Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

m.pghcitypaper.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 448 posts

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#351

Post by privateSFacct »

fzeroracer wrote: post #271
kortilla wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] Eliminating any motivation to perform well is of course going to discourage people who try harder for rewards. That’s basic economics. Claiming that the top performers will continue to innovate and lead when they are compensated the same as the bare minimum clock punchers is extraordinary and requires evidence. About the only place where unions are better (at least the salary negotiating US style on…

There's already no motivation to 'perform well' because promotions don't mean shit nowadays. You can perform better than the rest of your entire company and get a 1% raise as a show of kindness along with maybe a new $50 coffee machine gift. It's common knowledge in the software industry that the best way to advance is to hop jobs every two or so years. Do you think it's because of the non-existent unions, or because…

Is this a trolling comment?

Just one quick example for company we are talking about.

https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/

You go from level 3 at $150K to level 6 at $500K.

Bonuses for top performers where I am are very high (40% of salary) vs 5% of salary avg.

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#352

Post by fzeroracer »

privateSFacct wrote: post #351
fzeroracer wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already no motivation to 'perform well' because promotions don't mean shit nowadays. You can perform better than the rest of your entire company and get a 1% raise as a show of kindness along with maybe a new $50 coffee machine gift. It's common knowledge in the software industry that the best way to advance is to hop jobs every two or so years. Do you think it's because of the non-existent unions, or because…

Is this a trolling comment? Just one quick example for company we are talking about. https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/ You go from level 3 at $150K to level 6 at $500K. Bonuses for top performers where I am are very high (40% of salary) vs 5% of salary avg.

This story is not about Google. It's about Google's contractors. Please reread the story and the article title.

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#353

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

cortesoft wrote: post #328
ci5er wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society pays for those who won't work? Nice promo material!

We pay for them in some way or the other... they either are on public assistance or end up in jail. We pay either way.

Or we could do neither...q

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#354

Post by privateSFacct »

fzeroracer wrote: post #336
austhrow743 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know this is about Google right?

No, you're wrong on two accounts. First, this argument chain is about unions in general. Please read up on the full response chain to understand the context of my response, starting with stjohnswarts. Second, this thread and story is not about Google. It's about Google's contractors. There's a very important distinction there, because contractors are often treated worse both by the companies they're working under as…

False.

There are contractors to google making a killing - seriously - if you own your own business or provide a service to google you can make bank.

One example -> some of the employee / teambuilding / staff appreciation stuff. If the google FTE's like doing your teambuilding program google is absolutely happy to pay for it.

I know some other direct contract work with google - generally don't fight on price but their focus was on quality.

I'd like to hear some firsthand experiences of direct contractors working for google (ie, google 1099's) getting badly treated because that wasn't what I saw.

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#355

Post by fzeroracer »

privateSFacct wrote: post #354
fzeroracer wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're wrong on two accounts. First, this argument chain is about unions in general. Please read up on the full response chain to understand the context of my response, starting with stjohnswarts. Second, this thread and story is not about Google. It's about Google's contractors. There's a very important distinction there, because contractors are often treated worse both by the companies they're working under as…

False. There are contractors to google making a killing - seriously - if you own your own business or provide a service to google you can make bank. One example -> some of the employee / teambuilding / staff appreciation stuff. If the google FTE's like doing your teambuilding program google is absolutely happy to pay for it. I know some other direct contract work with google - generally don't fight on price but their…

The examples are literally in the article we're discussing, complete with salary information and reason why they're unionizing.

>HCL employee and union organizer Ben Gwin says HCL workers make between $30,000-60,000 a year, and it varies widely. According to Glassdoor, a site that collected salary information from 73 people, Google software engineers in Pittsburgh earn on average $121,000 a year, ranging from $88,000-171,000 a year.

If you're going to make claims like that, please read the actual article we're discussing before jumping into the conversation. I've been a contractor before (albeit in different circumstances and not for google), I am very familiar with how the system can work and how contractors can be generally treated.

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#356

Post by wind0w »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #321
wind0w wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticizing how white men use their whiteness to preserve their exclusive access to money and power isn't racist

Try substituting "white" for another race in your sentence and see how that sounds: > Criticizing how Jewish men use their Jewishness to preserve their exclusive access to money and power isn't racist If the sentence sounds bad, and that most certainly does, then the original is racist.

Yeah because anti semitism has long and violent history. White people have not been on the receiving end of systemic violence because of their whiteness -- they have perpetrated in and benefited from it.

Yours is a bizarre liberal conception of racism that totally ignores historical and material context, where you can just replace words in a sentence to prove it's racist. If you replace the word white in that sentence with another race, it has a totally different meaning, because the context is totally different.

White men DO have disproportionate access to money and power in the US, are you disputing that?

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#357

Post by dv_dt »

darawk wrote: post #112
rdiddly wrote: post #28

I always wonder about these ham-handed anti-union efforts. I assume they must work to some degree, or they wouldn't do it. But it seems like the sudden escalation of anti-union arguments would only end up working in favor of the union. Because it betrays how against it they are. It confirms that yes, this union will have an effect, and not in management's favor. Like "Clearly we're onto something here if they oppose…

> It confirms that yes, this union will have an effect, and not in management's favor. Like "Clearly we're onto something here if they oppose it this much." I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees". It is possible that unions are bad for both, by gumming up the negotiating process, and insulating low performing employees at the expense of high perform…

Why reduce it to terms of bad or good of relation, there is also an element of a union of contractors gaining greater degree self determination instead of management being in a stronger position to dictate terms of employment.

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#358

Post by S_A_P »

S_A_P wrote: post #287
ramphastidae wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google employees advocating for unionization are contractors and do not enjoy the benefits you mentioned.

Which again brings to mind the question- if you want those great benefits you could try to get hired as an employee. Or come on as a contractor and prove yourself to the company. If you are a contractor you are trading that for higher per hour wages. In my industry in the Houston area the most I could ever expect to make as a developer a specific niche is roughly 150k plus or minus 30k. As a contractor on a good year…

This isn’t a hill I am trying to die on. And I would be happy to hear dissenting opinions. From my perspective, a contractor!= to an employee and there are trade offs associated with this difference. If you want benefits and more(again theoretical most of the time) job security then you go the FTE route. I’m not going to use examples of bad unions to argue my point and I even think in some cases they could make sense. I even think employees at google in a union make sense. But contractor? It is a low drag way to get people in and out the door without a bunch of red tape. Unionizing would make this not the case and likely just prevent contractors from being used.

This is a case by case scenario and I think a lot of start ups are using contractors as employees just to try and make their business viable.

Again I would love to hear a different view on this, I don’t know that I’m an expert on this but seeing things from the perspective of being an employee/contractor/business owner is what has informed my point of view here.

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#359

Post by supercanuck »

darawk wrote: post #112
rdiddly wrote: post #28

I always wonder about these ham-handed anti-union efforts. I assume they must work to some degree, or they wouldn't do it. But it seems like the sudden escalation of anti-union arguments would only end up working in favor of the union. Because it betrays how against it they are. It confirms that yes, this union will have an effect, and not in management's favor. Like "Clearly we're onto something here if they oppose…

> It confirms that yes, this union will have an effect, and not in management's favor. Like "Clearly we're onto something here if they oppose it this much." I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees". It is possible that unions are bad for both, by gumming up the negotiating process, and insulating low performing employees at the expense of high perform…

What if, I know i know this is crazy, but it isn't a zero sum game?

What if both could benefit? What could a modern union look like today?

We think in terms of unions = bad, but union is simply employees organizing and negotiating as a group.

Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

#360

Post by cameronbrown »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #307
stale2002 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every worker there clocks in at 9, and clocks out at exactly 5 LUL! Those are amateur numbers, buddy. I do 11-6 maybe , and work at a big 5 tech company making big 5 tech company salaries. And frankly, we aren't working a lot of the time during the day either. And yes, we have the "unlimited" vacation, which usually results in people taking about 4 weeks a year, on average. I think people underestimate how easy it…

There is no “Big 5” in tech

FANNG?
Post reply on HN