Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 469 posts

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#361

Post by throwaway23597 »

bbor wrote: post #199
throwaway23597 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is online advertising not useful? It's directly greasing the gears of the economy, matching up potential customers with businesses in a reasonably intelligent way. Yeah, sure, it's not saving the world from climate change or something, but it's clearly facilitating economic activity, and also helps keep a number of very useful products free. Seems pretty useful to our society to me.

Don’t you think a catalog would do a better job of matching up consumers to products? Given our environmental situation, is it really ethical to “convince” people that they need some new thing that they previously didn’t know about or want? Re: keeping stuff free, that’s still pretty convincing and it’s mostly what keeps me going as I work on the great google ad machine. It seems like a massive social good for sites…

It's not like we DON'T have a catalog though. Amazon exists. The problem is that there is such a deluge of products that it becomes difficult to choose. That's where advertising can help.

As for the environmental situation, it is unfortunate. But I do believe that the only realistic way out of the climate crisis without a collapse-level drop in standard of living (read: starvation) is technological innovation, a process that seems to be aided a lot by a healthy economy (which results in stable livelihoods, etc). So I'd say if anything there's a moral imperative to keep the economy as healthy and productive as possible.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#362

Post by Firmwarrior »

sokoloff wrote: post #328
jimbob45 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is weird because they now have more control than ever in reality. Previously, if you headed up a tech firm in Wyoming, for example, your talent pool was the set of all the residents in Wyoming. You'd struggle to retain your top-end talent and you probably had to overpay to get them to stick around. Even worse, you probably had to donate to the University of Wyoming (read: bribe) to get them to train their stude…

That firm in Wyoming already had the ability to hire remotely 5 and 10 years ago. All they had to do was decide to do it.

I guess there's more remote work talent and more remote work culture around now though

Everyone learned (the hard way) how to be productive while working remotely

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#363

Post by buildbot »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #13
eyphka wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which is completely absurd if you bother doing 20 seconds of math? The reason Apple didn't do a mass layoff is because they didn't overhire during 2021/2022. Like most articles from the LA Times, this seems like complete BS as usual.

35 million in cut pay is at 300K per worker, ~116 people. That's 0.07%, which while not 5%, certainly is not nothing.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#364

Post by sassyonsunday »

Supermancho wrote: post #121
sassyonsunday wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody saw an end to the good times in sight. I've hopped jobs about 5 times in my career and saw a 20-30% pay raise each time. What incentive existed to unionize in that environment? Unionization only makes sense if you think the good times won't last.

> I've hopped jobs about 5 times in my career and saw a 20-30% pay raise each time > What incentive existed to unionize in that environment? These situations are not incompatible. > Unionization only makes sense if you think the good times won't last. "Good times" is a soft term that translates to "when the employer's short term goals line up with your specific employee goals"...ostensibly to keep getting paid those…

Sure. I was just sharing my POV as someone who never cared about unionization and works in the industry. I associated unions with manufacturing and filmmaking. It didn't occur to me that they would be a good thing for software engineers since we seemed to be treated extremely well already. I also never trusted people who spoke about unions because I figured they may have ulterior motives, like placing themselves in a position of power by acting as a middleman between myself and the companies that pay me so that they could take a cut.

I'm not saying what I felt was true. It was just my instinct and because I was already richer than my wildest dreams (I come from a lower middle class background) so I didn't care to overthink it. An "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks this way and since unions require popular support it's a data point toward understanding why software engineering unions aren't widespread.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#365

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #329
bbor wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re applying a “conspiratorial” vibe that isn’t necessary - employers are naturally incentivized to keep employees insecure and underpaid (relative to what they’d be paid if they organized, at least). It sounds like you’re knowledgeable on these topics, so I’d be surprised if you disagreed with any of these assertions: 1. Big tech would be willing to burn billions of dollars to crush any chance of tech uni…

I don't think the parent was disagreeing with the fact that tech companies want to oppress workers, he's disagreeing that this specific instance wasn't motivated by oppression because there's a more straightforward financial incentive (ie. cutting spending on employees in light of macroeconomic conditions changing). An analogy from the flip side: I think it's reasonable to think that most consumers want to drive a ha…

[deleted]

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#366

Post by spaceman_2020 »

superfrank wrote: post #162
pwthornton wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech layoffs should work differently than most industries and may not impact unemployment as much. Big tech employees a lot of H1B visas holders. If they cannot quickly find a new job, they will have to leave the country.

On an individual level, I really feel bad for anyone put in that positions. I can't imagine how stressful that would be for anyone going through that. I wouldn't want anyone to go through that. Taking the emotion out of it and looking at a macro level though, I think the program has been abused by big tech to bring in workers who have less bargaining power and I'm all for it getting a bit of a reset. The purpose of t…

Eh, they always have the option of going back to their home countries and use their savings in a vastly stronger currency to tide by. Not to mention that most local markets are very happy to absorb ex-FAANG employees at inflated salaries.

5-8 years of FAANG wages is enough for someone to move back to, say, India, and retire.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#367

Post by ffggvv »

Agree with this but its less about unions and more about resetting the empoloyer/employee dynamic after a period of time the employees clearly had an upperhand. they are tired of allowing flexible work and giving 2 yoe people 300k. they want power back.

its not about evil-y stroking a cat, or meeting in a smoke filled room. its as easy as just reading the moment in time and taking advantage.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#368

Post by malfist »

mjburgess wrote: post #295
bbor wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re applying a “conspiratorial” vibe that isn’t necessary - employers are naturally incentivized to keep employees insecure and underpaid (relative to what they’d be paid if they organized, at least). It sounds like you’re knowledgeable on these topics, so I’d be surprised if you disagreed with any of these assertions: 1. Big tech would be willing to burn billions of dollars to crush any chance of tech uni…

Employers are incentivised to retain the employment of their staff, which given the existence of other companies , means they're strongly incentivised NOT to have their employees "insecure".

That's only true if there's no cost to the employee of changing jobs. And that's not true. Changing jobs is expensive and costly to the employee, especially in terms of time and stress.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#369

Post by sokoloff »

randomdata wrote: post #313
sokoloff wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way does it reduce freedom of association? In a right-to-work state, I am free to associate with employer X without a corresponding requirement to fund a union that I might not care to associate with. That combination seems to increase (or at least leave unchanged) my freedom of association. (Others who do wish to associate with that union are still free to do so, of course.)

> I am free to associate with employer X without a corresponding requirement to fund a union that I might not care to associate with. With freedom of association, a union and employer could reach a contractual agreement to require that all employees who enter into an association with the employer must pay into the union, regardless of membership status. Freedom of association allows an employer to reject those terms,…

It's a fair (if a bit unusual) interpretation to elevate the rights of association of the employer and union over the rights of association of natural persons.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#370

Post by gen220 »

pwthornton wrote: post #127
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.

Big tech layoffs should work differently than most industries and may not impact unemployment as much. Big tech employees a lot of H1B visas holders. If they cannot quickly find a new job, they will have to leave the country.

FWIW, most of the people laid off by big tech are technically employees until the expiration of their severance.

For example, Meta employees laid off in November are still technically Meta employees, as far as immigration is considered, and will remain so until 2023/02, at which point they will be formally terminated, and the H1B clock starts ticking (60 days).

That translates to 4-5 months to find your next H1B-sponsoring gig. It's an added layer of existential stress, but the lived experience isn't "I need to find a new job quickly or I will be deported" for H1B employees with common big-tech severance packages. While I don't want to diminish the psychological toll, it's helpful to understand that these severance packages have cushioned the intrinsic risk of working on an H1B visa significantly.

Post reply on HN