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Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

theverge.com

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Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#51

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

crazygringo wrote: post #8

This seems... exaggerated and not particularly newsworthy, like the journalist's trying to make a big story out of something tiny: > In a statement, AWU executive council member Auni Ahsan said: “We want to honor the concerns that have been raised, but our primary focus as a union isn’t affiliation or disaffiliation.” > After the article came out, however, multiple AWU members told The Verge they were blindsided by t…

After her previous “Exclusive” quoted people who didn’t say what they’re quoted as saying, I’d imagine there is pressure to frame it as a bigger union fuckup to deflect blame. Either it’s an everyday thing, in which the earlier article was poor journalism, or it’s a bigger deal the journalist couldn’t have expected and then this is a Story! I’m surprised the earlier article hasn’t been corrected yet.

Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#52

Post by comex »

geofft wrote: post #23
DC1350 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Joe Biden should be taken off the air for allowing 4000 Americans to die from COVID every day and countless others to be blown up by the military that he commands.

In seriousness, if we had this as a norm (and not just a bludgeon for whatever politician we don't like), we'd be in a better place as a society. Obama has admitted that he continued the drone strikes because he couldn't afford to look soft on terrorism as a Democrat, for instance. No law compelled him to, just the court of public opinion. How would we get to the point where, instead, he couldn't afford to look excit…

> Obama has admitted that he continued the drone strikes because he couldn't afford to look soft on terrorism as a Democrat, for instance.

Citation?

Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#53

Post by PragmaticPulp »

crazygringo wrote: post #8

This seems... exaggerated and not particularly newsworthy, like the journalist's trying to make a big story out of something tiny: > In a statement, AWU executive council member Auni Ahsan said: “We want to honor the concerns that have been raised, but our primary focus as a union isn’t affiliation or disaffiliation.” > After the article came out, however, multiple AWU members told The Verge they were blindsided by t…

The entire "Google Union" story has been exaggerated.

Everyone got so caught up in the unionization narrative that they didn't even read the details of the union in the first place. Specifically, this union isn't the kind of union with collective bargaining rights, which is what most people assume when they see the word "union".

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/04/google-...

> The Alphabet Workers Union will push for change without traditional collective bargaining rights.

This pseudo-union is more like a Discord group of 100-200 Google employees who will try to influence change together, without actually forming a traditional union.

Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#54

Post by scarmig »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #53
crazygringo wrote: post #8

This seems... exaggerated and not particularly newsworthy, like the journalist's trying to make a big story out of something tiny: > In a statement, AWU executive council member Auni Ahsan said: “We want to honor the concerns that have been raised, but our primary focus as a union isn’t affiliation or disaffiliation.” > After the article came out, however, multiple AWU members told The Verge they were blindsided by t…

The entire "Google Union" story has been exaggerated. Everyone got so caught up in the unionization narrative that they didn't even read the details of the union in the first place. Specifically, this union isn't the kind of union with collective bargaining rights, which is what most people assume when they see the word "union". Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/04/google-... > The Alphabet Wo…

It is a bit more than that. Members give 1% of their TC to the union (which is exceptionally high, by the usual standards of union dues and the actual member services the union provides).

The model of unionism you reference isn't universal or even the most common cross culturally. Even within the US, pre-New Deal minority unionism was the dominant form of worker organization.

Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#55

Post by jerry1979 »

walshemj wrote: post #33
hedora wrote: post #19

The fall out between CWA and the employees was predictable, but faster than I would have guessed. I don’t understand why they teamed up with CWA in the first place. What possible alignment of incentives were they hoping for? What were they thinking?

Who else would they work with in the USA? - as far as I know the civil service unions in the USA don't have members in the private sector.

The IWW for one.

Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#56

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

> The news was an unwelcome surprise to union members who expect the Alphabet Workers Union to run democratically.

Sounds like the AWU members need to unionize and form an AWU Members Union to make their voices heard within AWU.

Sarcasm aside, this really is a bad look for a group that needs some non-controversial wins to gain support, rather than focusing on just “gaining turf” as quoted in the article. I get the impression CWA is trying to use this to get a foothold in big tech at all costs, AWU members be damned. Maybe they can call it growth hacking.

Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#58

Post by scarmig »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #56

> The news was an unwelcome surprise to union members who expect the Alphabet Workers Union to run democratically. Sounds like the AWU members need to unionize and form an AWU Members Union to make their voices heard within AWU. Sarcasm aside, this really is a bad look for a group that needs some non-controversial wins to gain support, rather than focusing on just “gaining turf” as quoted in the article. I get the im…

I know you were tongue in cheek, but that's not unprecedented:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teamsters_for_a_Democratic_U...

Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#59

Post by lumost »

walshemj wrote: post #42
lumost wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of costs and difficulties? Filing paperwork isn't terribly expensive, and with an average member wage 5-10x higher than the median wage in the US the union should hit above its weight class. A larger union is likely to bring its own set of office politics and costs.

It's not that simple to create an effective professional union you need to hire specific skills there is a limit to what lay officers/activists can do in there free time. Just remaining within the absolute letter of the law is complex and panties for failure can be heavy - I know I have dealt with this aspect in the UK.

As a tech worker in the US, the prospect of some form of a tech employee associatation seems like the right way to go.

- Employees are regularly screwed on misrepresented equity compensation

- Employees are expected to work uncompensated on-call shifts which vary from "doesn't affect me" to "impossible to function on" such as being paged once per hour for 1 week with the expectation to do it again in a weeks time.

- Employees are subject to highly opaque performance review processes that take into account employee performance, as well as what work they happened to be assigned - Some assignments may be incompatible with the companies expectation for a given role e.g. Software Engineers assigned to put together excel reports

- Employees may be asked to perform ethically or legally dubious activities where they may be held criminally liable ( see dieselgate, and to a lesser extent the 737 max ).

- Employees may be asked to work 80+ hours to hit goals which were underfunded or poorly planned (see CDPR and every other software project which misses a deadline)

This is a small list of reasons an industry employee group such as a guild/union/certification board/association could be a good idea. However very few of these items relate to traditional union activities. The thought of pulling in specific hires with specific union skills seems like either forcing a square peg through a round hole or just paying to support someone who will fill their time with activities related to "unions" to little employee benefit.

Re: Google union in turmoil following global alliance announcement

#60

Post by throwawaysea »

hedora wrote: post #47
geofft wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In seriousness, if we had this as a norm (and not just a bludgeon for whatever politician we don't like), we'd be in a better place as a society. Obama has admitted that he continued the drone strikes because he couldn't afford to look soft on terrorism as a Democrat, for instance. No law compelled him to, just the court of public opinion. How would we get to the point where, instead, he couldn't afford to look excit…

According to the actual covid death rates, infection rates, and projections, Sweden is doing about as well as the rest of Europe, and much, much better than the US: https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden?view=total-deaths&tab=... I’m not sure why Tegnell gets so much hate for doing a softer economic shutdown, and getting similar results as more draconian approaches. As a bonus, projections say they’ll hit herd immunit…

Also see https://fee.org/articles/how-finland-and-norway-proved-swede... titled “ How Finland and Norway Proved Sweden’s Approach to COVID-19 Works”, which discusses the benefits of lighter touch policies.
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