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Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

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Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#151

Post by rconti »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #112
typon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers, maybe ones on HN especially, are super conservative and anti-labour for some reason. I don't know the history of Silicon Valley enough to figure out exactly why

I think you can just look at the surface and see it as a natural consequence of a relatively easy, high-income, unregulated profession, with high demand for workers. Many of the benefits of collective bargaining aren't applicable to people who are relatively easily able to switch jobs or work as a consultant. That then tends to lead to… complacency, I guess? I would expect that relatively few people in that field hav…

This. And due to the high demand of our skills, we're able to effectively negotiate salaries and comp in a way that at least lets us think we're doing better than average (see: salary transparency, or lack thereof).

Plus, we're not a group generally known to like more layers of bureaucracy.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#152

Post by uncletaco »

markstos wrote: post #145
typon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers, maybe ones on HN especially, are super conservative and anti-labour for some reason. I don't know the history of Silicon Valley enough to figure out exactly why

Maybe not every anonymous account on HN corresponds to a real individual?

Da. I'm just uploaded brain scans of the California Spiny-Tailed lobster. I honestly struggling with the idea of being an individual myself.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#153

Post by wasdfff »

kome wrote: post #144
pc86 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every programmer I've met in real life, and certainly most of the folks on HN, are very liberal yet are largely anti-organized labor. Don't conflate a general disdain for one policy with an entire political ideology.

Liberalism is a right-wing ideology...

In every context besides economic journals it refers to social liberalism: the progressive left. No one is calling reagan or bush liberals even if they are by the economics definition of the word.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#154

Post by rconti »

typon wrote: post #147
pc86 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every programmer I've met in real life, and certainly most of the folks on HN, are very liberal yet are largely anti-organized labor. Don't conflate a general disdain for one policy with an entire political ideology.

Being pro-labour is one of the cornerstones of being leftist. I think you are using the word liberal differently than the antonym of conservative - which I am implying to be "right-wing". Maybe "social liberalism" is a good term for what you seem to be saying.

Being pro-employee does not necessarily mean being pro-union.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#155

Post by getpost »

typon wrote: post #90
josephv wrote: post #79

These comments read like a bunch of low-income retail shoppers defending Walmart because they provide something they otherwise couldn't get. I think these types of debates are bellwether for programmer/IT professional unionization. These are the exact types of lawsuits brought against organized labor as it was trying to get organized to prevent exploitative behavior. It's disturbing to see these same anti-organizatio…

Programmers, maybe ones on HN especially, are super conservative and anti-labour for some reason. I don't know the history of Silicon Valley enough to figure out exactly why

I started out anti-labor due to my own experience in a minimum wage job. I was forced to join the union and pay union dues, yet I still received only the minimum wage, so being a union member resulted in a sub-minimum wage!

Another objection I had to unions is, they tend to promote an "us vs them" mentality, when instead, everyone should be working together.

The destruction of the middle class shows that the balance of power is too extreme on the side of the employer, and something has to be done.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#156

Post by kome »

typon wrote: post #148
kome wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberalism is a right-wing ideology...

You are technically right yet still downvoted. These days these words have so many different definitions for different people that they've become nearly meaningless.

To be fair, I was expecting the downvotes. For two reasons:

1) For a long time, there was no "institutional" left in the United States; so in the US - liberalism was seen as the "left". This is slowly changing now...

2) The tech crowd wants really to believe to be progressive (because they work on "progressive" technologies); but in fact, I never saw so many real life liberals like among tech workers.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#157

Post by biesnecker »

rconti wrote: post #154
typon wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being pro-labour is one of the cornerstones of being leftist. I think you are using the word liberal differently than the antonym of conservative - which I am implying to be "right-wing". Maybe "social liberalism" is a good term for what you seem to be saying.

Being pro-employee does not necessarily mean being pro-union.

Technically no, but practically it does, so long as massive corporations exist. I think you can argue that with smaller scale business you can work to better employee conditions without collective action, but given the power and resources that a corporation can bring to bear it's hard to imagine effective bettering of employee conditions without collective action.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#158

Post by wasdfff »

bmj wrote: post #46
Retric wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a very high turnover rate relative to company age pay etc at just 3.2 years on average. So, I suspect they really do lose a lot of people over this stuff, they just keep hiring at a very fast pace.

I wonder at what point working for Google will lose its shine, and their hiring pace will drop off.

People make a living building missiles payed for with public money that blow up schoolbusses across the world just to put their own children in a better school district. When people get a decent paycheck no one thinks about how much that dollar cost.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#159

Post by neilk »

mbostleman wrote: post #89
josephv wrote: post #79

These comments read like a bunch of low-income retail shoppers defending Walmart because they provide something they otherwise couldn't get. I think these types of debates are bellwether for programmer/IT professional unionization. These are the exact types of lawsuits brought against organized labor as it was trying to get organized to prevent exploitative behavior. It's disturbing to see these same anti-organizatio…

If one holds strongly a principle that opposes monopolies and supports strong anti-trust protections in the market, it would explain why the same argument is made regardless of industry. Also, the issue focusing on using the company email system sounds to me like a bit of a strawman. Why in the world would you want to use a communication medium owned and controlled by your opponent for such a thing? And even if you w…

Congratulations! You figured out that this isn’t about “theft of services” or anything like that.

It’s about

1) Legalizing retaliation in case you mention the union meeting to a coworker over a Slack private message.

2) Drastically reducing the visibility of union organization in the workplace. That makes it much harder to reach critical mass.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#160

Post by username90 »

wasdfff wrote: post #153
kome wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberalism is a right-wing ideology...

In every context besides economic journals it refers to social liberalism: the progressive left. No one is calling reagan or bush liberals even if they are by the economics definition of the word.

But "being very liberal" is not the same as "being very pro USA Democrats".

Liberals are often right wing parties in other countries. Basically you have a scale from socialism where everything in your life is dictated by social contracts to liberalism where almost nothing in your life is dictated by social contracts. The left in the US calling themselves liberals is kinda like the north korea calling themselves "democratic people's republicc". Their only liberal agenda is freedom from the Christian social contract.

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