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Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

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Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#121

Post by googernettles »

I can tell you with a high level of confidence that this is a Google PR stunt. Google executives conjured up a protest to force their hand acting against the interests of the board of directors and shareholders. Without a forced hand, executives would have been sued by shareholders for breaching fiduciary duties and terminated from their positions. The former executives would also forfeit their compensation packages because of acting so "unreasonably".

Executives wanted to end forced arbitration because it was unethical. They agreed that compelled arbitration was wrong. At the same time, no one was justifiably willing to give up a hard-earned career of a lifetime. Capitalism is not gentle to those who defy it.

This protest reads like a Pepsi commercial. They should win an Oscar this Sunday.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#122

Post by fishywang »

joshuamorton wrote: post #78
jahn716 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the exact same reaction. Shouldn't this worry the employees the most?

I work at Google and have absolutely no clue what he's referring to. My best guess is that it has something to do with the permissions you give Google if you add a work profile/account to your phone. But that isn't required.

Also for Android users the exact point of work profile is that the surveillance is limited to only the work profile portion of your phone.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#123

Post by smolsky »

JohnFen wrote: post #88
wil421 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ummm... you probably meant "median". Note, "average" is just "arithmetic mean".

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#124

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#125

Post by mrep »

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.

Not necessarily but somewhat practically. I've applied internally at 2 of the big 5 companies for outside activity projects and 1 was denied and the other was approved. It definitely blacklists a ton of ideas which sucks but it is possible (my side project which got approved has a main competitor which sold for over a billion USD).

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#126

Post by throwaway987988 »

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?

Yeah, this is real.

On a throwaway for obvious reasons, but this is from an employment contract I've seen in the past:

"I acknowledge that I have no reasonable expectation of privacy in any computer, technology system, email, handheld device, telephone, or documents that are used to conduct the business of the Company. As such, the Company has the right to audit and search all such items and systems, without further notice to me, to ensure that the Company is licensed to use the software on the Company’s devices in compliance with the Company’s software licensing policies, to ensure compliance with the Company’s policies, and for any other business-related purposes in the Company’s sole discretion. I understand that I am not permitted to add any unlicensed, unauthorized, or non-compliant applications to the Company’s technology systems and that I shall refrain from copying unlicensed software onto the Company’s technology systems or using non-licensed software or web sites. I understand that it is my responsibility to comply with the Company’s policies governing use of the Company’s documents and the internet, email, telephone, and technology systems to which I will have access in connection with my employment."

tl;dr: Any device you so much as check your work email on (which taints it as a device "used to conduct the business of the Company"), is subject to search by the Company "for any ... business-related purposes in the Company’s sole discretion" (meaning the stuff about software licensing is superfluous). So ultimately the employee has, as stated, "no reasonable expectation of privacy".

This is a case of reach-as-far-as-you-can lawyer'ing in a setting where there's likely to be little push-back from most job candidates. Takeaway: Go over this stuff with a fine-tooth comb and threaten to turn down offers from companies who try to pull this. Then if you _have_ to take the job, keep a hard boundary between your work and personal systems.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#127

Post by scarmig »

49531 wrote: post #109
danans wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The degree of organization needed depends on the circumstances 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…

Fun fact: Pinkerton is still around and is "the world's leading provider of corporate risk management solutions" [0]. Companies regularly hire Pinkerton muscle to handle "security threats" related to union organizing.

Interestingly, even Google retains Pinkerton to investigate internal leaks [1].

[0] https://www.pinkerton.com/

[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-neve...

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#128

Post by ThrustVectoring »

srkmno wrote: post #108
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. And that's good thing?!

For employees, yes. The company can offer a settlement for basically all the monetary claims if the employee skips discovery and agrees to not speak about the case.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#129

Post by lsiebert »

scarmig wrote: post #127
49531 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The degree of organization needed depends on the circumstances 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…

Fun fact: Pinkerton is still around and is "the world's leading provider of corporate risk management solutions" [0]. Companies regularly hire Pinkerton muscle to handle "security threats" related to union organizing. Interestingly, even Google retains Pinkerton to investigate internal leaks [1]. [0] https://www.pinkerton.com/ [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-neve...

Still in existence, and willing to litigate about it's historical portrayal.

https://thenerdy.com/red-dead-redemption-pinkerton-lawsuit/

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#130

Post by scarmig »

fishywang wrote: post #122
joshuamorton wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at Google and have absolutely no clue what he's referring to. My best guess is that it has something to do with the permissions you give Google if you add a work profile/account to your phone. But that isn't required.

Also for Android users the exact point of work profile is that the surveillance is limited to only the work profile portion of your phone.

You can imagine different tiers of security, where a work profile gives you minimal access to corp while a fully managed setup gives you more substantive access to corp resources and allows a company to enforce more security and visibility into the client device.
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