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Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

theguardian.com

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Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#211

Post by bregma »

burlesona wrote: post #18
0des wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed. Executives need to start getting personal punishment if we want corporate behavior to change. Alternatively, start issuing fines such that it’s X percent of revenue plus Y percent of salary from all employees. Even a fine of 1% of annual pay would light a big angry fire under most employees, and perhaps incentivize them to stand up to the execs and refuse to follow illegal or unethical decisions.

Penalize the owners of the company. Make 10% of all stock disappear into a legal black pit. The executives (many of whom are usually shareholders) will receive corrective action in good order. Word to the owners: make sure your capital is working ethically, or be prepared to pay the price.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#212

Post by concordDance »

An important thing to note is that for the executives in question, this is a compliance and PR issue, NOT an ethical issue!

These laws don't exist in the USA and from the perspective of the executives (and the wider American public) there's nothing wrong with paying permanent and temporary staff different wages. The actual monetary amounts are also pretty small (up to 100 million liability) which Google can easily afford, they just really didn't want to have to try and figure out department budget adjustments.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#213

Post by bregma »

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…

The cost of labour is a liability. The cost of a contractor is an operating expense. The cost of employees show up on a different line in the balance sheet than the cost of contractors do. If your life consists of fudging numbers in an Excel page and projecting a PowerPoint deck to a room full of rich white men in bespoke suits as they munch on a company-catered lunch, this is an important distinction.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#214

Post by user5994461 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #97
Cederfjard wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I’m not following. Which company did the HR rep belong to? Which company did the ”corporate toadies” belong to? Perhaps I’m just confused how you were able to have such a direct influence on the internal goings on of a supposedly independent company.

The story does not make sense to me either. Google’s HR should surely know better than to get involved in a labor issue at company they contracted with and claiming are not google employees.

HR is always involved with external contractors.

The way contracting usually work is that the contractor must submit timesheets daily or weekly to a supervisor at the parent company. The supervisor must approve the timesheet. The contractor will be paid the hours in the timesheet.

The story is a classic example where the manager (google employees) refused to acknowledge the hours for no valid reasons, preventing contractors from being paid.

Gotta escalate to HR to get paid and fill formal complaints against the bad manager.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#215

Post by Aune »

tomcam wrote: post #133
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."

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

No. It is a legal principle. If there is a sign stating: "Parking prohibited 03am - 07am" then that implies that parking is allowed outside that window of time.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#216

Post by user5994461 »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #98
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…

Probably HR did the math how to protect the company. A legal case is bad for reputation and might inspire others. Paying quietly is cheap.

There is no maths to do. The company has to pay for hours worked.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#217

Post by luffapi »

concordDance wrote: post #212

An important thing to note is that for the executives in question, this is a compliance and PR issue, NOT an ethical issue! These laws don't exist in the USA and from the perspective of the executives (and the wider American public) there's nothing wrong with paying permanent and temporary staff different wages. The actual monetary amounts are also pretty small (up to 100 million liability) which Google can easily af…

This is absolutely an ethical issue (yes I’m American). Google knowingly violated labor laws to underpay workers. Hopefully the PR from this causes Google to lose billions (and for ethical people to stop working/applying at Google, which honestly probably happened about 10 years ago).

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#218

Post by josefx »

concordDance wrote: post #212

An important thing to note is that for the executives in question, this is a compliance and PR issue, NOT an ethical issue! These laws don't exist in the USA and from the perspective of the executives (and the wider American public) there's nothing wrong with paying permanent and temporary staff different wages. The actual monetary amounts are also pretty small (up to 100 million liability) which Google can easily af…

> These laws don't exist in the USA

One would think that they would have lawyers to figure that out and they probably have, otherwise they would be sinking in lawsuits from they own European employees.

> NOT an ethical issue!

They spend at least two years intentionally underpaying people. Of course you can reclassify everything as a PR issue, for example poison in baby food is a PR issue, hiding the fact that a bad ignition switch was a cost saving measure was a PR issue, fucking Auschwitz was a PR issue.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#219

Post by cascom »

epc wrote: post #69
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…

There’s a perverse distaste for hiring FTE for bland, routine work or to fill roles that have year to year volatility. Microsoft was notorious for this in the 1980s and early 1990s. If you were a superstar programmer you got offered a full time job as an employee. If you were “just” a technical writer you’d go through the same recruiting process but get offered a contract through a third party. From 1994-1999 I ran i…

I think part of it is around what the HR organization is built for, construction companies that do self performed construction are used to hiring growing their workforce 10x and shrinking it down again.

I think the thinking at more knowledge based firms is that They want to Keep their W-2 employees people they perceive to be the top performers, that they want to keep retain long-term, and that have long-term potential at the firm, if the position is viewed to be more commodity ther can put them on contract with a staffing firm, and not have save marginally, but really mentally keep track of who long-term vs. temporary / commodity

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#220

Post by tharkun__ »

seg_lol wrote: post #187
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…

> High potential punishment has never worked. And then you talk about meter maids. What do meter maids have to do with Google not breaking labor laws?

This is something called an analogy. In particular I chose a "car analogy", which is a common technique. Sometimes when a non car analogy is used people smirkingly ask for or make up a car analogy even.

I could use a different one that would stir up much more controversial debate. What if stealing office supplies carried the death sentence? If you are guaranteed never to be caught how much of a deterrent would it be? If you get caught 100% of the time for that but all they do is to make you pay 10x what the supplies were worth?

Basically what I was trying to show that it's all about a combination of percentage of getting caught and the sentence. Only upping the possible sentence does not act as the deterrent people commonly attribute to it.

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