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Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#11

Post by izzydata »

endisneigh wrote: post #7
sanxiyn wrote: post #2

Unions don't suck, Google sucks.

If Google does indeed suck, wouldn’t employees leave for a company that doesn’t? I wonder what the attrition looks like

Not if they are unaware of how things might be elsewhere. If they have only ever worked at Google out of college they could have no idea that things suck.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#12

Post by 0xbadc0de5 »

Having worked for both union and non-union employers - it's a mixed bag. Unions have advantages and disadvantages. They are great for worker representation - but that's a double-edged sword. Ideally, unions protects worker's interests. In practice, they often lead to abuse, stagnation and corruption. I've personally witnessed union employees who contributed nothing for years, get perpetually shifted from team to team to team and even promoted because it was too complex and costly to fire them. I've seen union stewards padding their own pockets with members dues through lavish "retreats" to five-star resorts. We must not forget that unions are made up of people - and people can be awful.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#14

Post by Zigurd »

sanxiyn wrote: post #3

Learn from South Korea: all top tech companies are unionized. #1 search engine (Naver), #1 messenger (Kakao), #1 game company (Nexon), etc.

I saw a picket line in Korea while I was there on business. It gave the impression that unionization is pretty robust there. It wasn't at a tech company, as far as I could tell. But I would not try to cross that picket line.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#15

Post by bhaavan »

izzydata wrote: post #11
endisneigh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google does indeed suck, wouldn’t employees leave for a company that doesn’t? I wonder what the attrition looks like

Not if they are unaware of how things might be elsewhere. If they have only ever worked at Google out of college they could have no idea that things suck.

It's hard to believe that people working in one of the most seek-ed/desired jobs in the Valley / tech world, are unaware of how things might be elsewhere.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#16

Post by eternalban »

nvr219 wrote: post #6
seany wrote: post #4

Unions do suck, so that shouldn't be too hard of a job.

They do, and they're still better than no union. It's all relative.

Leadership structure and bureaucracy are the basic problems of all organizations. Empowered executive and operational roles with non-sticky seats subject to collective input would work. But the problem remains the human element and dynamics of group pyschology.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#17

Post by 0xbadc0de5 »

A related topic would be collective bargaining - which is often (but not always) associated with a unionized workplace. If you're a sub-standard employee, you win big through collective bargaining because pay bands will move toward the mean. If however, you are a high-performer, you will likely be under-compensated in a collective bargaining environment because your excess effort will be used to compensate those who contribute less. In a non-collective workplace, you will be evaluated and compensated on your personal contribution and negotiation skills.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#19

Post by krageon »

bhaavan wrote: post #15
izzydata wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if they are unaware of how things might be elsewhere. If they have only ever worked at Google out of college they could have no idea that things suck.

It's hard to believe that people working in one of the most seek-ed/desired jobs in the Valley / tech world, are unaware of how things might be elsewhere.

People still work for Amazon, so we can be sure it is nevertheless true that some people don't know how good things could be for them.

Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”

#20

Post by nosequel »

endisneigh wrote: post #7
sanxiyn wrote: post #2

Unions don't suck, Google sucks.

If Google does indeed suck, wouldn’t employees leave for a company that doesn’t? I wonder what the attrition looks like

Money.

As soon as a lot of people leave a team or location in Google, Google responds by giving everyone bonuses. When a bunch of people started quitting from the Boulder office a few (5?) years back, they offered to send everyone on a trip to Hawaii.

Google's Do No Evil has been gone for a long while, but people stick around because they are making so much goddamn money.

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