A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#341

Post by lithos » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

pacificat0r wrote: post #197

lithos wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not union myself watching how IBEW (international brotherhood of electrical workers) works, it ends up working well for all involved parties. For workers pay is kept higher, benefits stay active between jobs, and benefits stay unchanged between jobs at different companies. Companies also gain the ability to support surges/drops in manning requirements (without ruining life's of workers), and know workers have a…

>I also see the best workers rising through the ranks, and bad ones either never actually entering the union or quitting when they realize they're not going anywhere. This doesn't sound like an advantage for software engineers. Surely unions can't decide on someone's competency. It kind of raises a red flag about potential gatekeeping methods (e.g. the tax status where you have to join or else).

It's not the union choosing to promote, it's the employer for IBEW.

Also disallows noncompete clauses. So if your current employer says no, you can go to another. Which is how I've seen quite a few promotions. The latter of switching employers is far easier, since life changing benefits (medical/retirement) aren't tied to employers. (Considering SV workers get their "share" by switching employers every few years, that would be a nightmare scenario for big tech as well. Since it further reduces employee stickiness, if SV unions decided to offer benefits).

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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Post by mikecoles » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #133

karl11 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees can ask for better, but when you already work at the company that pays and treats their employees like Google, I'm not sure what more you are entitled to. It seems clear to me that these are people who are unwilling to sacrifice some of the money they earn to follow their ideals and principles, so they are trying this instead. There are very few perils of leaving Google - a top tier company in an industry t…

> It seems clear to me that these are people who are unwilling to sacrifice some of the money they earn to follow their ideals and principles, so they are trying this instead. This phrasing is disingenuous. If you don't like what's going on you can stay and fight rather than giving up and leaving. The people unionizing are of the "stay and fight" variety. Where does this false dichotomy come from that your only optio…

Absolutely not. People that want to unionize are the lazy or those whose dreams are sprinkled with unicorn glitter. Or a combination of the two.

There are no benefits to modern unions. They are another level of bureaucracy. If you want better conditions or pay, earn it.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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Post by SamoyedFurFluff » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #324

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone in big tech has job mobility, Except for immigrants pending green card/citizenship...

That is definitely true, and unfortunately tech companies have been abusing H-1B laws flagrantly in order to hire trapped workers they can underpay. ( https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-accused-by-trump-administ... is particularly blatant.) That being said, without the employees who could leave, but choose not to, Google would not survive. Hiring underpaid immigrants can only get you so far.

If the employees who could leave organize for the benefit of employees who can’t, isn’t that precisely unionizing? That’s my jab here. I don’t really know/care about how great certain employees have it, I care that several other employees are systematically abused and there’s no check on their power.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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Post by Bresenham » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #173

One difficulty I see with the mission statement ( https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statemen... ) is that it is very broad, and contains a lot of progressive values that are likely not as widely shared as the authors might expect. One might or might not agree with these values, but it is going to be significantly harder to start steering the company's product direction and social responsibility effo…

> it is going to be significantly harder to start steering the company's product direction and social responsibility efforts than 'just' representing the employees during e.g. benefits and compensation negotiations.

Unions with a very limited focus on their member's compensation negotiations tend to be either short-lived or so weak it is like they don't exist. Just for survival, unions want wider unionization in their own industry and then other industries and then internationally.

Actually FAANG was already organized against employee compensation in the secret pact between Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt etc. which courts found illegal.

Are corporations and their majority controlling shareholders just representing the employers "during e.g. benefits and compensation negotiations". No. In 1938, the American Enterprise Association (now called AEI) was formed by Chrysler, General Mills, Paine Webber to push corporate hegemony. Their website is one screed after another attacking progressive values. If these companies think it important to spend money attacking, as you call them, progressive values, why should unions limit themselves in not defending them? It makes little sense to start things out with one hand tied behind the back. AEI is just one front of corporate America's many fronts.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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Post by Mauricebranagh » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #173

One difficulty I see with the mission statement ( https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statemen... ) is that it is very broad, and contains a lot of progressive values that are likely not as widely shared as the authors might expect. One might or might not agree with these values, but it is going to be significantly harder to start steering the company's product direction and social responsibility effo…

Yes they should stick to actual "Trade union union issues" to start with - and remember that large number of Google employees would be ok working on defence and probably voted republican.

Selling tech to oppressive nation states who are not the USA's friends is a separate issue

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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Post by umvi » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

whoisthemachine wrote: post #228

objclxt wrote: post #38

When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve. People often seem to think of unions as being purely blue-collar operations, and this just isn't true. For example, I've had people tell me that they don't support unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers will be promoted faster.…

> This is because those unions are serving a very different purpose to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear. SAG, the DGA, and the WGA aren't guaranteeing hours or limiting pay: they're simply trying to curb abuse in what it a very abusive industry, and putting in place procedures to protect members and resolve grievances. This is an important point, and one I haven't thought of before - I think Americ…

> and controversial government contracts.

So basically this is a political union forcing the company to adopt certain political stances (i.e. to force the company to refuse DoD or ICE contracts)

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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Post by jollofricepeas » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #38

When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve. People often seem to think of unions as being purely blue-collar operations, and this just isn't true. For example, I've had people tell me that they don't support unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers will be promoted faster.…

Great point.

The funny thing about unions is that the HN community believes that every other organization and industry can be disrupted...EXCEPT unions.

It’s hilarious. The comments are usually all anecdotal with some story about an uncle or father who was “screwed over” by his union back in the 80s or 90s.

We are capable of creating a new type of union and making collective bargaining better than what previous generations had in this current era of the greatest wealth inequality since Rockefeller and Carnegie.

What do the tech elite and robber barons have in common?

- They are all anti-union and collective bargaining.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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Post by Karunamon » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

_qulr wrote: post #114

mondoshawan wrote: post #63

Googler here, these articles are literally the first I've heard of it. No internal emails, rabblerousing, or any kind of comms about it, and it seems as though the union discussed doesn't actually exist yet. Seems a bit odd (and bad reporting), but we'll see where it goes. After watching how a mechanics union did absolutely nothing while CEOs ripped apart my Dad's pension and put him through hell, I have a bit of a d…

> After watching how a mechanics union did absolutely nothing while CEOs ripped apart my Dad's pension and put him through hell, I have a bit of a dim view on this sort of thing to begin with. I would say that unions aren't magical entities. They're a necessary but not a sufficient condition for protecting the interests of workers. A union is only as good as its membership. If union members think they can just pay th…

Necessary in some cases. Workers who are happy with the general conditions of their company won't unionize.

>As soon as unions become "hierarchical",

Which is a probability that approaches 1 over time. All human endeavors tend toward hierarchies, it's just a matter of how formalized the hierarchy is and how many levels it has - but one always exists.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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Post by esc_colon_q » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

gandutraveler wrote: post #287

avianlyric wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't want to leave a cushy job for one where they would have to work harder for their money, so instead, they are trying other means to have their cake and eat it too. You're saying this like it's a bad thing. Why shouldn't employees expect, and get, better working conditions? > engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply leaving and working somewhere "better" How is individuals leaving "coll…

Unions will only help the rest & vest culture. I worked at Google and trust me there is so much fat that can be trimmed there. Especially the ones who have been there for 7+ years.. With unions it will get harder to fire them and at the same time they will need to be compensated equally. Software is not a profession where output is proportional to work hours like blue collar jobs. This will demoralize engineers to wo…

Yeah, so much of Google's culture is already about slowing down work so that it takes 10 (5 eng ICs + lead, analyst, manager, PM and PgM) to do the work that 2 engineers would do with identical quality in any other company, and the old-timers are the absolute worst in terms of keeping that status quo in place. I can't recall seeing a single team there that was properly sized and wouldn't function better with half the team and an eighth of the process.

There's a good argument to be made that a big chunk of the value of an engineer to Google is strategic, simply that they are locked up and aren't working at FB, Amazon, Apple or Microsoft. I was never at a high enough level to have a view into the data that would confirm that, but it certainly felt like even if you weren't particularly productive in the environment everyone up the ladder was perfectly happy to let you malinger on the payroll forever, as long as you weren't so bad that you did damage to someone's pristine art project of a codebase. So maybe inability to fire isn't really such an issue - even now, seeing anyone fired at Google, let alone an old timer, is extraordinarily rare.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#350

Post by mattzito » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #38

When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve. People often seem to think of unions as being purely blue-collar operations, and this just isn't true. For example, I've had people tell me that they don't support unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers will be promoted faster.…

I'm as pro-union as they come, but let's not pretend that the film and theater unions are an unalloyed good. It's true that the top is not limited for people who make millions of dollars, but the bottom is fairly restrictive, and that has a negative impact on many many actors/performers. For example, once you are an Actors Equity member, you can not do non-Equity work, except with special exemptions. You are also required to join equity once you do a certain number of Equity weeks - this means that I know people who luck into one Equity show early in their career, have to join Equity, and then are locked out of swaths of theatrical work because they're Equity. At the same time, though, they don't have enough of a resume to keep getting Equity work. SAG and AFTRA have similar policies.

I agree they've done a good job at curbing abuses, and again, I'm pro-union overall, but the film/tv/theater unions definitely force some tough decisions for the lower end of the worker spectrum