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Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

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Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#51

Post by n8cpdx »

mhoad wrote: post #3

Seems to have worked amazingly well based on all the times I recall reading the comments of stories posted here involving unions.

Some of us have seen the exorbitant damage bad unions can cause, for example ILWU destroying Portland, OR’s container shipping industry in a bid to steal two jobs from another union. https://www.universalcargo.com/jury-hits-ilwu-with-93m-verdi... (less industry-oriented source: https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/11/29/longshore-union-faces-...)

See also: public sector unions.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#52

Post by vanusa »

queuebert wrote: post #23

Imputing altruistic morals to profit-seeking entities and then continually being surprised and offended when companies act shady puts employees in a pointlessly weak position. Instead, treat the relationship as adversarial and come ready for battle every day against the legal structure designed to exploit you for the benefit of distant shareholders. There is no shame in fighting for yourself. You are worth it.

Altruistic expectations, no.

But I seem to recall a time (up until perhaps 15 years ago) when Google would not have been expected to engage in such blatantly Machiavellian tactics as placing fake op-eds.

Nowadays though, I don't put anything past Google.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#53

Post by sokoloff »

vmception wrote: post #11
mrits wrote: post #5

Yeah, let's focus on the company that pays their employees 15x minimum wage and has top tier vacation, healthcare, and maternity/paternity leave.

Its a trillion dollar company with some/many employees delivering quite a bit more value than they are paid 1) Collectively getting the better stake of the pie influences other organizations compensation methods/amounts 2) the market is telling employees what to do, meaning that it doesn’t matter that an individual can do far more work for less pay somewhere else - just don’t do those things.

> trillion dollar company with some/many employees delivering quite a bit more value than they are paid

Companies structurally and intentionally pay the average employee less than that employee generates in value. (If they paid more on average, they'd obviously either decide to never start or would go bankrupt. If they paid people working equal to their contributions on average, they'd show no profit and would have no reserves to cover for employees who are out on paid leaves that society or the employees want companies to cover the costs of.)

The underpayment relative to value delivered is a necessary condition (at least in my opinion, by simple math above). If you want to capture all the net value you create, you should work for yourself. For many (including me), I'd rather trade away some of the upside in exchange for a much lower stress existence.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#54

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

noah_buddy wrote: post #33
mhoad wrote: post #3

Seems to have worked amazingly well based on all the times I recall reading the comments of stories posted here involving unions.

I do wonder how much of HN culture is affected by very smart people (in one domain) being subconsciously led to believe things by the machinations of tech. As smart people, they take very passionate positions on issues they believe strongly. Perhaps they wouldn't have believed them so strongly in a vacuum though?

I don’t think this kind of analysis is ever productive. Have you considered the possibility that they’ve been convinced not by subconscious machinations but by arguments they believe are valid? If someone went around saying that your beliefs come from subconscious influence operations, is there any way you could prove them wrong?

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#55

Post by PragmaticPulp »

mhoad wrote: post #3

Seems to have worked amazingly well based on all the times I recall reading the comments of stories posted here involving unions.

You think Google’s internal plan (with vague details in the article), which was entirely internal to the company, convinced most HN commenters of a specific political position?

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#56

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

rsj_hn wrote: post #15
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #6

I don't believe it's only Google, and I don't think it's particularly secret.

Yes, that companies don't like unions and do what they can to discourage unionization isn't newsworthy. Finding a company that encourages unionization would be newsworthy!

> companies don't like unions and do what they can to discourage unionization

Are you sure? All of the big tech companies are entering one of the most union-entrenched industries in the US: media.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#57

Post by shadowgovt »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #46
BuckRogers wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You nailed something that I've noticed. Highly competent and intelligent people tend to lean libertarian in my experience. It's only when they get cancer, or finally meet some form of humility that they see the inherent advantages they had over others for what it is. Simply a roll of the dice. Competent, capable, hardworking people often fail to see the bigger picture, and dismiss others that aren't like them. If you…

> Simply a roll of the dice. In that case, so is this very conversation, the fact that we're both on this website, and even the fact that we are both interested in tech. If it's simply a roll of the dice, then nearly all aspects to existence are pointless, there's no point in trying to think for oneself, etc. Perhaps this is what you truly intend to convey, but until you explicitly state this, this is an incoherent p…

The author's point was that "inherent" advantages and third-party support are more to luck than to any intrinsic value a person brings to the table.

Having conversations on a website is a choice. Interest in tech is probably a blend of luck and choice (hard to be interested in something you're never exposed to, and hard to sustain interest in an environment where people consistently discourage it; people ending up in those situations are the "roll of the dice" the author is referring to).

In short, justifying a lack of empathy with "they made their choices" underestimates the amount people do not choose their circumstances in life.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#58

Post by outside1234 »

3pt14159 wrote: post #38
queuebert wrote: post #23

Imputing altruistic morals to profit-seeking entities and then continually being surprised and offended when companies act shady puts employees in a pointlessly weak position. Instead, treat the relationship as adversarial and come ready for battle every day against the legal structure designed to exploit you for the benefit of distant shareholders. There is no shame in fighting for yourself. You are worth it.

What if adversarial systems result in asymmetric arms races and the game theoretic best move is to work for a corporation that is so short sighted as to go to battle against their own employees and to work for them diligently and intelligently? Because I see a whole lot happier employees at Tesla than I do at General Motors. I'm not saying this is an all-or-nothing thing. I'd join a union if I was working for a certa…

Are they happier at Tesla? Because I hear it is pretty terrible place to work as a software engineer.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#59

Post by giraffe_lady »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #30
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #6

I don't believe it's only Google, and I don't think it's particularly secret.

The New York Times has had an anti-tech vendetta for a while now. Most likely, in my cynical worldview, because tech has hurt their subscription numbers immensely, not because they want to do the world a service. An example of this is when they published a whole story about a guy who became radicalized from YouTube... and then became unradicalized a few months later without doing anything radical. But someone could h…

I am by no means a NYT-liker but I don't think they're particularly anti-tech. We had been riding on a couple decades of public good will and consistent credulity and optimism from media and the public.

Compared to that it probably does feel hostile. But it's just them being part of the general and widespread shift of more skepticism towards tech's promises and more awareness of its downsides.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#60

Post by onion2k »

mhoad wrote: post #3

Seems to have worked amazingly well based on all the times I recall reading the comments of stories posted here involving unions.

HN is ostensibly full of people who want to run companies (startup founders). Consequently the readership is skewed towards people who are likely to be more "pro-employer rights" than "pro-employee rights". There's no reason to believe that the views posted on HN should extend to tech workers as a whole, and even less reason to think it'd be representative of a specific tech company.

If the views expressed regularly on HN are really a window into how the typical Googler thinks then presumably Google should be shutting down its ad networks and personal data tracking services very soon...

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