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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

#431

Post by gdfasfklshg4 »

austincheney wrote: post #426
Itaxpica wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how people only ever use "entitled" to describe labor demanding better treatment from management, but never to describe management demanding that labor do more for less.

Have you ever lived or worked in a third world country and seen people struggle to make ends meet? I mean really struggle. I have. It makes me wish I could drop my kids off in Afghanistan or a Syrian refugee camp for two weeks so that they can see just how good they actually have it when they curiously find things to bitch about. I have worked immediately next to a former South African military officer that now works…

> To reaffirm that when employees walk out of Google for a protest it isn't the contractors or employees in the various support jobs who walk out. It is the entitled software engineers whose jobs are more mobile and face less income insecurity. Ask any Googler that walked out about that stratification.

It does depend why they are walking out. If a software engineer walks out in support of a cleaner then this is the opposite of entitled behaviour. Unfortunately e.g. the UK has made this illegal.

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

#433

Post by skookumchuck »

Apocryphon wrote: post #422
skookumchuck wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It consists of transactions among freely consenting adults that do not use force or fraud.

Sounds like that's compatible with the German social market, or Nordic social democracy. Or even the protectionist Asian Tiger states.

The law is use of force. Examples: setting wages, employment terms, price setting, quotas for women on corporate boards, etc.

Protectionism isn't free market, either.

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

#434

Post by alexgmcm »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #381
Itaxpica wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how people only ever use "entitled" to describe labor demanding better treatment from management, but never to describe management demanding that labor do more for less.

Adam Smith discusses this asymmetry in Wealth of Nations. He basically says both business owners and labor try to organize, but business owners tend to win because it's easier for them to make it illegal for labor to organize. Edit: This is the passage I was thinking of "We rarely hear ... of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines ... that masters rarely combine, is a…

I often wonder how many of those who purport to follow the ideas of Smith actually read his works.

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

#435

Post by AstralStorm »

skookumchuck wrote: post #433
Apocryphon wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like that's compatible with the German social market, or Nordic social democracy. Or even the protectionist Asian Tiger states.

The law is use of force. Examples: setting wages, employment terms, price setting, quotas for women on corporate boards, etc. Protectionism isn't free market, either.

You've just mentioned activities an employer (or government) does.

Market doesn't do any of these. Prices or wages do not set themselves "because market wills it". They are set because people will not accept a different outcome. If the employer is stubborn and there are few other options, nobody can really drive the wages up.

Taking anot market is like talking about evolution. It is not even a force, just a label for emergent behavior.

So the market is as free as people are, and the main damper are actually mobility and debt. People who cannot move are limited to local market which can have a very different equilibrium. People who are in debt are forced to take immediately available offers.

And finally, a typical person cannot outwit or outwait a corporation, much less government.

Information asymmetry and availability of various instruments of pressure is vastly different.

By the way, corporate law and setting wages is also use of force. You do not get to really negotiate any of it from equal position. Likewise you are very limited in negotiating credit. The difference is, law is at least slightly transparent and corporate law is not.

So, where it's this "free" in the market?

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

#436

Post by zimpenfish »

sandov wrote: post #233
zimpenfish wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your career is a direct result of your own hard work and passion. If your code isn't using your own libraries compiled by your own compiler hosted on your own OS running on your self-built machine using a CPU you designed, no, it isn't. Sure, your own hard work and passion goes a long way but you rely heavily on the works of others and the privilege of being able to use them.

But people who developed those libraries allow anyone to use them, so you have the same chance as yor neighbor to develop the next Google, and there are a lot of smart people trying to do it, and not all of them will succeed. So, your career is a direct result of your own hard work and passion.

> you have the same chance as yor neighbor

That assumes you're starting from the same place and head in the same direction. You have to know a library exists before you can use it. It has to be compatible with what you're using. There are many things out of your immediate control that can influence these things (imagine my next door neighbour only has an i3 and the fancy functions of the library which make it 100x faster require extensions of an i7. I immediately have an advantage. There are many subtler advantages that can come into play.)

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

#437

Post by daemin »

austincheney wrote: post #426
Itaxpica wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how people only ever use "entitled" to describe labor demanding better treatment from management, but never to describe management demanding that labor do more for less.

Have you ever lived or worked in a third world country and seen people struggle to make ends meet? I mean really struggle. I have. It makes me wish I could drop my kids off in Afghanistan or a Syrian refugee camp for two weeks so that they can see just how good they actually have it when they curiously find things to bitch about. I have worked immediately next to a former South African military officer that now works…

This reminds me of the French Revolution. Originally started by the wealthy middle class, soon more disaffected people joined and then heads rolled.

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

#438

Post by simion314 »

stale2002 wrote: post #415
rchaud wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who's a Hack Reactor alum. There is simply no comparison between the rigor of their program and what the majority of bootcamps require. HR is incredibly selective in who they pick; they behave like an elite school in that regard. Their cohorts would likely be successful as self taught devs anyway, so HR knows they can push them hard. Most bootcamps focus on commerce first; if you can pay, you can atte…

I don't disagree that most bootcamps are lower quality. What I am instead saying is that I strongly oppose barriers to entry, that a union would implement, to keep out the highly qualified people from the top places like hack reactor. It would not be possible for people like that to succeed if unions started throwing up barriers to entry, regardless of how good the bootcampers are. And this applies to top tier self t…

Why an union formed by you and your pears would put those barriers? I am under the impression that the programmers that are not having the CS education are not few so they can surely make sure they are represented.

It is like you telling me that you heard that some police officers did some horrible things somewhere so it is better to not have police at all.

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

#439

Post by anticensor »

rchaud wrote: post #284
anticensor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the employee side is numerous enough to unionise, the employer side should also be numerous enough to establish an employer organisation.

> the employer side should also be numerous enough to establish an employer organisation. They are and they have; see US v. Adobe Systems Inc., et al. From the wiki article: "DOJ alleged in their Complaint that the companies had reached "facially anticompetitive" agreements that "eliminated a significant form of competition...to the detriment of the affected employees who were likely deprived of competitively importa…

I meant a formal employers' union, not a secret agreement.

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

#440

Post by mcv »

rmdashrfstar wrote: post #216
mcv wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When a field unionized, the people near the top typically stand to lose the most, > even if everyone as a whole are more enriched. Not necessarily. From what I understand, some pilot unions do the exact opposite.

Care to explain?

From what I've read, older, experienced pilots get the safest, convenient, day-time routes and the best pay, while inexperienced pilots get the harder routes with little sleep and less pay. (Some of?) their unions represent mostly the interests of the older, experienced pilots and not so much the younger ones.
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