'.
- Jon_Lowtek 3y ago
  If they have "substantial direct and immediate control" one example: workers in this bargaining unit working on Youtube Music at Cognizant as contractors for Google have to request vacation first from Google, and only once they agree, can request their vacation from Cognizant. A complete formal definition of joint employers is in "Decision and Direction of Election" from https://www.nlrb.gov/case/16-RC-305751 https://www.nlrb.gov/case/16-RC-305751 on page 8. The document also has more summaries of evidence and examples from the hearings, which were non-public.
sys_64738 3y ago
OK. But what bargaining power does it actually have? GOOG can easily hire non-union workers to replace them.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  Google could just not renew their contract with Cognizant
- refurb 3y ago
  Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Google hires contractors for the very reason it’s easy to stop using them if needed - they dont actually work for Google itself, but either through a temp agency or as an independent contractor. So who is the union negotiating with? Their agency? Or as a B2B relationship with Google? And yeah, it’s in the article “Those workers opted to drop Google from their petition.” So they wont bargain with Google, so what stops Google from ditching the contractor agency and getting another? Nothing i assume.
  - AmericanChopper 3y ago
    Well, that’s one reason. Some other reasons are to hire labor for a legitimately temporarily project, or perhaps more commonly, because they failed to hire the people they needed in permanent roles. That’s the inefficiency that the more highly paid contractors are exploiting. That’s how I get a lot of my income. I’ve worked on contracts for FAANG, and they paid some of the best hourly rates I’ve had during my career.
  - shkkmo 3y ago
    > And yeah, it’s in the article “Those workers opted to drop Google from their petition.” Context matters. "Those workers" clearly refers to the workers at "a contracted Fiber retail shop in Missouri", not the Cognizant employees. The NLRB regional director has ruled that Google must negotiate with AWU if AWU wins the election (which they did by a landslide.) Of course, Google is appealing this decision.
AlbertCory 3y ago
I don't know anything about Cognizant, but in this case: https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/working-the-levers-for-my-cousins-benefit https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/working-the-lev... my cousin was working for another 3rd party company contracted by Google, long before the pandemic. She was also not a Google employee. In that case, though, working from home was the only policy they ever had.
throwawaycont 3y ago
Contractors are exploited by these morally bankrupted companies.. these employees should get paid as much as normal employees.
paxys 3y ago
Title makes it seem like all of Google's 120K+ contractors made the decision. In reality it was 41 people from one division. And their union agreement is with their own company (Cognizant), not Google.
- Jon_Lowtek 3y ago
  the NLRB ruled Cognizant and Google as joint employers
  - paxys 3y ago
    Which is being appealed, and even otherwise is a meaningless ruling. Google doesn't pay these contractors. They are under no obligation to renew their contracts once they expire. What will they even negotiate?
    - gcr 3y ago
      It's not meaningless, it's a significant next step for AWU. As a deliberate strategy, AWU's focused on unionizing Alphabet TVCs at several small shops for years now. I think this is partly because small TVC groups are easier to organize than entire PAs, and partly because TVCs are so badly treated compared to full-timers that they're more likely to view unions favorably anyway. (It's hard as hell to organize FTEs for various reasons.) However, as I understand it, one key problem was that Google doesn't need to deal with AWU directly since they could say that the vendor (ie. Cognizant) is the employer. That's apparently changed. If the NLRB rules that Google and the contractor are co-employers, then that could require Google to bargain directly with this unit. That said, the status quo was still a win for workers because AWU could bargain with vendors, but it's not as impactful as it would be if Google were required to bargain with AWU directly. As for what is bargained, AWU's been successful at winning RTO extensions for Google Maps workers, gotten managers to agree to hiring transparency initiatives, won back pay owed by stubborn vendors, and have even gotten some unjust punishments against individual employees reversed. You can see these here: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/power/wins/ https://alphabetworkersunion.org/power/wins/ Typically, companies are required to bargain "in good faith" with unions about issues that affect workers' material working conditions like hours, wages, policies, vacations, layoffs, etc, and the NLRB can impose fines and other consequences upon companies that don't make a good faith effort to do so.
JanetWillson 3y ago
[dead]
nonethewiser 3y ago
So subcontractors have formed an Alphabet Worker's Union, despite not being Alphabet workers?
- rippercushions 3y ago
  That's the news here: Alphabet is arguing that they have nothing to do with the workers and Cognizant is their sole employer, but the judge basically called bullshit on that.
habosa 3y ago
Google has more TVCs (temps, vendors, and contractors) than FTEs. By a good margin. Most of these people work 40 hours a week at Google. They do everything from kitchen work to program management to software engineering. They are often embedded in teams of FTEs and sit side by side with them. Yet Google leadership says that they’re not employees and they shouldn’t be. They don’t do work that’s part of Google’s “core competencies” or is “critical to Google’s mission”. What a load of horseshit. It’s an excuse to underpay and ignore 55% of your workforce. And it means that Google’s famous culture (what’s left of it) applies to only a minority of people who functionally work at Google every day. I’m generally not a big Google hater (especially among the HN crowd) but on this issue I can’t stay quiet. Google executives should be ashamed.
- kethinov 3y ago
  Can confirm. I was one such member of this underclass working as a developer on Gmail in 2007. The pay was quite low by bay area developer job standards at $25/hr with no benefits. I loved the work, the product, the people, my boss, the atmosphere of the Google campus in Mountain View, the free meals, etc, but I only stayed for a month. Once I got a better offer that paid twice as much, I was gone. To this day it's such a weird story to tell people. "You worked at Google?" "Yeah." "For how long?" "A month." "Whoa, really? Why? What happened?" "The pay was really low so I left for a higher paying job." "Google's pay... was too low...?" They say with disbelief. "Yep."
  - techie128 3y ago
    You didn't work at Google. You CONTRACTED for Google. There is a BIG difference. Whenever someone claims they worked a company, the implicit assumption is that they were a FTE. I bet if you would've told people that you contracted at Google, their reaction would certainly be different.
    - brailsafe 3y ago
      Meh, I think that varies quite a lot. If the only functional difference between your duties and that of the the rest of your team is your paperwork, then you worked there. The only time I specify whether something on my resume was a particular type of arrangement like contracting is if it would be weirdly short.
californiadreem 3y ago
The Social Media War (from Latin bellum sociale mediorum, properly 'war of the allies of the middle'), also called the Labor War or the Temporary War, was fought from 2023 AD to 2027 AD between the Alphabet Company and several of its autonomous allies (contractors) in America. The contractors wanted Google citizenship, not only for the status and influence that came with it, but also for the right to participate in Google promotions and forming policies. They believed that they should be treated equally to the Googlers, given that they had formed cultural and linguistic connections with the Google corporation, and had been their loyal allies for over two decades. The Googlers strongly opposed their demands, and refused to grant them citizenship, thus leaving the contractors with fewer rights and privileges. The situation escalated in 2024 AD, leading to the outbreak of a devastating conflict, in which many of the contractors staged a two-year revolt against Google. In order to end the conflict, and to avoid future conflict of the same kind, Google decreed several laws by which the contractors who remained loyal or surrendered to the company would be awarded full employee status. By 2027 AD, Google's victory was complete, and full employee status had been extended to all of its contractors. The Social Media War led to a complete integration of the contractors into Google. The contractors quickly integrated themselves into the company after gaining full employee status. Their own professional identities became merged with that of Google, and the term "Google employee" came to refer to all contractors.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y ago
  In the wake of the Social Media War and the subsequent unionization of Google's contractors, a wave of unrest and upheaval began to sweep through the tech industry. Inspired by their counterparts at Google, contractors across tech started to push for greater rights and representation within their respective organizations. As these movements gained momentum, Balaji Srinivasan united all contractors from all four FANG companies and established a cross-company union, seeking to consolidate their power and leverage their collective strength. This unprecedented move sent shockwaves throughout the industry, as the new mega-union began to wield significant influence not only within the individual FANG companies but also across the entire tech sector. The union's goal was to revolutionize the tech industry by breaking down traditional corporate boundaries and fostering a more collaborative and equitable ecosystem. Dedicated to these ideals, and bulstered by contractors from thousands of companies, they collectively leaked all code to open source, dubbed United-Tech. The formation of United Tech sparked a wave of innovation, as the combined talents and expertise were unleashed on a range of new projects and initiatives. The cypherpunks at United Tech began collaborating with independent researchers and scientists worldwide, pooling their collective expertise to tackle the age-old question. Through their combined efforts, they started to decipher the intricate interplay of subatomic particles, energy fields, and the fabric of spacetime. As the global scientific community became increasingly involved, a new understanding of physical reality began to emerge. This revolutionary perspective transcended traditional boundaries and unified competing theories, providing a comprehensive framework that could explain the behavior of the universe at both the quantum and cosmological scales. And that is the story of the end of history.

259 points by SirLJ 3y ago

You love to see it. https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-hi...

refurb 3y ago
Wow, only 40% of union members say their union membership is “very important”? A case of theoretical versus reality?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Having spoken to people in a union, enjoying union benefits, but also thinking they’d still have them without their union, this is not a surprising statistic. I have also spoken to people not in a union, who didn’t want a union, who were shocked to find out their bonus was (no joke) Applebees gift cards and who indicated they should be compensated more for their hard labor. If only there was a way. Humans are tricky.
  - sheepscreek 3y ago
    > I have also spoken to people not in a union, who didn’t want a union, who were shocked to find out their bonus was Applebees gift cards and who indicated they should be compensated more for their hard labor. > Humans are tricky. This made me chuckle! Reminds me of the frog in boiling water adage: If you put a frog in cold water and gradually raise the temperature, it will be imperceptible to the frog. They’d gladly boil to death. However, if you turn up the heat quickly - they’ll jump out. A long winded way of saying - with time, we become comfortable in the status quo and expect things to stay a certain way. Any gradual shift is imperceptible to us, until many changes accumulate and reach a tipping point. And that is when we become disillusioned.
    - cogman10 3y ago
      There's been a steady anti-union drum beat both from corporate media and the work place. Unions are almost always portrayed as expensive, worthless, and corrupt. Yet our current labor rights are almost entirely from unions setting strong standards and employers/politicians falling in line. Propaganda works, if it didn't, Walmart and amazon wouldn't be spending so much money on anti-union propaganda. Nothing terrifies them more than the thought of multiple stores, warehouses, or development centers unionizing.
      - dehrmann 3y ago
        > Yet our current labor rights are almost entirely from unions setting strong standards and employers/politicians falling in line. But the big wins were almost a century ago.
        runarberg 3y ago
        This may be true in the USA where union membership is in an all time low, however in the rest of the world unions are still landing deals which guarantees more labor rights, this includes longer parental leaves, more sick time, longer vacations, more benefits for part time workers, more enforcement against violations, more education and guarantees for at-risk groups (such as foreign workers), equal pay certificates, 36 hour work weeks, 32 hour work weeks, anti-harassment guarantees, etc. etc.
        lostcolony 3y ago
        It also misses (well, leaves out; not sure the intent of the comment) the fact that unions have been gutted heavily in the US compared to where they were a century ago. When the US was an industrial, workers were treated poorly, unions began to form, fought for worker protections. As the US has transitioned into a knowledge/service economy, creating industries that didn't historically have unions, and industrials have been on the decline, unions have also declined. And where the US was once at the forefront of worker protections, we are sadly more like a third world country than a first world at this point.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    >who indicated they should be compensated more for their hard labor. If only there was a way. I feel like there's a missing /s there. If only we did have a way of compensating someone for their labor. Maybe we could call it a salary? If you're counting on a bonus to compensate for a lack in salary, then you should be having your union do its job and negotiate higher base salary. There's a reason a bonus is not called salary. FYI, this is in no way a show a support for unionizing on my behalf. Just pointing out the fallacy of the argument as presented
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - jesterman 3y ago
      I believe the section of the comment you are referencing was on people who weren't in a union. So they can't have a union do it's job and negotiate a higher base salary because they aren't in a union.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - Xelynega 3y ago
      It doesn't matter if it's a bonus or salary, the point was that unions help people get better total compensation.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        That's not a guarantee. There are times when part of the negotiations to get a larger number of employees to a higher salary, other employees might have to take a cut. That's why it's a negotiation and not a strong arming of the employer. When a union is first voted in to a shop, that negotiation for the first ever contracts could go any where.
        danaris 3y ago
- georgeoliver 3y ago
  Not really. 70% of members basically say their membership is "important" (5 or 4 on a 1-5 scale).
- cogitoergofutuo 3y ago
  Only 10% of union members say “not important at all”? A case of reality?
  - Freedom2 3y ago
    [dead]
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  This is a case of "lie with statistics". Any pollster will tell you that when you give a 1-5 scale as that question was asked, you're guaranteed to get a fairly broad distribution. A total of 85% of members voted 3-5, which is a huge number.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    Reminds me of this classic: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks https://youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
- giantg2 3y ago
  Honestly sounds high to me. It's hard to get a "very important" rating on anything at work.
- vosper 3y ago
  "very important" isn't a label in the results table. Here's the results, for the lazy. It uses a scale from 1-5 where (1) is labelled "Not important at all" and (5) is labelled "Extremely important". > Importance of Union Membership Among Members > How important is union membership to you? (5) Extremely important: 40% (4) 28% (3) 17% (2) 5% (1) Not important at all

timmg 3y ago

> The unionization vote passed 41-0. The National Labor Relations Board representative counting the ballots said 49 workers were eligible to vote. Slightly less impressive than what I thought it might be, from the headline.

klyrs 3y ago
Lots of tech companies are supported by low-pay contractors. I've heard grumblings about their miserable working conditions since the late 90s; it's good to see them taking a stand. The more successes we see in this area, others will be emboldened to stand up as well. Pretty interesting to see that revoked WFH policies was the trigger for this particular set of workers.
- langfan 3y ago
  >Held via mail-in ballot, the election creates a bargaining unit with the Alphabet Workers Union — an organization affiliated with the Communications Workers of America that, until now, has represented only one office of unionized Google workers, a contracted Fiber retail shop in Missouri. Those workers opted to drop Google from their petition. >A spokesperson for Google said the company has no objection to Wednesday’s union vote but reiterated its stance that Cognizant is the sole employer. A Cognizant spokesperson said the company is “committed to continuing our mission as a team and delivering for our client” in the wake of the election. >“My coworkers and I have spoken, time and time again — we want, and have won, a protected voice on the job to bring both Alphabet and Cognizant to the negotiating table so that we can win the fair working conditions we deserve,” Maxwell Longfield, a YouTube Music contractor through Cognizant, said in an AWU statement. >Google and Cognizant have until May 3 to file an objection to the election. >As the unionization process moves forward in Texas, the NLRB is investigating an unfair labor practice complaint by AWU, which contends that Cognizant and Google illegally interfered with the union’s formation — a practice known as union busting. After workers filed a petition for unionization, Cognizant changed its return-to-office policy and moved work to other offices, the complaint says. >Cognizant allegedly told workers that failure to move to and work from the Austin office would be treated as “job abandonment” and a “voluntary termination.” The return-to-office change prompted 40 workers to protest with an “unfair labor practice strike” — such strikes prevent employers from laying off workers. AWU said in a statement that the costs of in-person work, from sudden relocation to child care, aren’t affordable for YouTube Music workers, who make as little as $19 an hour.

powera 3y ago

It is disappointing how all the "union victories" these days seem to involve under 100 employees, and are often motivated by "fake" grievances such as the end to temporary pandemic policies.

rippercushions 3y ago
The article says that Cognizant shifted to forced RTO after the union movement started, in what the union says was an intentional move to basically force people to quit.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  How are they forced to quit? Your job involves following reasonable requests. Requesting people work on the worksite seems reasonable. Unless they were hired in areas far away.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    I'm someone who actually enjoys going into the office, and I think for a lot of jobs a lot of things do suffer when everyone is remote 100% of the time, but for these types of jobs and these types of workers, RTO was pure retaliation, and everyone, including the employer, knows it. The types of jobs these contractors do are pretty rote, and productivity is actually pretty easily measured (which is not the case with product engineering work). It's literally that workers are given a queue of tasks they need to complete, and they are expected to finish a certain number each shift. There is literally no reasonable reason to force these folks to RTO.
  - domador 3y ago
    What if Cognizant workers shifted their lifestyles to take advantage of their ability to work from home? Going back to commuting and being pinned down to an office could now require significant, problematic adjustments for them. Also, how many of these workers are relatively recent hires, who have only experience WFH? Maybe that was a nonnegotiable reason why they took that job in the first place. If Cognizant was still doing WFH in 2023, it must mean that it's worked for them as a company. I can easily see how forcing their workers to come back to the office could steam from shady, union-busting motives.

georgeoliver 3y ago

What determines whether Google is really a 'co-employer' with the subcontractor?

wildrhythms 3y ago
Where did you see the term 'co-employer'?
- georgeoliver 3y ago
  My mistake, the article uses 'joint employer'.
Jon_Lowtek 3y ago
If they have "substantial direct and immediate control" one example: workers in this bargaining unit working on Youtube Music at Cognizant as contractors for Google have to request vacation first from Google, and only once they agree, can request their vacation from Cognizant. A complete formal definition of joint employers is in "Decision and Direction of Election" from https://www.nlrb.gov/case/16-RC-305751 https://www.nlrb.gov/case/16-RC-305751 on page 8. The document also has more summaries of evidence and examples from the hearings, which were non-public.

sys_64738 3y ago

OK. But what bargaining power does it actually have? GOOG can easily hire non-union workers to replace them.

charcircuit 3y ago
Google could just not renew their contract with Cognizant
refurb 3y ago
Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Google hires contractors for the very reason it’s easy to stop using them if needed - they dont actually work for Google itself, but either through a temp agency or as an independent contractor. So who is the union negotiating with? Their agency? Or as a B2B relationship with Google? And yeah, it’s in the article “Those workers opted to drop Google from their petition.” So they wont bargain with Google, so what stops Google from ditching the contractor agency and getting another? Nothing i assume.
- AmericanChopper 3y ago
  Well, that’s one reason. Some other reasons are to hire labor for a legitimately temporarily project, or perhaps more commonly, because they failed to hire the people they needed in permanent roles. That’s the inefficiency that the more highly paid contractors are exploiting. That’s how I get a lot of my income. I’ve worked on contracts for FAANG, and they paid some of the best hourly rates I’ve had during my career.
- shkkmo 3y ago
  > And yeah, it’s in the article “Those workers opted to drop Google from their petition.” Context matters. "Those workers" clearly refers to the workers at "a contracted Fiber retail shop in Missouri", not the Cognizant employees. The NLRB regional director has ruled that Google must negotiate with AWU if AWU wins the election (which they did by a landslide.) Of course, Google is appealing this decision.

AlbertCory 3y ago

I don't know anything about Cognizant, but in this case: https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/working-the-levers-for-my-cousins-benefit https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/working-the-lev... my cousin was working for another 3rd party company contracted by Google, long before the pandemic. She was also not a Google employee. In that case, though, working from home was the only policy they ever had.

throwawaycont 3y ago

Contractors are exploited by these morally bankrupted companies.. these employees should get paid as much as normal employees.

paxys 3y ago

Title makes it seem like all of Google's 120K+ contractors made the decision. In reality it was 41 people from one division. And their union agreement is with their own company (Cognizant), not Google.

Jon_Lowtek 3y ago
the NLRB ruled Cognizant and Google as joint employers
- paxys 3y ago
  Which is being appealed, and even otherwise is a meaningless ruling. Google doesn't pay these contractors. They are under no obligation to renew their contracts once they expire. What will they even negotiate?
  - gcr 3y ago
    It's not meaningless, it's a significant next step for AWU. As a deliberate strategy, AWU's focused on unionizing Alphabet TVCs at several small shops for years now. I think this is partly because small TVC groups are easier to organize than entire PAs, and partly because TVCs are so badly treated compared to full-timers that they're more likely to view unions favorably anyway. (It's hard as hell to organize FTEs for various reasons.) However, as I understand it, one key problem was that Google doesn't need to deal with AWU directly since they could say that the vendor (ie. Cognizant) is the employer. That's apparently changed. If the NLRB rules that Google and the contractor are co-employers, then that could require Google to bargain directly with this unit. That said, the status quo was still a win for workers because AWU could bargain with vendors, but it's not as impactful as it would be if Google were required to bargain with AWU directly. As for what is bargained, AWU's been successful at winning RTO extensions for Google Maps workers, gotten managers to agree to hiring transparency initiatives, won back pay owed by stubborn vendors, and have even gotten some unjust punishments against individual employees reversed. You can see these here: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/power/wins/ https://alphabetworkersunion.org/power/wins/ Typically, companies are required to bargain "in good faith" with unions about issues that affect workers' material working conditions like hours, wages, policies, vacations, layoffs, etc, and the NLRB can impose fines and other consequences upon companies that don't make a good faith effort to do so.

JanetWillson 3y ago

[dead]

nonethewiser 3y ago

So subcontractors have formed an Alphabet Worker's Union, despite not being Alphabet workers?

rippercushions 3y ago
That's the news here: Alphabet is arguing that they have nothing to do with the workers and Cognizant is their sole employer, but the judge basically called bullshit on that.

habosa 3y ago

Google has more TVCs (temps, vendors, and contractors) than FTEs. By a good margin. Most of these people work 40 hours a week at Google. They do everything from kitchen work to program management to software engineering. They are often embedded in teams of FTEs and sit side by side with them. Yet Google leadership says that they’re not employees and they shouldn’t be. They don’t do work that’s part of Google’s “core competencies” or is “critical to Google’s mission”. What a load of horseshit. It’s an excuse to underpay and ignore 55% of your workforce. And it means that Google’s famous culture (what’s left of it) applies to only a minority of people who functionally work at Google every day. I’m generally not a big Google hater (especially among the HN crowd) but on this issue I can’t stay quiet. Google executives should be ashamed.

kethinov 3y ago
Can confirm. I was one such member of this underclass working as a developer on Gmail in 2007. The pay was quite low by bay area developer job standards at $25/hr with no benefits. I loved the work, the product, the people, my boss, the atmosphere of the Google campus in Mountain View, the free meals, etc, but I only stayed for a month. Once I got a better offer that paid twice as much, I was gone. To this day it's such a weird story to tell people. "You worked at Google?" "Yeah." "For how long?" "A month." "Whoa, really? Why? What happened?" "The pay was really low so I left for a higher paying job." "Google's pay... was too low...?" They say with disbelief. "Yep."
- techie128 3y ago
  You didn't work at Google. You CONTRACTED for Google. There is a BIG difference. Whenever someone claims they worked a company, the implicit assumption is that they were a FTE. I bet if you would've told people that you contracted at Google, their reaction would certainly be different.
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    Meh, I think that varies quite a lot. If the only functional difference between your duties and that of the the rest of your team is your paperwork, then you worked there. The only time I specify whether something on my resume was a particular type of arrangement like contracting is if it would be weirdly short.

californiadreem 3y ago

The Social Media War (from Latin bellum sociale mediorum, properly 'war of the allies of the middle'), also called the Labor War or the Temporary War, was fought from 2023 AD to 2027 AD between the Alphabet Company and several of its autonomous allies (contractors) in America. The contractors wanted Google citizenship, not only for the status and influence that came with it, but also for the right to participate in Google promotions and forming policies. They believed that they should be treated equally to the Googlers, given that they had formed cultural and linguistic connections with the Google corporation, and had been their loyal allies for over two decades. The Googlers strongly opposed their demands, and refused to grant them citizenship, thus leaving the contractors with fewer rights and privileges. The situation escalated in 2024 AD, leading to the outbreak of a devastating conflict, in which many of the contractors staged a two-year revolt against Google. In order to end the conflict, and to avoid future conflict of the same kind, Google decreed several laws by which the contractors who remained loyal or surrendered to the company would be awarded full employee status. By 2027 AD, Google's victory was complete, and full employee status had been extended to all of its contractors. The Social Media War led to a complete integration of the contractors into Google. The contractors quickly integrated themselves into the company after gaining full employee status. Their own professional identities became merged with that of Google, and the term "Google employee" came to refer to all contractors.

TrapLord_Rhodo 3y ago
In the wake of the Social Media War and the subsequent unionization of Google's contractors, a wave of unrest and upheaval began to sweep through the tech industry. Inspired by their counterparts at Google, contractors across tech started to push for greater rights and representation within their respective organizations. As these movements gained momentum, Balaji Srinivasan united all contractors from all four FANG companies and established a cross-company union, seeking to consolidate their power and leverage their collective strength. This unprecedented move sent shockwaves throughout the industry, as the new mega-union began to wield significant influence not only within the individual FANG companies but also across the entire tech sector. The union's goal was to revolutionize the tech industry by breaking down traditional corporate boundaries and fostering a more collaborative and equitable ecosystem. Dedicated to these ideals, and bulstered by contractors from thousands of companies, they collectively leaked all code to open source, dubbed United-Tech. The formation of United Tech sparked a wave of innovation, as the combined talents and expertise were unleashed on a range of new projects and initiatives. The cypherpunks at United Tech began collaborating with independent researchers and scientists worldwide, pooling their collective expertise to tackle the age-old question. Through their combined efforts, they started to decipher the intricate interplay of subatomic particles, energy fields, and the fabric of spacetime. As the global scientific community became increasingly involved, a new understanding of physical reality began to emerge. This revolutionary perspective transcended traditional boundaries and unified competing theories, providing a comprehensive framework that could explain the behavior of the universe at both the quantum and cosmological scales. And that is the story of the end of history.