5 ms·

> 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

by 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.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        You are welcome to your own opinion of course. But historically, and today as well unions have had a measurable effect on the improvement of the standard of life for the workers as well as an immense effect on workplace safety. If you want to ignore those advantages that's entirely your privilege, but note that that privilege was probably earned by a union in your (collective, not personal) past.
      - mattm 3y ago
        > I'm just saying; there is a really high correlation with thriving wealthy industries - like software - and no union presence Correlation does not mean causation. Software is high paying because of scalability. It's not like past production or service work where the amount you can produce/serve has physical limitations. Let's not fool ourselves. It would get worse if employers could figure out how to turn software into a more repeatable process and not have to rely on the craft of the individual. When that day comes the amount paid to software will go down and there won't be anything you as an individual can do to stop it.

by roenxi 3y ago

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.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      You are welcome to your own opinion of course. But historically, and today as well unions have had a measurable effect on the improvement of the standard of life for the workers as well as an immense effect on workplace safety. If you want to ignore those advantages that's entirely your privilege, but note that that privilege was probably earned by a union in your (collective, not personal) past.
    - mattm 3y ago
      > I'm just saying; there is a really high correlation with thriving wealthy industries - like software - and no union presence Correlation does not mean causation. Software is high paying because of scalability. It's not like past production or service work where the amount you can produce/serve has physical limitations. Let's not fool ourselves. It would get worse if employers could figure out how to turn software into a more repeatable process and not have to rely on the craft of the individual. When that day comes the amount paid to software will go down and there won't be anything you as an individual can do to stop it.