Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck” • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by jeromegv » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

yowlingcat wrote: post #72

dccoolgai wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People _can_ be awful. I've seen founders, managers and execs bleed people dry - squeezing the life out of critical contributors whole stringing them along with promised of "getting their piece of the pie" that they had no intention of ever sharing. Telling anecdotes about "that one lazy guy who got paid for doing nothing" is tired. We've done that for the last 40 years. Time to try unions again, please.

Not saying I disagree with the idea of "trying unions again" but by your own admission, isn't 'telling anecdotes about "that one lazy guy who got paid for doing nothing"' something that you call tired? What's to say that founders, managers and execs bleeding people dry isn't also something equally "tired" given that in today's labor market, any such leadership will bleed out talent that will vote with their feet for…

For most people in lower wage jobs, the ability to switch job and vote with their feet is a lot more complicated than it is for tech workers. The balance of power is firmly on the employer side, yes even today with labor shortages. I'm sure you read about those amazon workers being blown up by tornados being denied the ability to go home. "They could have switched jobs!" shouldn't be the default answer.

So yes, pros and cons with unions, but let's not forget where the balance of power is right now.

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

#152

Post by VirusNewbie » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

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.

Is that why their software is so good? Is that why they have better work life balance and higher pay?

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

#153

Post by everdrive » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #114

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #12

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…

These can all be true things. But could you imagine if we spoke about corporations in this manner? "I've worked for corporations and they are a mixed bag. In practice, they often abuse their employees. I've personally witnessed bosses who contributed nothing for years and just played politics." For some reason we hold unions to an incredibly high standard of "no problems, ever" but this is never used to discourage al…

> But could you imagine if we spoke about corporations in this manner? "I've worked for corporations and they are a mixed bag. In practice, they often abuse their employees. I've personally witnessed bosses who contributed nothing for years and just played politics."

We definitely talk about corporations in this way. All the time, in fact!

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

#154

Post by geofft » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #100

brightstep wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unions are about workers, not investors

In tech almost all workers are heavily invested in their companies.

Which is an anti-labor-power strategy.

If you consider the case of publicly-traded employers (there's a different argument for pre-exit startups that comes out to a similar conclusion): they could give you your compensation entirely in cash, because shares are pretty liquid. And you could buy stock in your own employer. But very few people think that's a good idea, because now you have correlated risk across your own actual job (both continued employment and things like the ability of the company to give large bonuses/raises) and your investments. So the company effectively forces you to buy some of their stock and not sell it for some period of time. You know exactly how much you're forced to buy because, again, the company is publicly traded and you know what that's worth; you just get it in illiquid form.

So, by giving you part of your compensation in this funny form instead of in normal cash, they get you to feel internally conflicted about policies that improve your cash compensation (and other intangible benefits) at the expense of a theoretical drop in your funny-cash compensation. That doesn't benefit you (even if you were the sort of person who wanted to invest in your own employer, you're still free to do that on your own if you want, so forcing you to do it is at best equivalent to giving you the option), but it does massively benefit the people who own way more shares in the company than you ever will.

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

#155

Post by CreateAccntAgn » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

tnel77 wrote: post #129

UncleMeat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These can all be true things. But could you imagine if we spoke about corporations in this manner? "I've worked for corporations and they are a mixed bag. In practice, they often abuse their employees. I've personally witnessed bosses who contributed nothing for years and just played politics." For some reason we hold unions to an incredibly high standard of "no problems, ever" but this is never used to discourage al…

I am very pro-union, but I feel like a part of situation you are describing is because we needs businesses. We don’t necessarily need unions. Without unions, businesses would still be here. Without businesses, where would the unions be? Edit: I would like to reiterate that I am pro-union. I am just saying that unions are optional, but businesses (or the government as some have pointed out) are more necessary from the…

The are police and other public sector unions. The point of unions is to protect labor interests. Unions can exist as long as labor does.

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

#156

Post by steffandroid » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

tnel77 wrote: post #129

UncleMeat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These can all be true things. But could you imagine if we spoke about corporations in this manner? "I've worked for corporations and they are a mixed bag. In practice, they often abuse their employees. I've personally witnessed bosses who contributed nothing for years and just played politics." For some reason we hold unions to an incredibly high standard of "no problems, ever" but this is never used to discourage al…

I am very pro-union, but I feel like a part of situation you are describing is because we needs businesses. We don’t necessarily need unions. Without unions, businesses would still be here. Without businesses, where would the unions be? Edit: I would like to reiterate that I am pro-union. I am just saying that unions are optional, but businesses (or the government as some have pointed out) are more necessary from the…

You know unions also operate in the public and non-profit sectors, right?

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

#157

Post by cool_dude85 » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

CountSessine wrote: post #137

kubb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone could get a better comp and work conditions but noo, that one lazy guy won't be fired, we can't have that!

If the company's in a competitive market, it's unlikely that there's a huge pot of gold somewhere to hand to employees in operations. The whole value-add for unions lately has been pitched as better employee representation in decision making. I'm all for that - if that stops management from colluding with some hedge fund to engineer an awful reverse-buyback-privitazation scheme to load the company with unservicable d…

>If the company's in a competitive market, it's unlikely that there's a huge pot of gold somewhere to hand to employees in operations.

Here in the US, corporations all over are making record profits! Buying back shares like never before! Unless you want to play definition games about what a "competitive market" is, plenty of companies in competitive markets have big pots of gold to hand to employees.

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

#158

Post by gunapologist99 » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #109

gunapologist99 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! these are not the only stories I could tell, but just two picked at random.

Willing to be convinced == I am willing to here your logic here. This is still just anecdotes with no connection other than that some people can suck

You're right, it's just anecdata, but literally I have a dozen stories like that and almost (not quite) zero countervailing stories.

My experience with unions is that they start out with noble intentions, and then within a generation or two of union leaders devolve into just serving themselves; meanwhile, management suffers with worse and worse employees, because they can't do anything to get rid of the bad apples. Over time, the bad apples bring in more bad apples and things get progressively worse. That can happen in a non-union company, too, but then it'll get punished by the market.

It's really a question of misaligned incentives; the union reps have no incentive to do anything to help the company, and often have incentives to do the exact opposite, like initiate a strike at the worst possible time.

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

#159

Post by pydry » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

tnel77 wrote: post #129

UncleMeat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These can all be true things. But could you imagine if we spoke about corporations in this manner? "I've worked for corporations and they are a mixed bag. In practice, they often abuse their employees. I've personally witnessed bosses who contributed nothing for years and just played politics." For some reason we hold unions to an incredibly high standard of "no problems, ever" but this is never used to discourage al…

I am very pro-union, but I feel like a part of situation you are describing is because we needs businesses. We don’t necessarily need unions. Without unions, businesses would still be here. Without businesses, where would the unions be? Edit: I would like to reiterate that I am pro-union. I am just saying that unions are optional, but businesses (or the government as some have pointed out) are more necessary from the…

>We don’t necessarily need unions.

I guess we dont necessarily need child labor laws or the weekend...

Remember when the cacophony of calls to "End the Olympics Now" when the IOC was found to be grossly corrupt? No, me neither. The investor owned media called for reform. As it will for literally any other institution.

Tennis is necessary.

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

#160

Post by dqv » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #127

dqv wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s clearly not an argument against unions, only a reminder that they’re corruptible just like any other organization.

I wouldn't say "just like any other organization." Most organizations are authoritarian and workers have literally zero say in the operations at the top. Unions are democratically controlled. This introduces a meaningful difference in corruptibility.

Yes, I don’t mean to say it’s organized just like any other organization, but that it is still susceptible to corruption. Which, again, is not an argument against unions, only something to recognize when organizing and being a member of one.