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Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

techcrunch.com

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Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#81

Post by rrix2 »

everdev wrote: post #47
m0zg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> overly expansive ownership claim Yeah, that particular clause gave me a looong pause before signing their contract, in fact I even seriously considered taking one of the other offers I had. This is why you see all those "happens to be owned by Google" disclaimers on open source projects. This means the person wrote this code on their own time, yet it's owned by Google anyway, which IMO is total employee-hostile bu…

> "happens to be owned by Google" disclaimers on open source projects Not sure I've seen this before, do you have examples?

Perkeep is written/founded by Brad Fitzpatrick (google/golang engineer) and you have to sign a google CLA to contribute to it: https://perkeep.org/code#contributing

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#82

Post by perfmode »

ergothus wrote: post #45
anth_anm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions and their actions are collective employee action, I'm not sure what you're saying won't work?

I'm not saying unions won't work...I'm saying they weren't involved in this case. This case doesn't look particularly repeatable WITHOUT unions.

Why doesn't it look repeatable?

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#83

Post by m0zg »

JohnFen wrote: post #62
m0zg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> overly expansive ownership claim Yeah, that particular clause gave me a looong pause before signing their contract, in fact I even seriously considered taking one of the other offers I had. This is why you see all those "happens to be owned by Google" disclaimers on open source projects. This means the person wrote this code on their own time, yet it's owned by Google anyway, which IMO is total employee-hostile bu…

> I would not sign something like that contract today. I've been seeing wording to that effect in nearly every contract I've been presented with for years now. Every time, I speak up and suggest replacing it with wording that is much more restrictive (they can own anything I make using their resources or intellectual property, otherwise I own it). I have yet to have a company not agree to this change.

Google will flat out refuse. In their view they own the entirety of your intellectual output for the duration, whether or not it's done on your own time and resources, and whether or not it's in any way related to your day job.

I mean I get it (sort of), early on there wasn't really any "moat" to protect the business, so they had to put shit like this in their contracts lest someone goes off and upends their entire business model. But that's no longer the case. Their moat is _insanely_ wide. They don't have to worry about employees' side projects anymore, and they haven't had to worry about that for about a decade and a half now.

Likewise, their trading windows for RSUs are bullshit. There aren't (or at least weren't when I was there) any trading windows for employees below director level at MS, and I knew more about what's going on there than I ever did at Google. There's this illusion of internal transparency (created mostly by weekly TGIF where people get to pat themselves on the back for projects that will soon be canceled, but in the meanwhile can be used to get a promo), but nobody really knows anything material for real. The only exception I can recall is the TPU which was announced internally about 1.5 years before anybody outside Google knew anything about it. And it didn't move the stock one bit as far as I can tell. In fact, TechCrunch had the "internal" announcements before TGIF 90% of the time.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#84

Post by ChuckMcM »

defen wrote: post #49
ChuckMcM wrote: post #10

Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-) I'm really glad to hear that Google made this step, now if they would drop the overly expansive ownership claim in their employment agreement and the right to surveillance on personal property it would be a much more employee friendly place. I also hope that it gives them an edge in hiring which wou…

> the right to surveillance on personal property Wait, what? I don't think I've seen that before, what does this mean exactly?

Well, I can't quote my copy as I'm under NDA from sharing it, however if you have a copy that you signed then carefully read the section about "equipment that you use to access your google work account".

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#85

Post by BookmarkSaver »

srkmno wrote: post #80
40acres wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange comment and something I see a lot in online forums, I guess you could characterize this as the "slippery slope" or "worst case scenario" argument. Unions have no power in big tech right now, none of the top tech companies have something resembling a union -- and yet even the discussion of unionization within the tech industry, despite some really terrible working conditions for "auxiliary" tech work…

The reason "auxiliary" workers get a raw deal in this country is that health insurance is dealt through employers via a terrible WW2 era tax incentive. If companies didn't get on the hook for providing health insurance they would directly employ more people instead of using contractors. So this is why I'm worried about labor unions in tech and the private sector in general; they are never the solution, and their lack…

>The reason "auxiliary" workers get a raw deal...

is because they are something of a commodity. It's low-skill work that is managed in bulk and individuals can be replaced with little friction. The core IT work is in demand by companies, rather than the other way around.

I mean, your point is also true, but it's more of an additional factor rather than the main one.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#86

Post by dragonwriter »

m0zg wrote: post #27
ChuckMcM wrote: post #10

Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-) I'm really glad to hear that Google made this step, now if they would drop the overly expansive ownership claim in their employment agreement and the right to surveillance on personal property it would be a much more employee friendly place. I also hope that it gives them an edge in hiring which wou…

>> overly expansive ownership claim Yeah, that particular clause gave me a looong pause before signing their contract, in fact I even seriously considered taking one of the other offers I had. This is why you see all those "happens to be owned by Google" disclaimers on open source projects. This means the person wrote this code on their own time, yet it's owned by Google anyway, which IMO is total employee-hostile bu…

> This means the person wrote this code on their own time

What is “your own time” as a salaried employee payed for work product not hours on the job site?

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#87

Post by kelnos »

ergothus wrote: post #45
anth_anm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions and their actions are collective employee action, I'm not sure what you're saying won't work?

I'm not saying unions won't work...I'm saying they weren't involved in this case. This case doesn't look particularly repeatable WITHOUT unions.

I think that was the point. The original parent was making a tongue-in-cheek reference to how tech workers seem to resist the idea of forming a union, but occasionally band together to do union-like things informally, in an ad-hoc, not-particularly-reliable fashion.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#88

Post by JohnFen »

wil421 wrote: post #70
my_username_is_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, Amazon actually has trouble recruiting and retaining enough warehouse workers (especially during peak seasons). This is evident by them having a starting wage ($15/hr) that is more than double the minimum wage in many parts of the country

Glassdoor says the average was only $12 but in October they raised it to $15 minimum. Walmart’s low end is about $13 but the average is $17 an hour. Walmart has 1.5 million workers in the US, over 2 million worldwide. The goods news is Amazon’s pay raise has made Walmart and Target increase their minimum wages as well.

Average pay is a meaningless statistic unless combined with a number of other statistics. What would be interesting is knowing the mean pay.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#89

Post by JohnFen »

m0zg wrote: post #83
JohnFen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would not sign something like that contract today. I've been seeing wording to that effect in nearly every contract I've been presented with for years now. Every time, I speak up and suggest replacing it with wording that is much more restrictive (they can own anything I make using their resources or intellectual property, otherwise I own it). I have yet to have a company not agree to this change.

Google will flat out refuse. In their view they own the entirety of your intellectual output for the duration, whether or not it's done on your own time and resources, and whether or not it's in any way related to your day job. I mean I get it (sort of), early on there wasn't really any "moat" to protect the business, so they had to put shit like this in their contracts lest someone goes off and upends their entire b…

> Google will flat out refuse.

Fair enough, they can decide their terms. Honestly, I wouldn't be interested in working for Google in the first place, but if I were, that would put an immediate end to my interest.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#90

Post by JohnFen »

dragonwriter wrote: post #86
m0zg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> overly expansive ownership claim Yeah, that particular clause gave me a looong pause before signing their contract, in fact I even seriously considered taking one of the other offers I had. This is why you see all those "happens to be owned by Google" disclaimers on open source projects. This means the person wrote this code on their own time, yet it's owned by Google anyway, which IMO is total employee-hostile bu…

> This means the person wrote this code on their own time What is “your own time” as a salaried employee payed for work product not hours on the job site?

That would be the time when I am not doing company work.
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