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Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

theguardian.com

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Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#171

Post by pertymcpert »

cylde_frog wrote: post #146
ffggvv wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sometimes you just need someone who can write super simple scripts to help process/clean some data or do grunt work that none of the devs want to do. And sometimes this need is just temporary for 4 months etc. I wouldn't waste a google dev's on grunt work that any coder could do.

It's funny how arrogant you seem to have gotten working at Google. Looking through your post history a couple of years ago you were doing grunt work you would see as below you now. The belief that all Google employees are doing hard innovative work is untrue. A large portion are centering divs and wrangling JSON.

Hey now...this is Google we're talking about.

They're wrangle protobufs.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#172

Post by spaetzleesser »

darthvoldemort wrote: post #157

I find it odd that Google is so proud of the fact that it plans on recycling all its power and is spending so much on being carbon neutral, but can't have the common decency to pay people for the work they did. They have a misplaced sense of morality.

The being carbon neutral thing is way cheaper than paying people and produces nice PR. Same for diversity stuff. Companies jump on that because it's cheap.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#173

Post by specialist »

worik wrote: post #56
beepbooptheory wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not really "dangerous" only because that wording implies another state of possible affairs that could be safer. unfortunately, ceteris paribus, the tendency of a rate of profit to ultimately slow is one of the costs of a free market, there is not really a way out of it long term!

Where is this thing called "Free Market"?

I was recently reminded that Milton Friedman -- profit, err, prophet of Freedom Markets™ -- actively eschewed empiricism.

It's not that these sages didn't understand. They refused. They actively rejected understanding.

Our epistemological crisis, where we don't even have a shared reality, has ancient roots.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#175

Post by trhway »

AlbertCory wrote: post #37

Personal Googler story: In Ads and in Search, at least as of 2010 or so, Google employed independent companies who hired "raters" to provide "ground truth" for the ML systems. For example, they would rate proposed ads for a given query, so that the ML system could learn from their "truth". For Search, they'd rate proposed search results for a given query. There was a whole pipeline to bring in the raters' results and…

in CA if subcontractor or supplier don't get paid, even if there is an intermediate contractor layer[s], they still can put a lien on the property. I think it make sense to have a similar system for subcontractor employees to be able to go after the company which their labor was ultimately consumed by thus piercing the liability defense-in-depth layers made up of subcontractor company[ies] . That would make companies like Google to really care what kind of subcontractor they use similarly to how one takes great care choosing contractor for their property.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#176

Post by seanmcdirmid »

pembrook wrote: post #52

My question is, if it's so advantageous to employ people via onsite staffing firms (basically half of FAANG's workforce is employed this way), why doesn't Google stop directly employing people altogether? Without fail, if it's a giant publicly-traded company, a huge percentage of the workforce will always be onsite vendors. It seems so bizarrely arbitrary where they decide to hire direct vs. contract. And I'm not tal…

The idea is that you employ for your competency and value add, and outsource the rest. So core R&D should be in house headed by a VP of engineering, janitorial services can be outsourced not headed by a VP of cleaning the offices. In the early days, outsourcing wasn’t done, so janitors were included in those earlier Microsoft millionaires.

In a way it makes sense: you want to focus your effort on producing your product, not on the best way to clean your office. The company you outsource to can focus on that, where they make their own profit serving multiple companies. Sometimes you don’t have a choice (eg foreign companies in some countries have to contract with specific firms to do their security, they can’t have it in house).

The line gets blurry for jobs that approach the core competency of the company. So rather than janitors, should people doing grunt training classification be in house or not? Cases can be made either way, I guess. The outsourcing company probably can’t specialize in that, and they are just providing bodies at that point.

There are some weird rules about benefits that companies can only offer if they offer to all employees. So one tech company that doesn’t employ lots of its own warehouse staff (I’ll let you guess) can’t offer as good as health insurance as one that doesn’t.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#177

Post by cbzbc »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #112
bjohnson225 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather odd as in the UK id expect to get paid a lot more as a contractor for the same roll as a FTE As a software dev/management contractor, sure, but as a “self-employed Yodel delivery driver” or similar low skill role? (Which it seems to be in this case)

In the UK it’s fairly common for SWEs to also work on a contractor basis (but they own their own personal company which contracts directly with the contracting company’s HR dept: no bodyshops or consulting firms are involved in this particular style of employment). This happens a lot because of how the UK’s tax-law is set-up (by accident, not by-design, though). ———————- Outside of the games industry, the UK’s been l…

I’d concur with your assessment of British management culture and the class reasons for why it occurs. Ironically this kind of thing is also the reason why the U.K. has never produced a peer to any of the FAANGs

I think if you reify CP Snows thesis through the lens of the class system it turns out to be mostly correct.

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#178

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

dekhn wrote: post #63

It continues to impress me that Google says it hires smart people, trains them not to put incriminating evidence in emails (really), and then hires managers who then put an entire chain into email (probably also archived as a group) and get the company written up on the front page of the NY Times (the very criteria they try to scare you with).

Just remember, for every screwup like this there's 100x more nefarious deeds that were properly kept secret.

I'm curious about what happened to the employees who complained about the dark patterns to prevent disabling location tracking. Clearly management knew this dysfunction was all by design and was smart enough not to write it down. If you're too user focused do you get sidelined and pushed out?

Re: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers

#179

Post by ak217 »

pembrook wrote: post #73
ffggvv wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the engineers etc i’ve worked with that were contractors were far worse and way below normal google hiring bar. sorry if that’s not PC but it’s the truth. if they could get hired at actual google they would’ve done it. hell, if they could get hired as a SWE at a comparable firm they would do that instead of taking a massive pay cut to be a contractor

That's ironic then, because a huge percentage of the full-time employees at FAANG are actually former contractors who've been converted. So that would suggest a large chunk of their full-time employees are sub-par. And that still doesn't answer the question--why hire anybody directly at all? If you're so much better than the other contractors, they could just pay you higher rates. It'd be the same thing.

I am familiar with this process at most of the companies in question. No, it is not a huge percentage; to the contrary, it's very difficult for contractors to become full-time employees.
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