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A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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

#671

Post by blablabla123 »

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.…

The movie industry unions definitely sounds more appealing than those of the steal industry for instance. But of course it's easier to rally for a cause in an industry that is doing well. I think unions need to be rethought and I'm curious how it will look like if the Google union actually happens.

At the same time the Hollywood unions obviously were not there with all these scandals of the last years. Essentially it was both traditional and social media that helped with that.

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

#672

Post by Apocryphon »

dleslie wrote: post #646
whimsicalism wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the strongest arguments for unionizing is that maybe this time it will somehow be different than other unions I think the strongest argument for unionizing is that we know that this time is different from other times - wealth inequality is staggeringly high.

And so why would tech workers, who presently are generally in the upper decile of compensation, want to join an organization that may seek to diminish income disparity? Seems like a leopards ate my face moment.

Because income disparity has larger effects that will in the long-term screw over tech workers as they have the rest of society. In the Bay Area alone, income disparity coupled with housing shortage has contributed to mass homelessness; cue highly-paid tech workers Tweeting about having to step over human waste on the way to work. On a national and indeed international level, income disparity leads to political upheaval as populist movements capture discontent from slipping standards of living in diminishing middle classes.

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

#673

Post by tempuser189 »

avianlyric wrote: post #84
karl11 wrote: post #60

Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable" the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's better off or not. Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns, hospital staff, etc.). Unionizing at Goo…

> 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…

> Why shouldn't employees expect, and get, better working conditions?

have their cake and eat it too is absolutely correct. And the reason why we want to keep it the way it has been, is that the status quo productivity maximization is what has resulted in our current high pay and quality of life.

> individuals leaving "collectively bargain", it's the complete opposite, it's individual bargaining, with all the perils that entails.

The benefit of market rate is that it's fundamentally sustainable, and fair. When businesses collectively bargain, we call them "cartels"

>look at Germany where every industry has unions, regardless of size, and unions has a say in how companies are run, and what direction they head in. They make sure that shareholders and employees get input into the highest levels of leadership, ensuring that shareholders can't force decisions that benefit shareholders at the detriment of employees.

Because shareholder need to make decisions to improve shareholder value even if it means it's going to suck for employees. That's an important part of the system. You need to let go of deadbeats. Go ahead look at Germany. All their companies are very old. There's no room for startups. The only halfway relevant company they've produced in decades was a complete fraud. If the USA was like that, Google wouldn't even exist.

Shareholders provide real value. For the most part from the fact that the business wouldn't even exist without them. How much they provide is supposed to be determined by the cost to replace them, the shareholders, by starting a new company and competing with the old one.

> employees should absolutely make it clear who generates most of the value in a company,

This would be hilarious. Only a tiny fraction of Google employees work on a part of the business that actually makes money.

Most of the value google generates comes from their monopoly on search, not from workers. It would be trivially easy for google to crush the unionization efforts, sack more than half their employees, and increase theor profits.

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

#674

Post by beerandt »

karl11 wrote: post #60

Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable" the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's better off or not. Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns, hospital staff, etc.). Unionizing at Goo…

We've seen lots of exodus from Hollywood to states that are less union friendly, or at least that don't yet have a strong related union presence (yet).

While there maybe isn't yet a definitive "Hollywood East" or "Hollywood South" etc yet, the desire to find/build an alternative to Hollywood proper seems clear.

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

#675

Post by xyzelement »

ruph123 wrote: post #670
finiteseries wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t describe even the most down on their luck FAANG engineer in the slightest, and the previous comment tried to make that obvious by defining two entirely separate sorts of employer relationships to consider. That you didn’t address the second type of relationship, specifically brought your nationality in, and ended by calling their nation a depressing dystopia brings this dangerously close into nationalist…

My point is: No publicly traded company goes “above and beyond” for their employees. They literally work for the interest of their shareholders. Individual workers’ rights do not matter for them. And a high salary is not everything, especially since “high” in the SV is still pretty average at best. I now know of several high skilled engineers who worked at Apple and Facebook who came back because they were burned out…

The experience of people you know flies directly in the face of my experience (not at FAANGs but similar caliber) and that of several hundreds of my friends and acquaintances who work at these companies.

Whatever the exceptions are, if you work at these places, you're living a GREAT life in the grand scheme of things.

Conversations about other employers not relevant.

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

#677

Post by x87678r »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #627
x87678r wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that doesn't look like any union I've ever seen.

This comment is so low effort, can you provide any evidence or backing for your statement?

From the definition of unions there isn't much overlap. Yes they want to protect Google Workers from harassment which is valuable but doesn't sound like they're fighting for improving wages, benefits, or working conditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...

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

#678

Post by Apocryphon »

readams wrote: post #636
rdgthree wrote: post #94

It seems incredibly significant that only 230 people are officially involved with these plans to unionize. As of 2019, Google had nearly 120,000 employees.[0] That seems quite small, relatively speaking. Legally (I think, just learning about this now), to form a union, a majority of workers must show their willingness to form a union. Alternatively, to choose an existing union to join, an election with 30% of the wor…

Google is already being ruined by this tiny minority of sanctimonious blowhards. This is just a move to give more power to themselves to push their own political agenda in Google. Personally I want nothing to do with them, and I'd prefer that they just leave the company if they're unhappy. There's still lots of companies that want to hire software engineers, though of course they may find that nobody else puts up wit…

These are the people behind the Google Graveyard, the company's awful track record on UX and product design, and its core business strategy of making you, the user, the product through data monetization?

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

#679

Post by minimuffins »

UncleMeat wrote: post #182
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…

> 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. Google made something like 300,000 in profit per employee in 2019. There are regular complaints about benefits and pay multipliers being cut back. Why shouldn't workers seek to capture as much of their labor as possible? People don't seem to complain when businesses do that.

> Why shouldn't workers seek to capture as much of their labor as possible?

Yes. This is the correct way to look at it.

Another point I don't see so many people making here is it's about more than just raw compensation. A lot of people at Google don't like some of the things the company has sprawled out into doing now, e.g. war and surveillance tech.

A union is about creating some collective agency so labor can get what it wants, instead of being led around by the nose all the time by managers and owners who are motivated only by profit (or are at least not obliged to consider any interest, economic or moral, that laborers might have).

A union would give some strategic agency to labor--that is, the people who do all the work--at Google. If a majority does not want to make war robots anymore or whatever, they can assert their agency and get what they want, and stop making war robots or whatever.

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

#680

Post by whimsicalism »

dleslie wrote: post #646
whimsicalism wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the strongest arguments for unionizing is that maybe this time it will somehow be different than other unions I think the strongest argument for unionizing is that we know that this time is different from other times - wealth inequality is staggeringly high.

And so why would tech workers, who presently are generally in the upper decile of compensation, want to join an organization that may seek to diminish income disparity? Seems like a leopards ate my face moment.

I was pretty darn clear in saying wealth inequality, not income inequality. Also, inter-industry disparity doesn't matter in this case: your argument would apply equally to NFL players who are unionized, but it doesn't matter that their compensation is high relative to the average American, what matters is getting a higher share of the profit from management/owners in a highly profitable industry.

Similarly in tech, unions can be a way of gaining greater profit sharing for the high-skilled workers necessary for the business to function. Where tech workers lie in income percentile is irrelevant and distracting to this question.

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