Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#221

Post by walshemj » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

bjohnson225 wrote: post #58

walshemj wrote: post #7

Rather odd as in the UK id expect to get paid a lot more as a contractor for the same roll as a FTE. A bit of "schadenfreude " that clerical jobs in HR are some of the one in the UK Update Having said that I was underpaid as full timer when I worked for a BT subsidiary back in the day and the HR director was a "piece of work"

> Rather odd as in the UK id expect to get paid a lot more as a contractor for the same roll as a FTE As a software dev/management contractor, sure, but as a “self-employed Yodel delivery driver” or similar low skill role? (Which it seems to be in this case)

Not for the UK examples which where like for like jobs not the fake self employed "gig" workers

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#222

Post by peterpaid » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

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?

Probability of the potential turning into reality. A high potential punishment in the parking ticket analogy is very unlikely with few or no "meter maids".

Their point is that high potential punishment alone isn't sufficient, but that it must be likely or inevitable as well.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#223

Post by peterpaid » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #163

pembrook wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it could be a practice that started when companies still gave out pensions. Pensions were a massive burden (just look at the auto companies who still have massive pension liabilities), so it probably made a lot of sense back then. But now that corporate America has eliminated pensions in favor of 401ks, the contractor/employee juggling just seems wildly inefficient for anybody who's not a janitor. It feels li…

> the contractor/employee juggling just seems wildly inefficient Not when HR has to tell an Executive how much money they saved by hiring contractors in order to justify their jobs. HR is one of the most despicable departments in every company. They are company designated Stasi. They provide no value but whatever it is they want in order to justify their paycheck.

It is known.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#224

Post by Viliam1234 » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

zosima wrote: post #195

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 exception that proves the rule is from a legal argument by Cicero. It means that if someone bothers to write an exception in a law, say e.g. "but in case window is broken by stone smaller than 1 cm in diameter, then it's the owner of the window that should pay reparations", then in the general case it's likely the thrower of the stone that pays, otherwise there would have been no point in adding so specific an ex…

This is the correct answer. "Exception proves the rule" = a documented exception is an evidence that a general rule exists.

When you see text "kids under age of 3 years don't have to pay", you can conclude that older people are supposed to pay.

The analogy for Google situation would be if hypothetically someone found an internal e-mail written by the boss of Google HR department saying "contractors who have relatives in Google, or who have published their story on Hacker News front page, need to be fully paid for their work". Then we could conclude that other contractors typically don't get fully paid, even if there is nothing in the e-mail saying that.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#225

Post by TheJoeMan » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #93

notJim wrote: post #8

> A whistleblower represented by Whistleblower Aid has filed a complaint about the alleged violations with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Nice.

Ah, the “everything is securities fraud” school of US legal thought.

I was just thinking “wow I just read everything is securities fraud on HN”

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#226

Post by Europeandude » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

neil_s wrote: post #47

elliekelly wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty messed up that “defrauding investors” is the legal action most likely to succeed in court and not, ya know, defrauding the people they actually defrauded.

That's a jurisdiction issue though. Of course, the underlying cause is that the US, unlike other countries, doesn't have a pay parity law for US-employed temps.

You know, it's funny, while reading this thread I've been trying to remember if we have any such laws in my country. Then I realized that it probably doesn't matter, because we have a law prohibiting employing temps unless it's absolutely critical, i.e. you must offer full time employment.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#227

Post by Europeandude » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

rcpt wrote: post #103

ffggvv wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> who can write super simple scripts to help process/clean some data If you can figure how to make that process "super simple" you can make staff engineer. Source: am L5 SWE at Google spending most of time wrangling unclean data

Sorry, what's L5?

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#228

Post by Viliam1234 » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

gricardo99 wrote: post #167

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…

These outside companies had minimal oversight from Google, by design. Could this be so that the google corporate toadies could bid out the lowest possible price, yet remain isolated from the predictably unethical, shoddy, or even illegal practices of the cut-throat priced contracting companies? It just seems strange that you’re lauding google HR, when your description suggests google was complicit, if not directly re…

The mechanism of distancing yourself from crime is explained here:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9fB4gvoooNYa4t56S/power-buys...

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#229

Post by Oladunk » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

w3ll_w3ll_w3ll wrote: post #204

vadym909 wrote: post #147

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.

Most of these laws were written in Europe when staff leasing from external agencies was legalized at the end of '90/early '00. They were meant to avoid what you describe. I don't know if they work well, but it's better than nothing.

I'm Norwegian and things are probably different down in mainland Europe, but at least here we have fairly little use of external agencies and temps. You're required by law to offer full time employment unless specific criteria are met. External agencies are usually used for cleaning, cantinas and things like that, but not much else. The (much, much) stricter labor laws grant the same rights to everyone regardless of employer, position and percentage, so there's not much to save from using external agencies anyway.

One exception is concultancy agencies, but they are usually much more expensive (and offer better salaries), so that's mostly to avoid dealing with the recruiting aspect and risking bad hires.

Temporary positions is a problem for nurses, in kindergartens and, perhaps ironically, for professors.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#230

Post by Oladunk » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #197

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK it’s fairly common for SWEs to also work on a contractor basis (but they own their own personal company which contracts directly with the contracting company’s HR dept: no bodyshops or consulting firms are involved in this particular style of employment). This happens a lot because of how the UK’s tax-law is set-up (by accident, not by-design, though). ———————- Outside of the games industry, the UK’s been l…

That's a scourge all over Europe. Management are leaders and engineers are low level workers. Follow hierarchy, don't stick your head out, get paid peanuts, leave for America at the first opportunity.

Norwegian here. The "management are leaders" thing is mostly real, but in tech it's not uncommon to have engineers as leaders, if you can convince any to take the job.

The second paragraph is not accurate for Norway at all. We're informal, get decent pay (not to mention have vastly better rights by law, like 5 weeks mandatory vacation a year) and definitely don't want to go to the US.

"Don't stick your head out" (Law of Jante) is a cornerstone of Norwegian/Scandinavian culture overall, not just in the corporate world.