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Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

latimes.com

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Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#91

Post by pessimizer »

baud147258 wrote: post #31
rmorey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Union-busting, NDA’s, restricting new slack channels, non-competes - all the usual ways!

> restricting new slack channels how is restricting the creation of chatrooms in a communication tool that's likely provided by the company in any way comparable to any of your other examples? If Slack is provided by your company, they would likely have mean to get everything you might have written there, that's already an incentive to move any discussion the company might frown on (like talk of unionizing efforts) o…

Separating workers from each other is a primary focus of fighting unionization, even to the point of starting and dismissing shifts in staggered groups. Work is where workers see each other. A lot of organizing is done at bus stops near places of work, or just outside of parking lots talking through car windows.

Workers at work should have the ability to discuss their jobs with each other.

edit: I don't know if I made this clear enough, but you cant just tell people at your job to go to a website if you only see two or three of them at a time, and since your employer has invented a new policy against "handing out political literature" you can't even print business cards with the website on them and hand them to people without risking termination for cause.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#92

Post by kilgnad »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #71
kilgnad wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last decade or so, there were several times I brought this up on HN (anonymously), and each time my opinion was attacked as not making any sense. Times change.

I'm not sure that they have changed. People brought it up before and people are bringing it up now and they'll continue bringing it up. I think the tech workers are generally still opposed to the idea

No the thing that has changed is the attacks. The upvotes I'm getting on that post indicates support. Maybe two or three years ago I'd have negative karma.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#93

Post by andsoitis »

eyphka wrote: post #10
noorkersz wrote: post #2

follow up question, why hasn't apple needed to do this? how are they keeping 'tabs' on 'worker power'?

So why did Tim Cook take a 40% pay cut?

This should give you some insight: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-28/goldman-m...

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#94

Post by dismantlethesun »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #71
kilgnad wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last decade or so, there were several times I brought this up on HN (anonymously), and each time my opinion was attacked as not making any sense. Times change.

I'm not sure that they have changed. People brought it up before and people are bringing it up now and they'll continue bringing it up. I think the tech workers are generally still opposed to the idea

It doesn’t make sense to unionize when you are powerful and you can use “merit” to raise your power and compensation.

As the economy downturns, more and more software devs on the low end will be pushed to the point where unionization makes sense. They were never really powerful or well paid, but had hope of rising to a higher class. It’s that aspiration that lead to people discounting the ida of unionization.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#95

Post by unity1001 »

pmarreck wrote: post #6

This claim violates Hanlon’s Razor “Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” Over-hiring, over-salarying and not anticipating the consequences of a pandemic and post-pandemic on business might qualify as “incompetence” The thing that bothers me is this tone I'm seeing online and in particular in this discussion where people presume that a salary is owed no matter what, and t…

> “Never attribute to malice, that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.”

In the cutthroat randian landscape of the US business, it is the opposite:

“Never attribute to incompetence, that which can adequately be explained by malice.”

Incompetence, neglience, oversight etc are concepts frequently employed by the corporations to escape not only public opinion backlash, but also actually escape legal consequences in a courtroom.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#97

Post by Apocryphon »

bedhead wrote: post #63

Ahhh, legacy mainstream media, where tech companies doing desperately needed layoffs just like practically every company in the world over an economic cycle is a nothing more than a singular conspiracy to "crush worker power." Never change my liberal echo chamber journalist friends, never change...

These layoffs have been primarily constrained to tech and finance, not to every company in the world. Maybe for some companies these layoffs are “desperately needed”, but surely not for the most profitable ones, at this scale. At the very least it’s terrible for morale and PR.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#98

Post by jonathankoren »

kilgnad wrote: post #84
Phlarp wrote: post #20

Guess tech workers should have unionized when they had the chance. As if capital was going to let the most powerful group of workers that's ever existed continue to slip their noose

On a side note I feel we can take Unionization into the tech world as a start up or an App. Imagine a blind-esque App that just allows everyone participating to vote anonymously for a union. Then AFTER a union is official then leaders and instigators could reveal themselves or maybe there were no leaders or instigators the whole thing was p2p. I feel something as easy and convenient as blind can allow "unions in limb…

There are very specific regulatory requirements for unionization as outlined by the NLRB.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#99

Post by shagie »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #50
pm90 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be difficult to prove active collusion, its more like institutionalized collusion, and I doubt that's a crime. e.g. the same consulting firms are hired by all companies, and they will give the same advice when dealing with falling revenues, plunging stock prices etc.

> It would be difficult to prove active collusion Unless an IT admin stumbles across some interesting emails...

A story I heard long ago when I was a contractor at Sun about the default settings for bounced email in sendmail (this was likely the early 90s when it happened - I heard it in '97).

At one time, messages that bounced were sent to postmaster - possibly in hopes back then (when things were smaller) that the postmaster would know who it should have been sent to and pass the email on.

One of the night shift sysadmins who was responsible for postmaster at Sun got an email that was misaddressed between a few manager+ level people for what would be considered constructed dismissal of a number of people.

The following day, the people mentioned in that email found a printout on their chairs.

... and a change request when in to only include the headers(?) of the email message to postmaster rather than the body.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#100

Post by arcticbull »

tukantje wrote: post #80
arcticbull wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing to do with cheap money, tech companies are some of the most profitable and revenue efficient companies in history.

For the love of lord please keep saying this. Because it is true. And because I am sick and tired of this self hate of "inflated salaries". Jesus, we are working in one of the most profitable industries, whatever we build tends to be a long term force multiplier, and somehow a large portion of the sector thinks our earnings are inflated. The earnings of a hedge fund manager who makes 1.5 million pounds a day is infla…

I think folks really lose perspective. Apple has a revenue per employee of $2,375,435 and that includes the janitorial staff. [1]

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/217489/revenue-per-emplo...

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