HCL is an Indian outsourcing company and they will do everything in their power (paying off politicians) to quash this.
Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
371–380 of 448 posts
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Ummm. HCL (google contractor) is making a ton of money... they did 1.4 BILLION in net income. Stock price from 76 to 1,000 INR. They are doing fine working for google.
I'm not aware of almost anyone (network infra contractors / team build soft touch providers) who historically haven't been paid very reasonably for their work working for google.
And Google does business with contractors who have unionized employees. I'm not aware of them caring too much about that either.
Google does thousands of H1bs and has something like a 99% approval rate even under trump so they don't mind working with international folks.
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Ummm. HCL (google contractor) is making a ton of money... they did 1.4 BILLION in net income. Stock price from 76 to 1,000 INR. They are doing fine working for google. I'm not aware of almost anyone (network infra contractors / team build soft touch providers) who historically haven't been paid very reasonably for their work working for google. And Google does business with contractors who have unionized employees. I…
Okay, on your first point: You're comparing two very, very different things. For the sake of assuming you're not the one trolling here: Employee salary is different from company income. A company can be paid very well for their work, and then not properly compensate their workforce for that work. Hence, unionization.
For your second point: The intent of this article, which I hope you have read by now, specifically talks with people who say they are not being paid well working for Google as a contractor. They directly quote people who say they are not being paid reasonably for their work.
For your third point: Yes, I'm sure Google does business with unionized employees. This article is about a contractor, which is working for Google, using anti-union practices to prevent their workforce from unionizing because according to the workers they are underpaid.
And your final point has literally nothing to do with the article we're discussing or the entire argument chain we're in right now.
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt the unionizing HCL workers would appreciate the remedy that some people here are proposing. People are saying to terminate the contract with HCL. What? What good would that do? If there are no consequences for union-busting then what? This is the same question for US companies that do overseas human rights compliance audits on their supply chains, it is true that if a supplier fails the people being mistreate…
I 100% guarantee you that if Google were to try to terminate the contract over this, people would be claiming that Google is anti-union and that that itself constituted a form of union-busting. The proper way to handle something like this would be to have penalties in the contract for illegal behavior on the part of the contracting company that reflects poorly on Google.
I am sure anti-union folks would spread that propaganda, yes.
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with your broad claim, but the devil is in the details. Google should presumably have an element in their contracts that says that contracting companies should not do anything illegal with respect to their employees. Perhaps there should even be a minimum wage requirement. However, I do not think it is Google's responsibility to adjudicate and investigate whether a particular anti-union activity on the part o…
The only responsibility proposed here is to present obviously illegal union-busting as grounds for terminating a contract. But there is a precedent here; Apple has even stronger agreements in place with Chinese manufacturers with respect to workplace safety, health and maximum working hours. These are supported both by the public and the government. Why should we be more enthusiastic about policing fair workplace pra…
> The only responsibility proposed here is to present obviously illegal union-busting as grounds for terminating a contract.
What of the alleged anti-union activity is "obviously illegal?" As far as I can read, USW accuses HCL of scheduling mandatory meetings where it makes anti-union statements. That is not illegal. USW never in its press release claimed that any of HCL's actions were illegal, nor did the article claim that any illegal conduct had taken place.
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You said "It's common knowledge in the software industry that the best way to advance is to hop jobs every two or so years".
That works out when you start for startups, but if you want to make more than 250k, you're going to need to get promotions. The companies that pay more than that like google aren't going to hire someone into a L5 or above role that has jobbed hopped every two years without getting any promotions to an L5 or above level role at similar companies who also won't hire you at that level. There are routinely stories about people with 15+ years of experience getting hired as L4s because of this.
There are obviously exceptions especially if you write a really popular open source library but this generally holds.
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's tons of evidence that for most people working more than 40 hours actually results in a fall in productivity (that's 9-5). More hours are for show.
As I understand it, it's diminishing returns for a while past 40. Putting in more than 40 hours does get more done, just not as much per hour as the earlier hours.
At a point the negative impact takes a toll on your productivity all week long.
We aren't robots. Having a late night today effects my work tomorrow.
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs I've always found this condemnation odd given how often it's actually true. If you break down salaries by demographics, one of the biggest correlations with salary is age. Senior positions pay more than junior ones. It's an extremely common career path to start off in an entry level job and ultimately end up in management by the end of your career. So the rea…
How does it work for a 10 people team for instance ? One of them will be a team leader at some point. A second one might follow and become a team leader while the firth one goes higher. Will they go up one more level ? let’s say yes. That makes e of them climbing the ladder. Will there be a fourth ? probably not. That leaves 6 people not going up, and only earning marginally more. That’s less than half will see signi…
> How does it work for a 10 people team for instance ?
Large organization graphs are shaped like pyramids, but the thing about a pyramid is that the combination of the top and the middle is as big as the bottom. The organizations large enough for unions to come into play have multiple layers of middle management.
But let's suppose the company is less than 50% managers. That still doesn't mean the typical person won't ever be a manager, it only means they're an employee for more time than they are a manager.
Also remember that small businesses employ the most people and don't have that sort of tree structure. In that case you typically have the owner and the apprentice who is expected to buy out the owner when they retire and ten person teams are not a thing. And you will often have some workers in larger organizations who don't move into management in the same company they started in but who do leave to strike out on their own, i.e. become a founder/manager of a new small business once they have sufficient industry experience.
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's harder for an individual to fix a bad union than to leave the company for one without that union Is that accurate?
Maybe? But it's like saying that it's harder to fix a bad country than to leave for another country, so its accuracy is possibly less important than its rationality.
It's a lot easier to switch employers than switch countries. Most people in fact do switch employers multiple times throughout their lives, whereas most people don't ever move to a different country from where they were born.
That's especially true when there are other jobs in the same industry and the same city but at a different company.
Re: Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are nice anecdotes, the data says otherwise. There will always be slackers, they exist in every job and industry.
[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…
> That’s basic economics.
Oh really. Because to me it sounds like a statement about human motivation patterns, and some huge assumptions about it that are, quite often, wrong. Just like cats, humans can be motivated by:
* food (or food-equivalents in the form of flipping some bits in a bank) * social interaction (60% of cats as long as not starved!)
...also, unlike cats (AFAIK), but very frequently (also AFAIK) humans can be motivated by:
* self-expression * perceived benefit to society.
If not for the need for self-expression, there would be barely anyone working in the games industry. And pretty much every company's internal relations spew more-or-less thinly veiled nonsense about how spying on customers is good - or at least acceptable - actually. That's because the last part is an _enormous_ part of motivation for many.
> 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.
...except non-unionised companies often tolerate bare minimum clock punchers, and, conversely, unions often penalise those. Good relationship with management can easily allow slacking, and unions have more interest in company's survival than some nomadic C-level.
You're making things up and then demanding others to provide evidence. Some of us actually worked in an office for more than a day, you know.