Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#171

Post by sjg007 » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 2:29 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #127

49531 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The degree of organization needed depends on the circumstances Not as much as you might think. Militant labor unions are still extremely beneficial despite the lack of Pinkerton assassins. The hardest part in organizing is going from 0 to 1. Once you've gotten to the point of collective action, the idea that you don't then go on to form a union is as wild as a startup building an MVP, getting funding, and then just…

Fun fact: Pinkerton is still around and is "the world's leading provider of corporate risk management solutions" [0]. Companies regularly hire Pinkerton muscle to handle "security threats" related to union organizing. Interestingly, even Google retains Pinkerton to investigate internal leaks [1]. [0] https://www.pinkerton.com/ [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-neve...

You’d think Pinkerton would have rebranded.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#172

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 2:30 AM UTC

dtech wrote: post #33

riffraff wrote: post #19

Why isn't forced arbitration illegal? You're effectively agreeing to renounce to your rights to sue a company. Seems odd that US laws allows that. Or, is the clause only that arbitration has to be attempted but not binding to the fact that an agreement may be reached? This case would seem far less evil.

Arbitration comes from agreements on how to settle future disputes being legal [1]. If two company agree to settle through a chess match between their CEOs instead of suing, by all means let them. This is obviously problematic in cases where there is a significant power discrepancy (employee-employer, producer-consumer etc), or where arbitrators are paid by a single party. Despite this, US suspreme court has held tha…

I'd argue any contract is problematic if there is both a significant power discrepancy between the parties, and the terms are non-negotiable (take it or leave it).

When I think of the word "contract" I don't picture two companies with a meeting of the minds, on equal footing, settling something. Instead I associate the word with a hammer that a powerful company uses to smash a relatively powerless individual--because that's the only kind of contract 99% of us will ever be party to.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#173

Post by xkcd-sucks » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 2:36 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #27

ChuckMcM wrote: post #10

Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-) I'm really glad to hear that Google made this step, now if they would drop the overly expansive ownership claim in their employment agreement and the right to surveillance on personal property it would be a much more employee friendly place. I also hope that it gives them an edge in hiring which wou…

>> overly expansive ownership claim Yeah, that particular clause gave me a looong pause before signing their contract, in fact I even seriously considered taking one of the other offers I had. This is why you see all those "happens to be owned by Google" disclaimers on open source projects. This means the person wrote this code on their own time, yet it's owned by Google anyway, which IMO is total employee-hostile bu…

Imagine if Google Reader or Wave had been your personal side project and one day it just happened to catch the eye of the wrong businessperson

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#174

Post by jeffdavis » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #171

scarmig wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: Pinkerton is still around and is "the world's leading provider of corporate risk management solutions" [0]. Companies regularly hire Pinkerton muscle to handle "security threats" related to union organizing. Interestingly, even Google retains Pinkerton to investigate internal leaks [1]. [0] https://www.pinkerton.com/ [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-neve...

You’d think Pinkerton would have rebranded.

Perhaps it's still an effective brand in their target market?

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#175

Post by m0zg » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 2:53 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #153

m0zg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to not quite get this, so I'll try to be as clear as I can. Google should not have the ability to claim ownership on unrelated work that does not use company time or resources unless _I_ _voluntarily_ relinquish such ownership. Google should have no business whatsoever interfering with what I do on my own personal time. Nor should I have to make anything open source. Nor should I need to ask anyone's _per…

The key point is "if you can demonstrate that your project doesn't compete with Google's business" IARC is really easy. I was approved for a couple projects, including one that absolutely could be considered to be competing with Google's business if they wanted, in like a week. You aren't actually legally required to go through IARC. The contract isn't enforcible in CA if you really don't compete, but I have prewritt…

I take issue with the very idea that anything I do in my personal, uncompensated time is required to be vetted or approved by anybody. Google's "earned" a swift kick in the rear in this context.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#176

Post by m0zg » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 2:54 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #106

m0zg wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand. Google claims ownership even on the stuff that you do on _your own_ time, like nights and weekends, without using _any_ Google resources. Even if this stuff is in no way related to what you do at work.

> You don't understand. Yes I do. > Google claims ownership even on the stuff that you do on _your own_ time, like nights and weekend On what basis, as a salaried employee paid for work output and not time-at-a-place, are evenings and weekends described as “your own time” any more than any other time?

>> On what basis

On the basis that the contract says "40 hours a week". I don't owe the employer jack beyond that.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#177

Post by gpm » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 3:10 AM UTC

srkmno wrote: post #52

Whatever your thoughts about arbitration there is no denying that it's the quicker and cheaper method, what this unfortunate development accomplishes is enlarging the pool of well to do clients and plaintiffs for the lawyers to exploit. In a related note: organized labor almost killed the US car industry, when economical foreign cars got popular, domestic car companies couldn't quickly make the necessary adjustments…

> there is no denying that it's the quicker and cheaper method

Yes there is. One of the primary motiations some companies have for forcing abitration is to make claims that would usually be covered by class actions prohibitively expensive to pursue. Recently that has backfired for Uber with 12,500 individual actions being filed against them [0].

Also, when arbitrators actual go ahead and do things properly with discovery and all, the costs can be greater than court because instead of the taxpayers paying for the judge the parties in the suit do, e.g. [1].

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/legal-us-otc-uber/forced-int...

[1] https://www.employmentclassactionreport.com/flsa/eleventh-ci...

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#178

Post by kcorbitt » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 3:15 AM UTC

danans wrote: post #95

ChuckMcM wrote: post #10

Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-) I'm really glad to hear that Google made this step, now if they would drop the overly expansive ownership claim in their employment agreement and the right to surveillance on personal property it would be a much more employee friendly place. I also hope that it gives them an edge in hiring which wou…

> Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-) I think part of the problem is that we non-organized workers (i.e. most tech workers and our similar peers) have accepted the unfortunate media-fueled trope that collective worker action equates to organized-crime connected unions like those of the Hoffa-period Teamsters. Unfortunately, many white…

> many white collar workers also don't want to be associated with the image of people in hard hats, even though their power relationship with their employers is not that different from those of blue collar workers

I'm not sure that it's reasonable to bucket the bargaining position of all white-collar workers together. The negotiating strength of an employee is strongly tied to the supply and demand of other workers with a similar skillset, which varies widely within "white collar" industries.

> Acknowledging this would mean acknowledging the existence structural impediments to their career advancement that make the chances of their entering the C-suite very low, and that's a bitter pill to swallow.

No amount of collective action is going to significantly increase an individual worker's chance of making it into the C-suite. It's a simple question of numbers.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#179

Post by FactolSarin » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 3:16 AM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #174

sjg007 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d think Pinkerton would have rebranded.

Perhaps it's still an effective brand in their target market?

This. Their customers are buying into the brand.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#180

Post by goostavos » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 3:18 AM UTC

shawkinaw wrote: post #169

danans wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow, you mean collective employee action can be used to force an employer to stop exploitative behaviors? Who knew? :-) I think part of the problem is that we non-organized workers (i.e. most tech workers and our similar peers) have accepted the unfortunate media-fueled trope that collective worker action equates to organized-crime connected unions like those of the Hoffa-period Teamsters. Unfortunately, many white…

All you have to do is try to run a conference in Chicago to see how bad unions can make things though. Sorry, you can’t plug that in, only a card-carrying electrician is allowed to do that! And he’s on break. My point here is that unions have done plenty to make a bad name for themselves, blaming everything on the media is simplistic.

>only a card-carrying electrician is allowed to do that!

Had I not experienced it directly (multiple times!), I would 100% think it was hyperbole.

My first 'real' job was flying around and recording conferences for a little shop. Chicago and Philly were by far the worst places to work. I was literally not allowed to plug my little hand held recorder into the wall without paying for a qualified union electrician to come in and oversee me.

Ignoring the over absurdity of it, on a personal level, how is it not completely embarrassing and demeaning for the electrician that gets called in? Is watching somebody plug in a cell phone charger fulfilling? I mean, I guess getting paid is getting paid, but damn, it just felt Kafkaesque every time. You take someone with talent and an actually useful trade, and then you make them watch other people plug things into wall sockets.