Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#301

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

kilgnad wrote: post #223

tracker1 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mixed bag... when your near the ceiling for a given area, it's harder to think about scaling back. These past few months in tech have been really reminding me of the .com bust in 2000-2002, where a lot of the big tech companies scaled back, others fell over (mostly coastal areas) and about a year later it hit secondary cities (Phoenix, SLC, Houston, etc)... I was pretty much unable to find anything for about 6…

>It's a mixed bag... when your near the ceiling for a given area, it's harder to think about scaling back. A union doesn't necessarily have to negotiate maximum ceiling salaries. It doesn't have to negotiate salaries at all. It can just be an entity to prevent the company from letting you go just because the numbers look 2% better. I think the best of both worlds is when the union only negotiates a minimum salary.

I've thought for a while that a more formal guild would be a good approach for software developers... My fear is that it would become a certification/credential machine.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#302

Post by flavius29663 » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

GoToRO wrote: post #18

xt00 wrote: post #15

Would be interesting to see if there is a strong relationship between the companies doing layoffs and the companies who did WFH en masse and might be thinking a layoff will “encourage” their compliance to come back to the office.

One company did exactlly that: everybody must be in the office in 3 weeks, 25% quit, no layoffs needed.

but did that help the stock prices? Layoffs boost stock prices, which I think is one of the main reasons why tech giants did that instead of just accelerating un-regretted attrition.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#303

Post by 5560675260 » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

kilgnad wrote: post #201

aeternum wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine how terrible it would be to be on a team with subpar engineers with some kind of tenure / union protection so they cannot be fired. I think this is a big reason tech workers are opposed to the idea.

I mean which do you prefer. Being on a team with terrible engineers, or getting layed off. Take your pick. It's not really a binary choice either. With unions it just increases the probability of you being on a team of terrible engineers while lowering the probability of you getting layed off. So the real question is which probability metric is more important to you and other engineers?

One of this scenarios would leave me without job, another one would push me to quit my job. Outcome is the same, but bad team is likely to cause a lot of frustration first.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#304

Post by chimeracoder » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #293

chimeracoder wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unemployment doesn’t show laid off employees who aren’t yet collecting unemployment benefits. That is not true. The fact that they are receiving severance does not change their classification as unemployed. The unemployment rate, which is calculated using a standard approach across the country, is completely unrelated to unemployment benefits, which are handled at the state level with a high degree of variation. In…

They're often kept on as employees to satisfy the WARN act. This isn't actually severance, and they're not actually unemployed at that point.

> They're often kept on as employees to satisfy the WARN act. This isn't actually severance, and they're not actually unemployed at that point.

No, BLS does consider them as unemployed.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#305

Post by zuminator » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

bushbaba wrote: post #153

JackFr wrote: post #86

So big tech has 220,000 layoffs and there is not the merest hint of a blip in the unemployment rate. This is not a tragedy - these people are going to find jobs, good jobs. In fact it's quite likely that they will go into roles which might do something other than online advertising. You know, something useful.

Unemployment doesn’t show laid off employees who aren’t yet collecting unemployment benefits. These tech workers got at least 60 days of severance thanks to the warn act.

Contrary to commonly held opinion, the unemployment rate isn't based on who's collecting unemployment.

It's based on people who for the following three criteria. They: 1) don't have a job, 2) have looked for a job within the previous four weeks, and 3) are available to work at the present time.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#306

Post by mjburgess » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

SantalBlush wrote: post #222

azemetre wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize more than a decade ago a cartel of tech companies (two of which being Google and Apple) literally had no poach agreements in order to suppress salaries right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

But GP is incredulous about that, because a no-poach agreement would imply that they're sitting behind a desk and stroking a cat. That's an absurd thing to picture, so by the GP's logic, those no-poach agreements didn't exist. QED.

Conclusive evidence of a conspiracy does, indeed, strongly evidence a conspiracy.

Alas, this hasn't much to do with the "no evidence of a conspiracy" case.

All no evidence evidences is no evidence. A point which seems widely misunderstood.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#307

Post by jeffwask » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

AlwaysRock wrote: post #175

Right before COVID-19 stay at home order in Chicago, a bunch of improvisers who preformed at the popular i.o theater put together a list of demands which basically asked for a bunch of changes to make the lives of performers better. They were not going to perform until those changes were made. The owner didnt respond for a few days and then said, "Hey! Heard you. Great valid concerns. But I'm actually shutting the th…

This is why I think Executives are terrified of remote work. If the local theater doesn't want to meet my demand I have a global theater and someone will be always willing to leverage their competitive advantage to secure talent that would typically not be in their talent pool. People are no longer trapped by their geography or situation and Executives are terrified of losing that control.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#308

Post by efitz » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:49 PM UTC

efitz wrote: post #294

The article didn’t do a very good job providing evidence to make the case for its premise that big tech is trying to keep employees afraid. Overall I think the article itself was a poorly written screed that just threw in lots of anecdotes and assertions but didn’t really have any meat to it. For example, what do climate change etc have to do with unionization? Unions are supposed to be vehicles for worker protection…

Why the downvote?

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#309

Post by carapace » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

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…

Not only that. I always bring up that big "no poaching" collusion among the big tech companies. By some estimates they managed to keep around eight billion dollars that would have gone to employees.

Pando had good coverage: https://web.archive.org/web/20200304045453/https://pando.com...

I used to think that we didn't need unions, until that came up.

It's been asked, how would unions have helped with that, and I don't know, but it seems like there's some room for improvement somehow.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#310

Post by ianbutler » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

0x457 wrote: post #292

ianbutler wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? It's like not even 10% of the swe workforce. If this crushes you, you had no power to begin with. It's more like a reminder of that fact. It's all BS though, stocks are back to 2019 levels, one of the highest periods ever, in a field where there's still not enough bodies for all the jobs. I'm pretty sure that leverage hasn't changed. Fundamentally however, the success of this role will not last. It's just a m…

It doesn't need to be a large chunk. It generates headlines like "XXk laid-off in big name tech company that is has plenty of cash" That creates the idea of job-insecurity in others.

No offense, but if that's all it takes to cow someone, again, they never had real power, so nothing to crush.

My point is, this shouldn't be all it takes to make people insecure about their position.