101–110 of 293 posts
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> 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".
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…
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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.
A stronger safety net that would allow unemployment workers to acquire new skill is a much better social endeavor than antiquated labor unions.
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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…
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> 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?
You don't understand. Google claims ownership even on the stuff that you do on _your own_ time, like nights and weekends, without using _any_ Google resources. Even if this stuff is in no way related to what you do at work.
They can quit if they want time that the employer does not deign to grant them.
In my more cynical moments I think this is the prevailing view in American tech.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
You don't understand. Google claims ownership even on the stuff that you do on _your own_ time, like nights and weekends, without using _any_ Google resources. Even if this stuff is in no way related to what you do at work.
Yes I do.
> Google claims ownership even on the stuff that you do on _your own_ time, like nights and weekend
On what basis, as a salaried employee paid for work output and not time-at-a-place, are evenings and weekends described as “your own time” any more than any other time?
Whatever your thoughts about arbitration there is no denying that it's the quicker and cheaper method, what this unfortunate development accomplishes is enlarging the pool of well to do clients and plaintiffs for the lawyers to exploit. In a related note: organized labor almost killed the US car industry, when economical foreign cars got popular, domestic car companies couldn't quickly make the necessary adjustments…
With a binding arbitration agreement, the company's BATNA is paying for arbitration proceedings. Without it, their BATNA is getting sued and going through discovery. Discovery in high-profile cases will wind up resulting in a gigantic PR disaster, which means that the company settles for basically whatever damages the aggrieved employee asks for.
Whatever your thoughts about arbitration there is no denying that it's the quicker and cheaper method, what this unfortunate development accomplishes is enlarging the pool of well to do clients and plaintiffs for the lawyers to exploit. In a related note: organized labor almost killed the US car industry, when economical foreign cars got popular, domestic car companies couldn't quickly make the necessary adjustments…
Quicker and cheaper is not a good thing. Your negotiating power is based on your BATNA, or Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement. With a binding arbitration agreement, the company's BATNA is paying for arbitration proceedings. Without it, their BATNA is getting sued and going through discovery. Discovery in high-profile cases will wind up resulting in a gigantic PR disaster, which means that the company settles fo…
And that's good thing?!
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…
> Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-) I think part of the problem is that we non-organized workers (i.e. most tech workers and our similar peers) have accepted the unfortunate media-fueled trope that collective worker action equates to organized-crime connected unions like those of the Hoffa-period Teamsters. Unfortunately, many white…
Not as much as you might think. Militant labor unions are still extremely beneficial despite the lack of Pinkerton assassins. The hardest part in organizing is going from 0 to 1. Once you've gotten to the point of collective action, the idea that you don't then go on to form a union is as wild as a startup building an MVP, getting funding, and then just disbanding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't understand. Google claims ownership even on the stuff that you do on _your own_ time, like nights and weekends, without using _any_ Google resources. Even if this stuff is in no way related to what you do at work.
There is an argument (and 'dragonwriter, if I have the measure of him, is illustrating it rather than advocating it) that a salaried employee has no "own time" except insofar as their time is not required by the employer. They can quit if they want time that the employer does not deign to grant them. In my more cynical moments I think this is the prevailing view in American tech.
EDIT: Moreover, I think that essentially what Google is doing here is having you sign away things which they otherwise could, and would were the assignment provision not permitted to them, simply prohibit outright via a during-employment non-compete, which even California (with it's unusually firm stance against post-employment non-compete) is generally fine with.