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Workers Leaving the Googleplex

andrewnormanwilson.com

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Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#401

Post by othermaciej »

marshray wrote: post #184
trotsky wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to understand that in the US there has been a significant anti-labor campaign, both in the media and in politics for at least the last 40 or 50 years. It's been reasonably effective, and took serious hold in the 1980's - many of the posters here have grown up in a world where labor issues are mostly only discussed in a context of how worker demands are holding back corporations. It's difficult to not have yo…

Oh, so people who view the world differently than you do so because they've been brainwashed by the media and politics their whole life, whereas you are able to see through all of that and clearly perceive the unbiased truth. That must be a heavy burden for you to bear. But it's good to know you're around. I'll be sure to seek you out for my re-education next time I start to suspect I might have been co-opted.

His username is "trotsky". If he's serious about that, you are probably not going to have a productive topic of this issue with him.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#403

Post by bostonpete »

bane wrote: post #275
Cherian_Abraham wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have preferred to see your response up there instead of his. More substance. Less abuse.

You are absolutely right about my poor tone and I apologize. I should have taken a deep breath, counted to 10 and wrote when I was calmer. While I stand by the substance of what I wrote, on reflection, my tone was rather poor. Thanks for calling me out on it. It was unbecoming of the kind of discussion we want to see on HN even if I did find the entire OP wildly offensive on numerous fronts. Chalk it up to an embarra…

It may have been a bit over the top, but I, for one, enjoyed the read. Thanks. :-)

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#404

Post by bostonpete »

mekoka wrote: post #361
georgieporgie wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't seem to understand the difference between being an employee for a company that was hired by Google and being a Google employee He differentiated between being a red badge contractor and getting many of the on-site perquisites, versus being a yellow badge, who gets no (visible) benefits whatsoever. He also clearly states that Google leaned on his employer to fire him, not that Google fired him. I don't see…

He implied that google leaned on his employer to fire him. He never himself got in touch with google, so we don't know if this is true, do we? For all we know, his managers felt that he was being an unnecessary troublemaker and not wanting to jeopardize the company's relationship with google, decided to fire him on their own.

Well, actually, he said that his employer implied that google leaned on him, but I agree that this doesn't actually tell us much. When firing someone, it's much easier to play the good guy and claim that the individual is getting fired for reasons beyond your control.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#405

Post by protomyth »

gtirloni wrote: post #389
protomyth wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That churn is a huge PITA and disrupts implementation projects something fierce. The ruling also disrupts team cohesion at some places. I am convinced some of the outsourcing that has gone on is directly tied to this ruling.

why not hire the people that are expected to be doing work for your company for years to come? why they need to be "long-term temps"? It doesn't make sense. It feels like this is a poor excuse for hiring cheaper labor and get away with hiring as few perm employees as possible.

First, I wasn't "cheaper" labor. The fundamental difference is that the people who build new stuff often are too expensive for maintenance duty. So, a company might have a group of projects that need to be done. Some take multiple years. This ruling really shifted the strategy to an outsource solution instead of a contractor / employee solution.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#406

Post by bane »

jrockway wrote: post #385
bane wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right. This response is relevant to you as well. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2501121 Sorry for being uncivil.

Why so much backpedaling? You didn't say anything wrong. The article of the author is being an extremist baby, so you decided to be extreme in your response. Seems fair to me.

I certainly stand behind the substance of what I said, but I definitely could have packaged it a bit different. I agree with pg that HN's comment quality has been deteriorating, and to that end I'd rather be part of the solution than the problem.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#407

Post by glenra »

gtirloni wrote: post #390
glenra wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They pride themselves of creative thinking, they hire lots of academics, even economists and sociologists. Some of these people should be able to figure out a reasonably cost effective way of organizing these things without making the place resemble a 19th century cotton plantation. Wait, so being offered a job that pays reasonably well with decent work conditions but for which you must solve for yourself the probl…

Not any but basic things like eating equally and transportation shouldn't be hard to arrange. When you have a person being prevented from enjoying the same benefits of others.. and this person can witness this daily, how do you think they feel? Large companies have forgotten the human side of work. That doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

The surprising thing here isn't that the yellow badges can't use the cafeteria, it's that OP's group could. The rule "the cafeteria is only for Apple employees" would be pretty natural and easy to enforce. If you want to make it so everybody has the same benefits, the easy way to do that would be to remove cafeteria privileges from OP's company. As for "and this person can witness this daily", if OP weren't muckracking, the yellow badges wouldn't know that his group was getting extra benefits they weren't. Anyway, how do they "witness this daily"? It's a big campus and you'd have to go out of your way to go to the cafeteria if you had no access or business there.

Consider that I don't have a company car. I'm sure I could "witness it daily" that other people are being driven to work in their company cars if I knew where to look for it. But since I don't know about it, I feel fine.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#408

Post by glenra »

gtirloni wrote: post #391
glenra wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression was that he's a contractor (under salary) for one contract firm while they're contractors (probably on an hourly wage) for a different contract firm. Why would he expect the two to have the exact same benefits package?

Your impression could be wrong so there's no point in arguing both cases. All the guy know is that both groups were contractors. Do you know of any law that distinguishes contractors based on hourly or salary rules? If not, I don't see your point.

>Do you know of any law that distinguishes contractors based on hourly or salary rules? If not, I don't see your point.

The point is purely practical, not so much legal. When employees are on salary, it's worth doing whatever you can to make it convenient for them to stick around and stay longer. Providing perks such as free food helps with that - it helps get more work hours out of people for a given salary. The perks are in some way a substitute for extra salary, and likely to save the company money in the long run. Especially perks that save employees time, like letting them start work on the bus during their commute or letting them have meals right on campus so they don't lose time driving elsewhere.

Whereas hourly employees get paid for each specific hour they work so there's little benefit to encouraging them to stick around longer than they would otherwise be inclined. In fact, you generally want to discourage hourly workers from doing any overtime, since you'd have to pay them time-and-a-half.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#409

Post by throwaway1818 »

tkahn6 wrote: post #57
gradstudent wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point: the guy was fired for recording conversations with other employees. After being given permission from his supervisor to do exactly that. On his lunch break. Wtf is that all about?

You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things explicitly in his letter that Google Legal reviewed. That is exactly why he was fired. Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit. There's no conspiracy.

test

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#410

Post by throwaway1818 »

throwaway1818 wrote: post #409
tkahn6 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things explicitly in his letter that Google Legal reviewed. That is exactly why he was fired. Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit. There's no conspiracy.

test

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