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Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

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Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#161

Post by jacquesm »

baddox wrote: post #19
dominotw wrote: post #5

ppl also talk a lot about union for tech workers. Its not feasible in tech because a sizable majority of tech workers are on various visa's that precludes them from joining a strike, making the union essentially ineffective. This needs to be addressed first. Chicago has teachers union but filipino teachers on J1 cannot participate in a strike, it works for CTU because there are only a tiny fraction on J1 visa.

A majority of tech workers are on visas? I find that hard to believe.

GP has a habit of exaggerating claims that have some basis in fact when looked at through your eyelashes but that fall apart on closer inspection:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21899843

I don't think this will be any different.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#162

Post by zelon88 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #147
zelon88 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that unions were important, at one time. However technology is at a point where large enough companies can simply engineer around the human resources problem if they want to. So bringing a company like Google's feet to the fire will only make them want to cut you out of their supply chain. Your "bargaining power" is short term. Merely until Google can find another way to subvert you with technology. In the in…

Your last line writes the whole enterprise off, because politics and bureaucracy is a very real challenge. Google can automate away service workers in the same way they can fix their product organization issues, reduce fragmentation of Android, improve their hardware offerings, stop the endless churn of their products ending up in the Google Graveyard, etc. That is, you can say they can do anything with their resourc…

That's why Google is alphabet now. So they can absorb and develop different liabilities at once.

Android isn't broken because Google doesn't care. It's broken because the team is fatigued. They reached their max potential. It will take a new team with new ideas for significant iteration. You can't add a junior dev to the android team and expect massive improvements anymore.

That being said, there isn't a lot of low hanging fruit left in android. But the cafeteria, I'm sure, has a long way to go and a lot that could be reduced.

IF the costs continue to rise, that is.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#163

Post by Apocryphon »

zelon88 wrote: post #162
Apocryphon wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last line writes the whole enterprise off, because politics and bureaucracy is a very real challenge. Google can automate away service workers in the same way they can fix their product organization issues, reduce fragmentation of Android, improve their hardware offerings, stop the endless churn of their products ending up in the Google Graveyard, etc. That is, you can say they can do anything with their resourc…

That's why Google is alphabet now. So they can absorb and develop different liabilities at once. Android isn't broken because Google doesn't care. It's broken because the team is fatigued. They reached their max potential. It will take a new team with new ideas for significant iteration. You can't add a junior dev to the android team and expect massive improvements anymore. That being said, there isn't a lot of low h…

> It's broken because the team is fatigued. They reached their max potential. It will take a new team with new ideas for significant iteration. You can't add a junior dev to the android team and expect massive improvements anymore.

Hm, but I thought that today technology can solve any problem so long as we gave it the right amount of funding? Including human resources problems?

> IF the costs continue to rise, that is.

As pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, a megacorp with Alphabet's net income can surely swallow the cost. They have bigger things to fund.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#164

Post by hindsightbias »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #97
hindsightbias wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple had room to build a new Venice. Shops, housing, work... but they built a spacepad.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#165

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

gbronner wrote: post #124
novok wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I asked a millennial why she cared so much about the free coffee, and she told me that it symbolizes the employer's 'caring' about the staff.. Personally, I'd rather earn an extra $25k and buy a few cups of coffee with it than get "free coffee".

> Personally, I'd rather earn an extra $25k and buy a few cups of coffee with it than get "free coffee".

That deal is not on the table, though. For practical purposes, there are few places that someone can work that pay better than Google for a given dev, and those places all probably have free coffee as well.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#167

Post by mikestew »

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.

Many moons ago, Microsoft’s cafeterias were subsidized. And then they weren’t. Remember that mass exodus from Microsoft in the 90s over the cafeteria stink? Neither does anyone else, because what noise there was didn’t amount to much.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#168

Post by mr_toad »

tehjoker wrote: post #76

This was a really great Twitter thread about how capitalism isn't really about meritocracy but about bargaining power and by implication how necessary unions are for workers to be treated humanely and paid more than the bare minimum for survival: https://twitter.com/ArashKolahi/status/1210332075787608065

> how capitalism isn't really about meritocracy

Who said it was? Classic example of a straw-man argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#169

Post by vjktyu »

utopian3 wrote: post #32
vjktyu wrote: post #2

Good for them. As for the tech workers, they need something like a guild with membership fees and staff lawyers that would sue the state for allowing binding arbitration and non compete agreements (i.e. do what California did).

Sue the state for allowing it? Honest question— Is that a legal argument? If laws don’t exist, how can you sue the state for not enacting them if it doesn’t violate a constitutional right...

That's why we need lawyers on a payroll that would figure out all the details.

Re: Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized

#170

Post by rorykoehler »

haecceity wrote: post #83
whatitdobooboo wrote: post #48

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

Communist manifesto?

I dunno why you are down voted. It seems that many people see the word communist and have an emotional reaction. If you take the time to read this masterpiece you will soon realise that Marx knew more about capitalism than most of us who live it.
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