Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#141

Post by jollybean » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

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…

It's not arbitrary.

It's the difference between the players, and the guys they hire to clean the windows at the arena.

I think they should err towards hiring for anything that is ongoing, and I also think they should have 'Minimum Requirements' for vendors including oversight.

That they don't is 'very bad'.

What's odd about G is that they are not only rich and can afford it ... they also try to be a moral arbiter, claim they are helping the world, which is really quite duplicitous.

Guess what: Car Companies have a large labour force, and they tend to get paid very well with Gold Plated Health care for example. Car companies are generally not trying to signal that they are 'better than other companies' etc..

The presentations at last Google conference with the bit about the Android photo scanner / reader used by the poor illiterate lady in Hyderabad, it was just over the top.

Seriously, pay your contractors properly before you tell us about how you're occasionally helping poor women in poverty.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#142

Post by tsian2 » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #37

Personal Googler story: In Ads and in Search, at least as of 2010 or so, Google employed independent companies who hired "raters" to provide "ground truth" for the ML systems. For example, they would rate proposed ads for a given query, so that the ML system could learn from their "truth". For Search, they'd rate proposed search results for a given query. There was a whole pipeline to bring in the raters' results and…

I used to do this kind of work and found that the worst thing about it was actually having too much time. After a while I had read and understood all of the documentation and had a complete mental model, so tasks would take half the time. However, if I got through tasks too fast I'd just be paid the same and bring down the average time for everyone else. So I had this mind numbing stop-start process that felt so pointless.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#143

Post by stephenhuey » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

abdabab wrote: post #109

ashtonkem wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe you were talking about other companies. Google is still wildly profitable. > the company just set an all-time record revenue of $61.9 billion this quarter, and record profits for the fourth quarter in a row at $18.5 billion. From https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/27/22596592/google-q2-2021-r...

Wow, at what point do their profits balloon enough that Google's moat is no longer intimidating enough to fend off a gold rush of people willing to pour heaps of money and ingenuity into outdoing their search product? I've been searching with Google since the beginning and it definitely feels worse than in the days of yore, yet they make more money than ever...

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#144

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #84

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."

It is an old phrase. In this case, "proves" means something more like "tests". In modern terms, I'd say it's something like, "You don't really know you have a rule until someone has tested it by claiming an exception." e.g., setting a child's bedtime to 9pm will pose no challenge if they voluntarily go to bed at 8:30, it isn't until the exception comes along that you know whether or not you really have a rule.

[deleted]

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#145

Post by sgerenser » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:55 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101

ashtonkem wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suspicion is that it’s a way to dodge labor laws.

It is not defined benefit pensions or labor laws. It is cheaper to scale up and down expenses instead of firing people due to unemployment insurance premiums increasing when you lay people off due to lack of work who are then eligible for unemployment benefits. Also, benefits can get expensive if you also have to offer them to lower paid employees if they normally would not be able to get them at a different employer…

The benefits are a big one. This is definitely true at Microsoft where benefits are very good even by FAANG standards. Being able to skip those costs for workers that aren’t highly paid devs is definitely a factor in choosing contractors (or “vendors” in MSFT-speak) for many roles.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#146

Post by cylde_frog » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

ffggvv wrote: post #75

luckylion wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That begs the question: why is Google using subpar developers? It's hard to imagine there just not being any better ones, and it probably isn't a money issue. Are they so against having good old employees?

sometimes you just need someone who can write super simple scripts to help process/clean some data or do grunt work that none of the devs want to do. And sometimes this need is just temporary for 4 months etc. I wouldn't waste a google dev's on grunt work that any coder could do.

It's funny how arrogant you seem to have gotten working at Google. Looking through your post history a couple of years ago you were doing grunt work you would see as below you now. The belief that all Google employees are doing hard innovative work is untrue. A large portion are centering divs and wrangling JSON.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#147

Post by vadym909 » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 3:05 AM UTC

Atleast the European countries have laws that require equal pay for full-time vs contractors. Its about time the US instituted such laws too. It's just gross how companies get away with using contractors for the same job as full-timers but treat them like lepers that don't deserve equal pay or benefits.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#148

Post by colechristensen » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 3:12 AM UTC

tharkun__ wrote: post #135

colechristensen wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Well the last parking ticket I got was a result of putting the wrong space number in the machine, I got them more frequently when I was younger and stupid or forgetful. (I had a bit of a problem with sleep and would park somewhere and take an unplanned nap and get a ticket).

In the cheaper ticket city I would freely not pay the meter more or less breaking even on cost, and now in a more expensive city I do unless i’m only intending to park for a few minutes.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#149

Post by labster » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 3:13 AM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #132

labster wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People who ignore semantic drift are literally gay.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#150

Post by ravel-bar-foo » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

heisenbit wrote: post #20

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…

The crux is that one needs to be willing to pierce through the pretend veil of separation: > “the correct outcome from a compliance perspective” and could place the staffing companies it contracts with “in a difficult position, legally and ethically”. The systemic abuse of subcontracting companies to undermine the rule of law by these large corporations needs to stop. But it only will if executives at Google would fa…

In Korea subcontractors with limited liability for workplace accidents was a huge problem in construction. The law now holds contractors and subcontractors equally liable for workplace safety violations.