Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized • Hacker News Board

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#91

Post by motohagiography » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

The consequence of this means rights for union organizers to be on the job sites and access to other workers. There is a thin edge of the wedge strategy at play here. It's not just the cafeteria workers.

The opposition I have to unions at companies like Google is that the companies themselves are too politically powerful to have staff who in effect must to behave criminally to be terminated. When you look at the impact of unions in law enforcement and national security, they are almost universally recognized as the main enabler for the social problems bad individuals in these fields cause.

The amount of social harm a malicious Google (twitter, facebook, reddit, pornhub, etc) employee can cause is astronomical and the main thing keeping the worst %10 in check is the likelihood of losing their job. Literally thousands of people who can divert or sabotage the lives of others without accountability.

They already have enough privacy and political problems, but I would predict unionization spreading to their tech workforce would trigger divestment and a general market reduction of risk exposure to their businesses.

These companies are different, and a political artifact of the industrial revolution will have disproportionate unintended consequences.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#92

Post by novok » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

jedimastert wrote: post #60

gbronner wrote: post #42

Expect google to start "optimizing" the cafeteria soon enough.

Employees will go apeshit. Food is such a huge deal for the culture.

If you work in a tech company, you'll quickly realize that the food is something everyone focuses on to a disproportionate degree. This guy knows what he is talking about.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#93

Post by jkrems » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #47

I have mixed feelings about unions, but I'm OK with this move. Cafeteria workers need unions. The maids who muck out hotel room toilets need unions. Coal miners who work in horrific conditions for little pay need unions. You know who doesn't need unions? Millionaire TV anchors. Millionaire movie studio execs and actors. Anyone who makes six figures, which includes a hell of a lot of union members. In those cases the…

Entertainment unions handle such things like health insurance and retirement funds. Most actors aren't millionaires. Having the few millionaires in the same union is good for the non-millionaires. Because it means that studios only get the in-demand millionaires if they provide okay conditions for everybody else as well.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#94

Post by iudqnolq » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #79

sfink wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably shouldn't say this here, but I'm a bit confused about child labor. The phrase brings to mind images of a crowd of muddy children sewing cheap shirts long after dark, and I strongly agree with regulations to prohibit that. At the same time, why is it a problem for children to work? I grew up helping my dad out in his job as a handyman. [To be clear, this is legal and not what I'm arguing about.] Not every p…

Perhaps a curricula on small electronic component repair. Starting with iPhones. Of course, they’ll need plenty of lab experience - say 4 hours a day?

Government is still ahead of you (or maybe lobbyists?)

> Fourteen and 15-year-olds, however, may be employed in approved school-administered and school-supervised Work Experience and Career Exploration Programs (WECEP) or Work Study Programs (WSP). Such programs allow variations in the rules and permit employment during school hours. WECEP participants may also be employed in otherwise prohibited occupations for which an official exception has been authorized by the Department of Labor.

Four hours a day won't be a problem

> WECEP permits the employment of 14- and 15-year-old youth during school hours and for up to 23 hours per week when school is in session. These rules are more lenient than those permitted by the Fair Labor Standards Act for other similar aged youth not enrolled in WECEP. WECEP also permits variances, on a limited basis, from certain child labor hazardous occupation standards. These variances are approved by the Wage and Hour Administrator on a case by case basis.

(See my sibling comment to yours and the link on that page labelled with the name of this program for citations)

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#95

Post by nprz » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #67

joshuamorton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A union is just the free market at work. Much as a business is a collection of individuals working toward the common goal of supplying a product, a union is a collection of individuals working toward the common goal of supplying a product (labor). If you believe a union is a cartel that squeezes money from consumers, you must necessarily believe that a company is the same thing.

> A union is just the free market at work. That's not the case. A union is an organization for extracting rents above those the market would ordinarily bear. Rent-seeking activity --- no matter who does it --- makes society as a whole worse off. Bastiat showed that a long time ago. When corporations organize to extract rents, we call them cartels and apply strict penalties under the law. Why should employees have a r…

Doesn't the practice of minimum wage and labor rights also allow the worker to "extract rents above those the market would ordinarily bear"? Do those practices make society as a whole worse off?

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#96

Post by shantly » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

greatscott404 wrote: post #80

shantly wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, then we can keep corporations around as long as we balance their government-enabled incredible labor rate negotiating position with something comparably effective for workers.

We have that it's called "supply and demand".

Cool then we can stop providing structures that make the demand side of labor much stronger at the negotiating table than the supply side. I'm in, let's do it.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#97

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #63

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google would be pretty unique among high tech companies and large companies in general if it didn't have cafeterias at all. I doubt they would close the cafeterias. If Compass is unable to negotiate a cost effective labor contract, the more likely outcome would be google switching to another provider. But that in itself doesn't seem very likely considering the optics, and the relatively small cost of this labor. But,…

Or it would be a renaissance for urban restaurateurs and workers, who could afford the city again. Some of these tech areas are surrounded by dead zones.

In an alternate reality where there was a bunch of unused land and commercial real estate for lease in MTV and Sunnyvale, and/or where their city councils were open to building more, I agree. However, that's not the world we live in, so the situation you describe would be an unlikely result.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#98

Post by tehjoker » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #67

joshuamorton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A union is just the free market at work. Much as a business is a collection of individuals working toward the common goal of supplying a product, a union is a collection of individuals working toward the common goal of supplying a product (labor). If you believe a union is a cartel that squeezes money from consumers, you must necessarily believe that a company is the same thing.

> A union is just the free market at work. That's not the case. A union is an organization for extracting rents above those the market would ordinarily bear. Rent-seeking activity --- no matter who does it --- makes society as a whole worse off. Bastiat showed that a long time ago. When corporations organize to extract rents, we call them cartels and apply strict penalties under the law. Why should employees have a r…

Explain to me why region controls exist on digital products and then let's talk about "extracting rents above what the market would ordinarily bear". This is how markets function, and in our current state of affairs we need to benefit the lives of ordinary people that exist within a completely marketized existence.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#99

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

greatscott404 wrote: post #88

pjc50 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally started this thread by demanding that a policital association be banned. History tells us what that looks like in practice, and how much violence is involved in having the police break a strike.

"literally"?

> in a perfect world labor unions would be illegal

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#100

Post by dqv » Tue, Dec 31, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

whatitdobooboo wrote: post #48

Does anyone have any good/neutral book recommendations on unionization?

There isn't anything really neutral to recommend. People are pretty adamant about "the right way". Start with ABCs of Socialism[0] and take a look at the texts they recommend. You'll have to come to your own conclusion about what you like and dislike about what it says.

The problem with this stuff is that the left is extremely sectarian so I might have someone jumping down my throat for recommending something published by Jacobin.

[0]:https://s3.jacobinmag.com/issues/jacobin-abcs.pdf