4 ms·

We are talking about cognizant here. Not a fly by night operation. Which entities are you referring to , with which google has a relationship that is not arms

We are talking about cognizant here. Not a fly by night operation. Which entities are you referring to , with which google has a relationship that is not arms length?

jacquesm 3y ago
https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/inside-googles-shadow-workforce-of-contract-labourers/65146177 https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/inside-goo... This isn't a minor problem, it's a massive problem. The scale of which may have escaped you but it certainly didn't escape Google's accountants who are laughing all the way to the bank. The fact that it is Cognizant here makes it a larger problem, not a smaller one and even if they appear not to be an overt fly-by-night operation they certainly perform a useful function for Google in isolating them from their workforce. Or did you think they keep all of these employees at arms length out of the goodness of their hearts?
- roenxi 3y ago
  > Or did you think they keep all of these employees at arms length out of the goodness of their hearts? That is hardly fair; this is business. Nobody is there out of the goodness of their hearts. It isn't like Google is made up of people who have a deep personal belief that the best thing they can be doing on weekdays is working out how to funnel more people into the big advertising network. The law gives contractors a big financial advantage over FTEs. Google hires contractors over FTEs. They're obviously toeing the line as closely as they can because they'd rather have FTEs at the price of a contractor, and they've overstepped it here, but they're just working under the regulations they're given. This mania for trying to push situations away from the market equilibrium really needs to settle down. My guess is if pushed much further, it'll get outsourced to a different company in a different country. It is nigh impossible to convince a market to pay substantially more than the market value of something.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Nobody forces you to maximize your unethical behavior to the extent that the law permits. Because a big company, especially one the size of Google, has a huge advantage over the employees that it negotiates with. More so if the company engages in unfair practices, such as non-competition agreements with other similarly large companies. And when you're caught doing the one what better way to communicate that you've learned your lesson than to jump on to the next possible loophole? There is no market equilibrium when parties like Google engage in illegal behavior.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      Employing a contractor on terms they agree to is not unethical. Skating close to the edge of the law is unethical, and I'm sure everyone agrees that Google will add more restrictions to the contractors to make sure they are separate from the employees. > Because a big company, especially one the size of Google, has a huge advantage over the employees that it negotiates with. I've never had a job with the sort of benefits an equivalent role at Google would have. That argument is bunk; if negotiating power were so important the equivalent role would be paid less. Google doesn't have that sort of negotiating power; it has to take the market price same as everyone else does. In fact, the consistent calculus across a career as a salary earner is how much negotiating power you want vs how much you are willing to trade away in terms of flexibility. Large, boring inflexible companies tend to offer consistently better deals. That is why they are bigger than the average company. People take the deal they offer when the option is there. It takes an extremely rare set of skills to turn negotiating power into a better bargain. As I'm sure you are well aware.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        > It takes an extremely rare set of skills to turn negotiating power into a better bargain. Hence unions. Now please check the title of TFA.
        roenxi 3y ago
        I dunno; it'd be a bit weird if unions result in these people getting better off. Pretty high risk of the story ending with "Designed in California. Assembled in China". Not that that is a terrible outcome, the Asians have basically built a civilisation's worth of wealth over the last 50 years. I'm not convinced that chasing the value-add out of the west helped workers though, they all seem kinda upset last time I looked at the polling. I'm just saying; there is a really high correlation with thriving wealthy industries - like software - and no union presence. We don't even have guilds. And when we do get wealthy guild-gatekept industries like medicine or law, the working conditions tend to be famously poor. My money is where my mouth is on this one. I don't think unions will make me better off. My strategy for getting wealthy involves standing as far away from them as I can get. Those things are toxic; the only tool they really have is "we all lose". And that isn't a tool that will get better results than a competitive labour market. It pushes wealth away. I want wealth to head towards me. Others should too. It can always get worse.
kshacker 3y ago
Each service company can be a fly by night operation. Each megacorp can be a fly by night operation. Just like the famous saying "you join because of the company but you leave because of a manager", each company has some overall DNA, but at a lower level you never know. However much the big man at the top wants to have a consistent image consistent delivery consistent behavior, at the ground level things can be radically different. And it is possible one manager can operate relatively cleanly and another manager can operate like a mercenary, like a fly by night operator. /source. Been there done that. Never worked for cognizant but many other setups.

We are talking about cognizant here. Not a fly by night operation. Which entities are you referring to , with which google has a relationship that is not arms length?

jacquesm 3y ago

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/inside-googles-shadow-workforce-of-contract-labourers/65146177 https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/inside-goo... This isn't a minor problem, it's a massive problem. The scale of which may have escaped you but it certainly didn't escape Google's accountants who are laughing all the way to the bank. The fact that it is Cognizant here makes it a larger problem, not a smaller one and even if they appear not to be an overt fly-by-night operation they certainly perform a useful function for Google in isolating them from their workforce. Or did you think they keep all of these employees at arms length out of the goodness of their hearts?

roenxi 3y ago
> Or did you think they keep all of these employees at arms length out of the goodness of their hearts? That is hardly fair; this is business. Nobody is there out of the goodness of their hearts. It isn't like Google is made up of people who have a deep personal belief that the best thing they can be doing on weekdays is working out how to funnel more people into the big advertising network. The law gives contractors a big financial advantage over FTEs. Google hires contractors over FTEs. They're obviously toeing the line as closely as they can because they'd rather have FTEs at the price of a contractor, and they've overstepped it here, but they're just working under the regulations they're given. This mania for trying to push situations away from the market equilibrium really needs to settle down. My guess is if pushed much further, it'll get outsourced to a different company in a different country. It is nigh impossible to convince a market to pay substantially more than the market value of something.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Nobody forces you to maximize your unethical behavior to the extent that the law permits. Because a big company, especially one the size of Google, has a huge advantage over the employees that it negotiates with. More so if the company engages in unfair practices, such as non-competition agreements with other similarly large companies. And when you're caught doing the one what better way to communicate that you've learned your lesson than to jump on to the next possible loophole? There is no market equilibrium when parties like Google engage in illegal behavior.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    Employing a contractor on terms they agree to is not unethical. Skating close to the edge of the law is unethical, and I'm sure everyone agrees that Google will add more restrictions to the contractors to make sure they are separate from the employees. > Because a big company, especially one the size of Google, has a huge advantage over the employees that it negotiates with. I've never had a job with the sort of benefits an equivalent role at Google would have. That argument is bunk; if negotiating power were so important the equivalent role would be paid less. Google doesn't have that sort of negotiating power; it has to take the market price same as everyone else does. In fact, the consistent calculus across a career as a salary earner is how much negotiating power you want vs how much you are willing to trade away in terms of flexibility. Large, boring inflexible companies tend to offer consistently better deals. That is why they are bigger than the average company. People take the deal they offer when the option is there. It takes an extremely rare set of skills to turn negotiating power into a better bargain. As I'm sure you are well aware.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      > It takes an extremely rare set of skills to turn negotiating power into a better bargain. Hence unions. Now please check the title of TFA.
      - roenxi 3y ago
        I dunno; it'd be a bit weird if unions result in these people getting better off. Pretty high risk of the story ending with "Designed in California. Assembled in China". Not that that is a terrible outcome, the Asians have basically built a civilisation's worth of wealth over the last 50 years. I'm not convinced that chasing the value-add out of the west helped workers though, they all seem kinda upset last time I looked at the polling. I'm just saying; there is a really high correlation with thriving wealthy industries - like software - and no union presence. We don't even have guilds. And when we do get wealthy guild-gatekept industries like medicine or law, the working conditions tend to be famously poor. My money is where my mouth is on this one. I don't think unions will make me better off. My strategy for getting wealthy involves standing as far away from them as I can get. Those things are toxic; the only tool they really have is "we all lose". And that isn't a tool that will get better results than a competitive labour market. It pushes wealth away. I want wealth to head towards me. Others should too. It can always get worse.

kshacker 3y ago

Each service company can be a fly by night operation. Each megacorp can be a fly by night operation. Just like the famous saying "you join because of the company but you leave because of a manager", each company has some overall DNA, but at a lower level you never know. However much the big man at the top wants to have a consistent image consistent delivery consistent behavior, at the ground level things can be radically different. And it is possible one manager can operate relatively cleanly and another manager can operate like a mercenary, like a fly by night operator. /source. Been there done that. Never worked for cognizant but many other setups.