Google staff walk out over women's treatment • Hacker News Board

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#91

Post by gambiting » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:32 AM UTC

3jckd wrote: post #31

ChrisRR wrote: post #10

So the first demand is "A commitment to end pay and opportunity inequality" I'd like to see the actual data behind this constant inequality claim. I would be genuinely interested to see what kind of difference there is between the sexes when comparing like-for-like jobs. I've heard speculation that women don't argue for higher salaries as much as men, I've also heard that the data is never accurate because it doesn't…

__If__ it's really a problem, the only way to actually fix this would be to remove any kind of negotation, because two people with identical CVs might settle on vastly different salaries and it's highly unlikely that the employer is going to overcompensate them. However, I've heard people argue that a right to ask for a lower pay is also an advantage in labour market because it's yet another axis of competitiveness.

How would you remove any kind of negotiation though? Say that it's illegal for an applicant to say "You have to pay me X or I won't accept the offer"? Or for an employee to say "Give me a raise of Y, or I'm leaving"? What if they already have an offer from a different company for more money? Can they tell their current employer? And if they do, can the employer offer to increase their wage to keep them? And if they can't, can they offer the employee a "new" higher paid position so it technically isn't a raise/negotiation?

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#92

Post by VBprogrammer » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:32 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #65

VBprogrammer wrote: post #25

Wouldn't it be easier to create an algorithm for compensation which clearly didn't involve gender (i.e. no deep learning stuff). Something which boils down to base salary + experience factor + google service factor. Honestly, I can imagine that being less troublesome even outside of attempting to be fair an equitable regardless of race / gender / sexual orientation.

The problem is that it can turn out men are more aggressive when it comes to getting counter offers which has a much larger impact than anything else. If that's the case then what do you propose, ban people from negotiating and lose everyone good enough to get competing offers?

In short; yes. I think it's fair to say that google aren't going to run out of engineers if they implemented a completely rigid payment structure. Firstly, their pay is very high compared to the industry and secondly they attract the best engineers by reputation more than anything else.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#93

Post by victoriasun » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:33 AM UTC

Udik wrote: post #79

slivym wrote: post #5

All of their demands seem pretty reasonable. It looks like the big gripe is that basically there's no real process in place for situations of misconduct in the office. To draw an analogy, this would be like Google not having a process to investigate and resolve site outages - it would be unthinkable, so why aren't they treating their organisation with the same rigor they treat their website.

> this would be like Google not having a process to investigate and resolve site outages - it would be unthinkable, so why aren't they treating their organisation with the same rigor they treat their website. Because, Google is a company that builds products. I am interested in their products and in the fact that their products work, not much in the behaviour of the people building them- given the fact that they are…

If you're not interested in the internal workings of Google, then why bother? There are people who are, and they are the ones driving this conversation. Let them spend their energy and effort figuring it out while you enjoy the result of their work.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#94

Post by qubax » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:33 AM UTC

cimmanom wrote: post #37

xfitm3 wrote: post #4

What can you do.

Parent was edited from “Let's see evidence of misconduct before rushing to judgment.”

But why is it flagged? That is a reasonable comment.

Also, what's with the rampant brigading here. Every reasonable comment here seems to get immediately and automatically downvoted.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#95

Post by VBprogrammer » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:35 AM UTC

prepend wrote: post #82

VBprogrammer wrote: post #25

Wouldn't it be easier to create an algorithm for compensation which clearly didn't involve gender (i.e. no deep learning stuff). Something which boils down to base salary + experience factor + google service factor. Honestly, I can imagine that being less troublesome even outside of attempting to be fair an equitable regardless of race / gender / sexual orientation.

I think this is part of the perception that machine learning is magical. This problem is as difficult as getting an accurate IQ. If you’re going to base pay- something really serious- on such an algorithm, it must be open and reproducible. Google is really good at this and that it doesn’t exist in a useful way is a signal that there is no algorithm. It would be extremely valuable to companies to know this like a cred…

That's why I specifically excluded deep learning stuff. I was imagining something much simpler only marginally more complex than title base salary + x * years experience + y * years at google. Where the factors are initially chosen to get close to the current state.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#96

Post by VBprogrammer » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:36 AM UTC

amiga-workbench wrote: post #40

VBprogrammer wrote: post #25

Wouldn't it be easier to create an algorithm for compensation which clearly didn't involve gender (i.e. no deep learning stuff). Something which boils down to base salary + experience factor + google service factor. Honestly, I can imagine that being less troublesome even outside of attempting to be fair an equitable regardless of race / gender / sexual orientation.

How do you quantify experience? It cannot be empirically measured in all the ways that it matters.

Do you think even the most basic measure, say number of years, is any worse than the current process?

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#97

Post by victoriasun » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:37 AM UTC

YorkshireSeason wrote: post #64

pjc50 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what downsides are there for false harassment claims There are major downsides to making true harassment claims: you get denounced as a liar and a slut. This is the main reason why so many claims went unreported, and the #metoo movement is one of solidarity which makes it possible for people to actually report true claims without ruining their career. Actually deliberately making a false harassment claim is potenti…

liar and a slut How is that a "major downside"? I've been called both, and I can't say I care. I can imagine that loosing a job to a false accusation is a "major downside". #metoo movement Isn't that the movement whose leader Asia Argento has been has been accused by the New York Times as a sexual harasser [1, 2]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Argento#Alleged_sexual_as... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/…

You know, just because you don't empathize with how in our culture and society a woman being called a "liar and a slut" can be both career and social suicide, doesn't mean that it isn't a major downside for other people...

Does the actions of a leader discredit a movement? Can one even say that #MeToo has a single leader? Do you know anything about the #MeToo movement?

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#98

Post by DyslexicAtheist » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:37 AM UTC

ChrisRR wrote: post #10

So the first demand is "A commitment to end pay and opportunity inequality" I'd like to see the actual data behind this constant inequality claim. I would be genuinely interested to see what kind of difference there is between the sexes when comparing like-for-like jobs. I've heard speculation that women don't argue for higher salaries as much as men, I've also heard that the data is never accurate because it doesn't…

>I've heard speculation that women don't argue for higher salaries as much as men,...

It's not just arguing for higher salaries but being trusted to follow through when "the going gets tough".

Display of confidence is hard to distinguish from actual capability. Confidence is often mistaken for "can-do-spirit" or "positive attitude" and therefore always favored.

Women are more honest than man about their abilities in the workplace. They are more honest about previous experience in a job interview, and more reluctant to "fake it until they make it":

Excessive confidence displayed by men regarding their ability to follow through even their chances of success are equal to women, leads later to the assumption that the man knew what they were doing (and knew in advance that they will succeed) and hence men are seen as having been in full control the whole time. But actually it's hindsihgt-bias.

>I want to see some actual numbers

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517651...

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#99

Post by shrewduser » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:37 AM UTC

typon wrote: post #90

ryanmercer wrote: post #27

These people should be fired, not because they want equal pay but because they refuse to do the job they were hired to do. Different genders deserve equal pay, people of different races deserve equal pay, people with various disabilities deserve equal pay. HOWEVER, you want to walk out of work? You should be terminated. If I walked out of work, I would be fired. If I organized several people to walk out of work with…

Do you realize that all the things that make your current job bearable like 8 hour workday, weekends and safe work environment are only possible because people in the past had the spine to strike and demand better conditions for themselves and their fellow workers?

People repeat this line ad nauseum but i find it hard to believe work conditions would not improve over time if not for the presence of unions, look at highly unionised countries vs less unionised countries and compare the quality of life / workplace for an example.

while i'm sure unions were involved i doubt they were the only reason we started reducing work hours and improving work conditions, here's a good history of the 40 hour work week: (https://www.businessinsider.com.au/history-of-the-40-hour-wo...)

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#100

Post by gambiting » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 11:38 AM UTC

VBprogrammer wrote: post #25

Wouldn't it be easier to create an algorithm for compensation which clearly didn't involve gender (i.e. no deep learning stuff). Something which boils down to base salary + experience factor + google service factor. Honestly, I can imagine that being less troublesome even outside of attempting to be fair an equitable regardless of race / gender / sexual orientation.

Blind hiring can have the exact opposite effect:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tri...

My point is - there's zero guarantee that a "logical" algorithm would be "fair". Just like if you trained an ML algorithm on the database of people currently in American prisons it would most likely conclude that black=more likely to be a criminal, which is obviously an unfair assumption to make.