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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’

#371

Post by busterarm »

danans wrote: post #362
busterarm wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about the Aerospace Engineer's union, then: https://www.speea.org/ Pretty sure it's predominately male. And up until a decade or two ago had maybe a single-digit number of possible employers you could be working for. Also fucking goombahs don't have engineering degrees. Again, you're talking about another field the mafia, largely uneducated street people, could never penetrate. Let's at least start your argumen…

> Let's at least start your argument from a place of intellectual honesty. Your original statement: > Also everyone seems to forget that the history of unions in the US is inseparable from mafia racketeering. As we've discussed, major parts of union history has nothing to do with mafia racketeering. Falsely associating all organized labor with the parts that were involved with organized crime is intellectually dishon…

Right, and despite all of the decades of evidence of problems with union corruption, the pro-unionists still beat the drum of "more unions. right now. we'll figure out the problems later."

How about no. How about solve the problems that make corruption inevitable and then maybe I'll support your union.

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

#372

Post by saltminer »

binthere wrote: post #306
yupper32 wrote: post #138

A lot of people seem confused why a lot of tech people aren't pushing for unions. For me it's simple: Tech has brought me from near poverty to pretty darn wealthy. Why mess with that? Could a union help increase wages even more? Maybe. Are we being paid too little compared to our output? Maybe. But at the same time I'm being paid more than I could have possibly imagined before I entered the field.

Yes, but you are not the only person working for that company. I for one fight for the right of every employee of the company I work for to be treated fairly and greatly. Just because YOU have a good relationship with your company (or more so with your manager) doesn't mean everyone is on equal foot. I feel extremely uncomfortable when my coworkers are crying for help and all I show is indifference.

This is a point I think needs to be shouted from the rooftops. We should always have sympathy for our fellow workers and stand up for each other. Even if you are doing a technically demanding job, you should still look out for those doing janitorial work and other "low skill" tasks you couldn't bear to come into the office without.

Historically, the most successful unions in the southern US were those run by communists, because they didn't exclude people on the basis of their race. They correctly recognized that the liberation of the workers could only happen if everyone was united. It was often a hard sell to the white workers, being paid the same as a black man during Jim Crow, but the results ultimately spoke for themselves.

Unions which were whites-only were far less effective. When the white workers would go on strike, temp agencies would just round up a bunch of black men to break the strike. Turns out being able to see people who look like yourself on a picket line makes you much less likely to cross.

Source: "The Noir Forties" by Richard Lingeman

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

#373

Post by danans »

busterarm wrote: post #371
danans wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's at least start your argument from a place of intellectual honesty. Your original statement: > Also everyone seems to forget that the history of unions in the US is inseparable from mafia racketeering. As we've discussed, major parts of union history has nothing to do with mafia racketeering. Falsely associating all organized labor with the parts that were involved with organized crime is intellectually dishon…

Right, and despite all of the decades of evidence of problems with union corruption, the pro-unionists still beat the drum of "more unions. right now. we'll figure out the problems later." How about no. How about solve the problems that make corruption inevitable and then maybe I'll support your union.

> How about no. How about solve the problems that make corruption inevitable and then maybe I'll support your union.

All systems that organize and collect power inevitably experience corruption, including corporations, governments, and religious institutions, not just unions.

Even small businesses and sole proprietorships have incentives to engage in corrupt practices like bribery, especially at the local level. Singling out unions for corruption is selective reasoning.

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

#374

Post by queuebert »

lovecg wrote: post #243
awb wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Exploit you with industry leading pay and perks? Unions are designed to balance out monopolistic / low pay / highly geographical companies like large auto manufacturers or airlines. There is so much competitive hiring in tech, it’s one of the easiest c…

There are things beyond compensation that individuals cannot easily negotiate by themselves. For example, a reasonable ask could be to never get contacted by boss or work colleagues (about work) outside of work hours (unless oncall, etc.). In the absence of group coordination that a union provides this work arrangement is simply out of reach for most.

Bingo. There is a reason why pay at big tech is so high. I've never heard an ex-Google employee complain about the pay, but I've heard plenty complain about work-life balance.

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

#375

Post by tene »

e40 wrote: post #279
joebob42 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a note: I agree that spending millions fighting unions is strong evidence unions are bad for the company. It's not necessarily obvious this means unions are good for the employees.

It really bothers me that we've all accepted (not you or me specifically, but every time I see unions discussed it's the subtext) that we have two choices: no union or a shitty union. Why can't we work for a union that is good? If the answer is that humans are involved and it'll never be possible, then that could be applied to anything and is an absurd answer. This is not a strawman, I've heard that argument many tim…

The way I take this is that, as a civilization, we don't know how to reliably produce a good union. Coordination is hard, especially when politics and money are involved, and there are some well-known common failure modes.

To me, "a good union" is a lot like "a sufficiently smart compiler". It'd be great, and I'd love to have one, but the unions we currently have are the best we've been able to make so far. We can see many cases where we could do better, but theory is significantly ahead of practice, people keep reinventing the wheel, etc.

I'm far from educated about the history of unions, and I'd be glad if anyone could correct me.

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

#376

Post by ryandrake »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #293
onion2k wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is it? I’m sure there are lots of founders, but there have to be way way more employees than founders. Even if you count the aspiring founders.

I would guess a great many employees here imagine themselves as top-1% "captains of their industry" employees who are also master salary negotiators, have LinkedIn recruiters reaching out to them daily, have top-notch benefits and working conditions, and are therefore not the types of people who could possibly benefit from a union.

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

#377

Post by RickJWagner »

`Generally I don't favor unions. I think carried to extremes they lead to inefficiencies that make labor worse. (Others may feel differently.)

But a small part of me wants Google to end up with a nice, fat union. It may teach management that they should be careful with what kind of (disengenuous) messaging they put forth.

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

#378

Post by remram »

busterarm wrote: post #370
remram wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean it's right. In this case, it is wrong; collective bargaining goes way back, and while it is true that some unions officers have been crooks (and indeed controlled by Mafia), unions did not come from the Mafia . It's one of those technically true statements. Like "the history of the web in the US is inseparable from child pornography". Yes, some regulations were put in place because of the existence…

I never alleged that though. I just said that you can't separate the existence of unions from racketeering. Union racketeering still goes on today.

That's only true in the same sense that you "can't separate" the existence of hardware stores from murders.

People still get killed by hammers today.

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

#379

Post by gremlinsinc »

busterarm wrote: post #164
yupper32 wrote: post #138

A lot of people seem confused why a lot of tech people aren't pushing for unions. For me it's simple: Tech has brought me from near poverty to pretty darn wealthy. Why mess with that? Could a union help increase wages even more? Maybe. Are we being paid too little compared to our output? Maybe. But at the same time I'm being paid more than I could have possibly imagined before I entered the field.

Indeed. Also everyone seems to forget that the history of unions in the US is inseparable from mafia racketeering. To the point that the federal government had to break some of the power of unions in order to break up the effectiveness of mafia racketeering.

Can you elaborate how the Pinkerington's opening fire on union strikers, isn't Mafia racketeering and criminal behavior?

Anti-union behavior has been FAR more corrupt than unionizing.

The history bears this out. CEO's and Owners have a lot more to lose, and a lot more to fight with than workers who have nothing and are begging for the scraps they do get.

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

#380

Post by shtopointo »

s_dev wrote: post #310
shtopointo wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the issue with that? They present a lot of BS in company intro meetings. It's "drink the kool aid time" as far as I am concerned.

>drink the kool aid time That's slang for swallowing propaganda and committing suicide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

I know – read it as "propaganda time", i.e. activate the skeptical part of your brain, and take everything they say with a grain of salt.
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