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Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

theguardian.com

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Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#131

Post by colechristensen »

tharkun__ wrote: post #129
colechristensen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Penalties just have to be set correctly. If I don’t pay a parking meter I’m likely to lose up to 100x as much as I saved… if Google doesn’t pay its employees…

High potential punishment has never worked. If your city has exactly 0 'meter maids' what does the 100x fine do to deter you? Nothing. If your city is patrolling its meters with a frequency that guarantees you will be caught 100% of the time you will definitely not do it ever (if you knew or after being caught multiple times in a row) and the expenses for meter maid salaries would be exorbitant. No more money coming…

shrug i’ve usually got caught unless parking for a very short time, i think with computerized meters they must have some automatic systems that flag cars just by driving past with an enforcement vehicle, only do that during busy times and you have pretty decent enforcement and parking meters doing what they were designed to do

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#132

Post by tomrod »

labster wrote: post #111
AlbertCory wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another commonly misused phrase is "begging the question" which you have done here. It means "assuming that which you need to prove." You have no proof that it was exceptional. All you have is one case . You have no idea what other people in pay disputes end up doing.

This kind of pedantry about which words people use to make an argument is literally garbage.

To continue the spirit of the many nested comments now going back and forth:

Metaphorically.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#133

Post by tomcam »

AlbertCory wrote: post #78
joe_the_user wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't make any general statements about what happens to everyone, but in this particular case, I can't complain at all about HR's handling. That's kind of the exception that proves the rule , you think? That is, your outlining of the situation gives a strong suggestion that this sort of thing is common and unless the contractor has pull (say, a relative that works at Google), they can't do anything.

I've always thought the phrase "the exception that proves the rule" is nonsense, btw. There's no such "proof."

Agreed. It is infuriating because it is internally inconsistent on its face. The way logic works, an exception disproves the rule. Surprise, surprise.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#134

Post by BingoAhoy »

syshum wrote: post #67
Ansil849 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any chance this ends up with serious repercussions like prison time When has any staff member of a FAANG company faced prison time for a similar crime? Not a rhetorical question, I'm genuinely curious though my instinct is to say 'never'.

Executives only go to jail if 1. They do something to harm the government (i.e Tax evasion) 2. They do something to harm a Rich person 3. They do something to harm another multinational corporation If they just harm a few citizens... the government literally does not care

Laws written by the powerful to serve the powerful. That's American plutocratic Justice for yah. Designed intentionally, just like this Google system of contracted companies.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#135

Post by tharkun__ »

colechristensen wrote: post #131
tharkun__ wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High potential punishment has never worked. If your city has exactly 0 'meter maids' what does the 100x fine do to deter you? Nothing. If your city is patrolling its meters with a frequency that guarantees you will be caught 100% of the time you will definitely not do it ever (if you knew or after being caught multiple times in a row) and the expenses for meter maid salaries would be exorbitant. No more money coming…

shrug i’ve usually got caught unless parking for a very short time, i think with computerized meters they must have some automatic systems that flag cars just by driving past with an enforcement vehicle, only do that during busy times and you have pretty decent enforcement and parking meters doing what they were designed to do

So then tell me if you've got caught nearly 100% of the time, are the fines just a slap on the wrist or why do you keep doing it?

(what I didn't say is that if all you get is 'you bad boy but please don't do it again' then 100% enforcement doesn't help either. That should be obvious)

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#136

Post by jollybean »

ashtonkem wrote: post #27
threatofrain wrote: post #3

> Google executives have been aware since at least May 2019 that the company was failing to comply with local laws in the UK, Europe and Asia that mandate temporary workers be paid equal rates to full-time employees performing similar work, internal Google documents and emails reviewed by the Guardian show. > But rather than immediately correct the errors, the company dragged its feet for more than two years, the doc…

As I keep saying: there’s nothing more dangerous than a company (or department in this case) that was once wildly profitable and is now merely profitable. It’s absurd that even at places like Google, which has effectively infinite money, there’s still this present attitude of not being able to afford paying workers. Nuts.

Google is wildly profitable.

It's understandable that a company, crunched for cash, ends up in odd situations.

It's not acceptable when you're sitting on mountains of cash - and - claim to have some kind of moral situation in commerce.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#137

Post by IggleSniggle »

timoth3y wrote: post #110
AlbertCory wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought the phrase "the exception that proves the rule" is nonsense, btw. There's no such "proof."

The word "prove" used to also encompass the meaning of "challenge" or "put to the test". It still retains that archaic meaning in the phrase you mentioned and terms like "proving grounds". Edit: And like so many other proverbs like "A few bad apples", "Blood is thicker than water", "Carpe diem", "The exception proves the rule" means exactly the opposite of what most people think it does.

In the case of “blood is thicker than water,” unfortunately, the more historically common understanding is also its most common understanding today, and has been for so many centuries that we dont actually know if it originated with its original meaning or it’s inverse.

I’m bringing this up because, for many years, I was one of the folk who spread the idea that it actually was supposed to mean “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” But there’s no strong historical basis for this, lovely as the idea may be.

—

As for the “bad apple” one, I didn’t realize that it was commonly misunderstood. I always felt like someone mentioning that someone was “a bad apple” was an almost violent accusation: the person needed to be extricated from the group, less the group become infected by their corruption. I am now trying to think back to times when I’ve heard this one used and wondering if I misunderstood the intent.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#138

Post by defen »

AlbertCory wrote: post #107
zamfi wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the intent behind the modern usage of "the exception that proves the rule" is that: a) the rule is a heuristic, not a hard-and-fast rule, and b) the notability of exceptions suggests that the heuristic is pretty good. In other words, if the exception is, in fact, exceptional, it reinforces that the heuristic is reasonably valid for non-exceptional cases. In this case, the fact that it took the intervention of…

Another commonly misused phrase is "begging the question" which you have done here. It means "assuming that which you need to prove." You have no proof that it was exceptional. All you have is one case . You have no idea what other people in pay disputes end up doing.

The question people are asking is "How would your relative have gotten paid if you hadn't worked at Google"?

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#139

Post by scythe »

0des wrote: post #10
threatofrain wrote: post #3

> Google executives have been aware since at least May 2019 that the company was failing to comply with local laws in the UK, Europe and Asia that mandate temporary workers be paid equal rates to full-time employees performing similar work, internal Google documents and emails reviewed by the Guardian show. > But rather than immediately correct the errors, the company dragged its feet for more than two years, the doc…

What is the mechanism by which an entity that has the resources to spend on wrist-slaps is prevented from just continuing the behavior forever? I notice this a lot, and it feels like there are these opportunities everywhere that are exploited by corporations who know they'll skate every time with minimal financial impact.

The mechanism is by assigning visible but not devastating (despite the public demand for schadenfreude) punishments to executives found culpable. The goal is to maximize reporting and to change the culture.

If the punishments are set too high, individual loyalties begin to dissuade reporting. You might not love your boss, but you might not want to see his kids lose their father. So executing executives has its downsides.

However, the sanctions must be visible so as to decrease the tendency for offenders to defend each other and entrench corruption. This is difficult because it means that people will still be employed (in less powerful roles) after being sanctioned for offenses many people find morally repulsive.

It's a difficult balancing act. Cultural factors play about as big of a role as incentives. Rick Scott's Medicare fraud is infamous but it didn't stop him from winning three statewide elections in Florida.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#140

Post by vajrabum »

blamazon wrote: post #113
pembrook wrote: post #52

My question is, if it's so advantageous to employ people via onsite staffing firms (basically half of FAANG's workforce is employed this way), why doesn't Google stop directly employing people altogether? Without fail, if it's a giant publicly-traded company, a huge percentage of the workforce will always be onsite vendors. It seems so bizarrely arbitrary where they decide to hire direct vs. contract. And I'm not tal…

Blame the bean counters. What I see in FAANG today is that departments fill as many FTE roles as they can until they hit their headcount limit, and then they employ a bunch of contractors on top of that as they feel are needed on top of the approved head count. This is allegedly why the NSA was employing Edward Snowden as a contractor.

I think that's unlikely. I visited the CIA for a network equipment manufacturer in the late 90's and they had converted a significant portion of their IT employees to contractors. It's outsourcing to benefit the outsource contract companies. People were pretty bitter about it too. The military has got a ton of this sort of thing going on as well.
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