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Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

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Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#191

Post by free652 »

geggam wrote: post #162
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true, most people i talk to do not realise labour's share of income has been declining for 50 years straight. Here is a link by no other than the IMF: https://blogs.imf.org/2017/04/12/drivers-of-declining-labor-...

I am not in blue collar :) I make 6 figures a year in IT and cant keep up with what he made fixing washers

How can you be one medical emergency away? My max out of pocket is 7k, that covers pretty much any emergency. I already met this year and all procedures are free.

My wife had a brain surgery few years ago and our insurance company paid around 150k and we paid max OOP and not a cent more.

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#192

Post by CydeWeys »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #161
icelancer wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The culture between Italy and France is much closer than Italy and Algeria. For as much difference there is between the countries in Western Europe, there are far more similarities amongst them compared to other continents and larger regions. Counting Italians as "immigrants" is at the very least slightly misleading.

It is more misleading to count somebody as different who is second or third generation American and who has fully adapted American culture values and norms but count that person as more different to the host country due to different skin color or remote country of origin than a Spanish person whom just settled in Switzerland. The slightly racist assumption in America is that if I as a white Norwegian settle in Americ…

To be fair, this kind of diversity is important because in the US it still matters (very much!) what you look like on the outside, regardless of how long your ancestors have lived here. It'd be great to be in a post-racial society but we're very far from that.

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#193

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

vinay427 wrote: post #93
spectramax wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I feel like it’s cliche to hate on America these days. For those comparing Switzerland to USA, you’re comparing a highly homogeneous culture and highly optimized country to a land full of immigrants gathering in excess of 300 million. Americans criticize their own country more than anyone else. OP’s post not only misses the fact that Switzerland is not in the EU, but more importantly the spirit of argument is bas…

As someone now living in Switzerland, I've found it largely futile trying to explain anything about Switzerland to most non-Europeans. For starters, no one seems to bother with what countries are in the EU, let alone the EEA, let alone where Switzerland is in all of this. Apparently "everyone in Europe" has free government-paid healthcare and never has to pay for any medical expenses. I could go on...

Well, if you're willing to take one more shot at explaining the situation, I for one would be interested.

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#194

Post by ansidyskop »

mav3rick wrote: post #180
NelsonMinar wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Google have older workers? https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/07/23/google-set...

Yes they do. Many good experienced engineers.

I wonder how you define old and many.

If you're 36, you look around one day and realize you're the "old" dev. That's kind of the reality of the software industry, though. I moved into FAANG from a different engineering discipline, where engineers increase in value as they get older. In software, sadly, age isn't much of an asset. Most of what you spend your time learning today will be irrelevant in a few years.

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#195

Post by vanniv »

changoplatanero wrote: post #134
vkaku wrote: post #35

Call me a cynic, but Europe isn't the USA. There are a lot of countries in EU which have, IMO, better work culture and fairness of negotiation as the guiding philosophies behind the work. If Google did this in the USA, it wouldn't be seen as much. However, they have strong laws against this in EU, and this incident would not portray Google in favorable light, IMO. I also feel that it is high time engineers realized t…

Not all of us want a union

I would go one farther. I won't join a union, and I won't work in a union shop.

If my company goes union, I'll go work somewhere else.

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#196

Post by xckfs »

mscasts wrote: post #77

Google has become such a garbage company to be honest. Is anything they do nowadays good and honest? I think Google heavily needs to be split up.

Having worked at many large companies, I can honestly say that Google was the best behaved company of all of them, by far.

I think the difference is that Google has a relatively large contingent of "activist" type employees, and they're given a lot of latitude to speak their mind. When something bad happens, everybody hears about it because the employees are the ones shouting it loudest from the rooftops.

Their track record isn't perfect, and Dragonfly particularly strikes a chord with me. But other companies do worse, and you're just much less likely to hear about it.

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#197

Post by esoterica »

defen wrote: post #181
barry-cotter wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first part of your post (seniority-based rules, certifications, etc) shows a lack of imagination in terms of what a union can be. Precisely because unions are set up to treat members equally they negotiate for the benefit of the median member. Individual unions can fight against the incentives for a while, sure, but first in last out, seniority based pat and restricting entry to keep benefits concentrated among…

Professional sports, Hollywood writers, and Hollywood actors all have unions without seniority-based pay or restricted entry.

Professional sports absolutely have seniority based pay. Ever heard of rookie vs veteran contracts in the NFL?

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#198

Post by Apocryphon »

barry-cotter wrote: post #183
Apocryphon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still making the assumption that labor unions are inherently limited by human nature, and not worth attempting a v2. That goes against the SV ethos of tinkering with existing systems and reinventing them.

Labor unions are inherently limited by human nature because they’re made up of humans, not cats. They’re also limited by economic facts which would be the same if they were made of lizard people. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth attempting version 2 but there are very real constraints on what’s possible.

But you could say the same thing of the various industries and basic social practices that the tech industry has disrupted.

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#199

Post by barry-cotter »

esoterica wrote: post #197
defen wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional sports, Hollywood writers, and Hollywood actors all have unions without seniority-based pay or restricted entry.

Professional sports absolutely have seniority based pay. Ever heard of rookie vs veteran contracts in the NFL?

Much like the Writer’s Guild off America that’s not seniority based pay, that’s up or out. You wouldn’t describe the pay structure at McKinsey as seniority based pay, it’s get better or be fired, forever.

Re: Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich

#200

Post by barry-cotter »

defen wrote: post #181
barry-cotter wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first part of your post (seniority-based rules, certifications, etc) shows a lack of imagination in terms of what a union can be. Precisely because unions are set up to treat members equally they negotiate for the benefit of the median member. Individual unions can fight against the incentives for a while, sure, but first in last out, seniority based pat and restricting entry to keep benefits concentrated among…

Professional sports, Hollywood writers, and Hollywood actors all have unions without seniority-based pay or restricted entry.

Professional sports don’t restrict entry for the same reason Idaho doesn’t have a military, someone else does that for them. SAG-AFTRA absolutely does restrict entry, you need $3,000 to pay the joining fee on top of having a year of qualifying membership in another union. The WGA does not appear to restrict entry but if they don’t have seniority based pay the structure of television writer’s rooms makes no sense. In normal industries you don’t see a bunch of twenty and thirty year olds, many fewer forty and fifty year olds and very, very few people in their sixties. That’s what writer’s rooms look like, a bunch of baby writers, slightly fewer journeymen, a great winnowing off people who are too expensive for what they’re worth to hire and show runners at the very top.
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