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Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

reuters.com

181–190 of 199 posts

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#181
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are just sick of corporations causing havoc in our lives. Corporations have brought most of us ridiculous amounts of prosperity.

That's what they'd like to believe! Corporations didn't build the interstate network, provide stable economic conditions, or create a literate, educated workforce.

They generated the wealth that people paid taxes from to fund those things. You think any of that stuff is free?

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entitlement is off the charts. People have completely lost perspective on how money is made and where they fit into the money making machine.

Counter-point: The money-making machine exists to serve people, not the other way around.

Serve the shareholders. Not employees, and certainly not the government of the UK.

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on your statement for dummies? (Only if your argument isn't companies exist only to maximize profit, that one I understand and reject).

The idea that companies only exist to make money for the owners/shareholders is not a law of nature. Heck it’s not even a very old idea but is probably about 50 years old. The fact that so many commenters here seem to think it’s akin to a law of nature is an absolutely fascinating study in the effectiveness of propaganda.

Slavery being bad is also not a law of nature. It's an agreed upon convention in society though. Ideas don't have to be intrinsically true for them to be powerful and acted on.

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#184
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. There are two points to this 1. There's explicit legislation around moving a role to another company (TUPE regulations) 2. Just because the role goes doesn't mean that that employee needs to leave. You may instead want to let a different employee go and shift the one whose role has disappeared over.

Nitpick. In practice, your employer do away with your role. You're made redundant. It's a simple downsizing.

It's not a nitpick it's a key difference between removing a role and removing a person specifically. I've definitely seen roles go and people move internally while other people go. It's an important legal distinction.

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#185

the thread below is really peak HN - a beautiful mix of people who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about (having not read the article or union press release or looked into UK employment law) alongside sociopaths suggesting employees should never demand anything or act as a group.

Of course employees should fight for their interests. But the way they're doing it here just strikes me as naive and without leverage they're unlikely to be successful.

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#186
post #31

Memories of working for Glu London after they got taken over by EA. We had the consultation process, of course it was a foregone conclusion. As others mentioned, in the UK (for now) you eliminate roles, not people - this means you can't just shift a role to another cheaper country. I was training someone to do exactly my job in China, but it somehow wasn't the same role. The team I was in wasn't treated as badly as s…

> As others mentioned, in the UK (for now) you eliminate roles, not people - this means you can't just shift a role to another cheaper country. Of course you can. If you shift a role from the UK office to the Bangalore office you have made that role redundant in the UK and can layoff the employee...

I believe salaries in the UK are pretty much on par with salaries in Bangalore these days?

Edit:- for FAANG

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#187
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what they'd like to believe! Corporations didn't build the interstate network, provide stable economic conditions, or create a literate, educated workforce.

They generated the wealth that people paid taxes from to fund those things. You think any of that stuff is free?

Are you under the impression that taxes and came after capitalism?

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you do actually want access to the French market so you will likely need employees in France.

You hire the bare minimum. Also, the French market is within the EU/EEA, so there's always Switzerland right next door (plus CH also supports German and Italian markets so you can merge your DACH, Francophone, and Italian operations in one country).

I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch). This goes for all countries.

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hire the bare minimum. Also, the French market is within the EU/EEA, so there's always Switzerland right next door (plus CH also supports German and Italian markets so you can merge your DACH, Francophone, and Italian operations in one country).

I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch). This goes for all countries.

Does France not have income taxes? Taxing the income of Google engineers seems fairly attractive to me.

Re: Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hire the bare minimum. Also, the French market is within the EU/EEA, so there's always Switzerland right next door (plus CH also supports German and Italian markets so you can merge your DACH, Francophone, and Italian operations in one country).

I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch). This goes for all countries.

> I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch).

Some jobs are location dependent (e.g. plumber). Some jobs are location independent (e.g. software engineer).

While it's true that globally, a company will hire a minimum number of total jobs, most countries would prefer that as many high paying, location independent jobs be done within their borders.

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