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Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

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Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#221

Post by plank_time »

thethethethe wrote: post #168
plank_time wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are low value workers. They don’t get job security. That’s the reality of it. They are replaceable with people with no experience. They have to understand that. There’s no job security to waiters either or Uber drivers. Just because they work in a datacenter doesn’t mean they deserve more money for a low value job. If they want a full time job, they need to elevate themselves. Educate yourself, get a degree, fin…

Why do you have so little compassion for people? Just because a person has "low value" skills doesn't mean we _have_ to treat them like they are disposable. These "low skill" jobs are critical to the function of society and the people that do them deserve respect, security, and acknowledgment.

I’ve worked a ton of low value jobs. I’ve worked in factories, as a receptionist, as a secretary, in a bank, etc. I never felt that I deserved to make more money just because it was compassionate to give me more. I understood exactly where I stood and why I was being paid.

That’s what motivated me to study my ass off and work hard at my job and elevate myself. Some people are okay with not working harder and making what they do. Half my close friends are like that. That’s great and I don’t look down on them. But I don’t think they need to make more money “just because.” It’s whatever the market bears.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#222

Post by the_70x »

jasode wrote: post #13

>Contractors love the good pay and engaging work in Google's data centers. They resent that Google and its staffing firm, Modis Engineering, make them quit every two years. >[...] But those two-year contracts are written in stone. Workers like Wait are not usually allowed to apply either to renew their contracts or to do the same job as a Google employee. If they want to keep working in the same job, they have to lea…

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=microsoft+contractors+lawsuit+sett...

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#223

Post by saagarjha »

simfree wrote: post #191
flatiron wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

true. 99% of the time i wasn't on campus so "come to the friday afternoon austin beer bash" e-mails didn't bother me as I wasn't in austin :). its more the silent power dynamic that i felt. if a full time apple employee is just spouting nonsense on a call, i was not going to make too much of a peep. but if they had a disagreement with me or one of my coworkers we usually just had to grin and bear it and "ohh yes of c…

The pay for most Apple contractors in Austin is abysmal. Multiple people I knew from UW earned barely over $30k a year working there.

That depends very much on what you're doing.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#224

Post by Chris2048 »

lhorie wrote: post #174
plank_time wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are low value workers. They don’t get job security. That’s the reality of it. They are replaceable with people with no experience. They have to understand that. There’s no job security to waiters either or Uber drivers. Just because they work in a datacenter doesn’t mean they deserve more money for a low value job. If they want a full time job, they need to elevate themselves. Educate yourself, get a degree, fin…

> If they want a full time job, they need to elevate themselves This suggestion only makes sense until it doesn't. Suppose everyone actually took that advice. Then you'd have an entire population of overqualified people who cannot find jobs that are appropriate to their skill level and who still have to take crappy jobs. Paradoxically, maybe even you are one of them. Then what? Now consider that this upleveling actua…

> Then you'd have an entire population of overqualified people who cannot find jobs

Why would you? In the time it takes to train, those jobs could be created; if some of those workers become business owners, for example.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#225

Post by infinite8s »

taurath wrote: post #206
dannyw wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people, like the grandparent or me, don't want to be employees.

I also wouldn't want to be an employee. I work best in short monthly bursts with legitimate breaks in between. I'm working on setting it up so I can do that as an experienced consultant/freelancer. The job market is pretty different though for full time employees - one part of which is the insane contractor usage at big companies with money. Microsoft is still like 50% contractors, and in this area if you have "contr…

You don't need to incorporate - you can open a sole 401k plan at Vanguard as an LLC.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#226

Post by infinite8s »

nataz wrote: post #157
coryking wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my time at MSFT there was at least one staffing firm that was founded by a couple contractors who decided to just fuck it and make their own LLC so they didn't have to "pay the pimp" as some put it. If you went through them, you could do so as a 1099. Given their "fuck it" roots, I'm not actually sure how much of a shield they provided between you and Microsoft's Accounts Payable. I bet they paid you every week li…

Oh man, the industry expectation of delayed payment was my largest headache as an independent contractor. When I was first starting out, and still struggling to get a good stable of clients, delayed payment was often something I let slide in negotiations. Better to secure a 100k contract w/ payment 3-6(!) months out than risk losing out to another shop. Even though I was bringing in a lot of income, cash flow was a c…

The trick for billing big companies (those with a separate accounts payable division) is to incentivize early payment (say with a 5% discount). Most account payable divisions will always try and pay the lowest amount, so they will pay early to receive the discount. Of course you bump up your rate in initial contract negotiations to make up for the discount.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#227

Post by prirun »

jasode wrote: post #13

>Contractors love the good pay and engaging work in Google's data centers. They resent that Google and its staffing firm, Modis Engineering, make them quit every two years. >[...] But those two-year contracts are written in stone. Workers like Wait are not usually allowed to apply either to renew their contracts or to do the same job as a Google employee. If they want to keep working in the same job, they have to lea…

I worked at Ford as a contractor back in the 80's. They regularly hired contractors, usually from India on a green card, through body shops. The body shop could be making $30/hr while the contractor was getting a pittance in exchange for the green card. And because the body shop was sponsoring their green card, the "employee" couldn't switch to another company. Pretty horrible.

Instead of going through a body shop, which I refused to do, Ford just required that I was incorporated. This completely lets them off the hook on the contractor vs employee question. Did the same thing with IBM.

Forming an LLC is something that at least here in Indiana can be done in a few days by filling out a form online with the state and getting a tax id with the IRS. This allows you (actually, your LLC) to be directly hired at any company without them taking any risk of you being classified as an employee.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#228

Post by lhorie »

Chris2048 wrote: post #224
lhorie wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they want a full time job, they need to elevate themselves This suggestion only makes sense until it doesn't. Suppose everyone actually took that advice. Then you'd have an entire population of overqualified people who cannot find jobs that are appropriate to their skill level and who still have to take crappy jobs. Paradoxically, maybe even you are one of them. Then what? Now consider that this upleveling actua…

> Then you'd have an entire population of overqualified people who cannot find jobs Why would you? In the time it takes to train, those jobs could be created; if some of those workers become business owners, for example.

You still need someone to pick your potatoes in the farm for you. If everyone has white collar skills, then that means one of two things:

1) white collar jobs don't pay as much comparatively to blue collar (meaning your supermarket potatoes now cost $50 due to high labor costs because there's no supply of workers)

2) people with white collar skills cannot find white collar jobs and are forced to take low pay blue collar jobs so that they can put food on the table, while you can continue to enjoy $1 potatoes.

The latter is actually how the world works now: there are people w/ master degrees doing Uber, actors working on starbucks, etc. One can argue that most adults are in fact overqualified for physical labor: they can read and write and do math, which are arguably "higher level" skills than what is required for those jobs (cf. farming in the feudal ages).

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#229

Post by thethethethe »

plank_time wrote: post #221
thethethethe wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have so little compassion for people? Just because a person has "low value" skills doesn't mean we _have_ to treat them like they are disposable. These "low skill" jobs are critical to the function of society and the people that do them deserve respect, security, and acknowledgment.

I’ve worked a ton of low value jobs. I’ve worked in factories, as a receptionist, as a secretary, in a bank, etc. I never felt that I deserved to make more money just because it was compassionate to give me more. I understood exactly where I stood and why I was being paid. That’s what motivated me to study my ass off and work hard at my job and elevate myself. Some people are okay with not working harder and making w…

I think you are letting your personal experience with "low value" jobs cloud your vision in this situation. Its great that you worked your way out and I am sure you deserve whatever position you are in now. However, I think there is some survivorship bias at play here.

> I understood exactly where I stood and why I was being paid.

I am sure that the people in the article know this as well, but that doesn't mean they are treated fairly. The way society is structured and businesses treat people is not just by default. If this was the case, there should be no worker protections and we should simply pay people "what they are worth", which, in the past, resulted in factory towns and child labor.

Nobody in the article is demanding more money by arguing it is the compassionate thing to do, they want pay _parity_ with their coworkers who do the same job, which is pretty different in my opinion. They also want to keep their jobs after 2 years instead of getting fired for basically no reason other than it saves Google money through a regulation loophole.

> I don’t think they need to make more money “just because.” It’s whatever the market bears.

We do not live in a free market economy by any means. The reason why these people are being treated so badly is because of a poorly thought out regulation. Acting as though the system is a "free market" is just an indirect way of justify oppression of workers under the current mixed market system

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#230

Post by Chris2048 »

lhorie wrote: post #228
Chris2048 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then you'd have an entire population of overqualified people who cannot find jobs Why would you? In the time it takes to train, those jobs could be created; if some of those workers become business owners, for example.

You still need someone to pick your potatoes in the farm for you. If everyone has white collar skills, then that means one of two things: 1) white collar jobs don't pay as much comparatively to blue collar (meaning your supermarket potatoes now cost $50 due to high labor costs because there's no supply of workers) 2) people with white collar skills cannot find white collar jobs and are forced to take low pay blue col…

If there is a dire need for potato-picking manual labour, pay will increase, as will the price of potatoes, short-term at least, assuming the change is sudden and of immediate effect, which makes the scenario even more unrealistic. Realistically, rather than labourers becoming indefinitely well-paid, and potatoes indefinitely expensive, alternatives to manual labour will rapidly be developed, incentivised by high demand for potatoes and low supply of labour e.g. potato picking machines (which already exist btw). The sudden increased supply of automation and robotics engineers won't hurt either.

> your supermarket potatoes now cost $50 due to high labor costs

which is as meaningful as $1 potatoes since we don't know the value of a dollar in this hypothetical "everyone is a white collar worker" world. More likely the value applied to all jobs shift, and previously lucrative jobs are not so lucrative anymore; that said, this may not be zero sum, the average standard of living may also increase - but many humans derive their satisfaction relative to the average, a metric that can never satisfy everyone, a poor man in the west today may have better nutrition, health, welfare and SoL than a kind hundreds of years ago.

> people with white collar skills cannot find white collar jobs

This is what I asked - why do you think this is? I'm not convinced.

> there are people w/ master degrees doing Uber

master degrees, in what? If if need to be said: get an education in something useful, and paid well by the market. STEM is usually a good bet.

> they can read and write and do math

But how do those skill translate into something useful for someone else? And how does demand compare to supply?

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