Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 493 posts

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

#221

Post by notahacker »

boh wrote: post #110
0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #17

A related topic would be collective bargaining - which is often (but not always) associated with a unionized workplace. If you're a sub-standard employee, you win big through collective bargaining because pay bands will move toward the mean. If however, you are a high-performer, you will likely be under-compensated in a collective bargaining environment because your excess effort will be used to compensate those who…

Being a "high-performer" by definition suggests you are operating at a higher level than the average, suggesting you are a minority. The idea that labor policy should exclusively cater to a minority to get better compensated due to their superior contribution and negotiation skills is perplexing. Society requires a stable labor policy. The culture of the narcissistic self which powered the second half of the twentiet…

I don't think that rhetoric is going to convince many people who think they deserve an above average pay rise to accept the average instead :)

Personally I don't think "stable labour policy" is more important than allowing people to ask for higher wages and receive or leave, but if I did I'd be more hostile to wage bargaining via collective threats to withdraw labour than individual ones...

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

#222

Post by chrisseaton »

pydry wrote: post #212
blululu wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the difference here is a matter of principles. A lot of people view corporations in a justifiably negative light (very few people say that corporations are an unalloyed good, and I have never heard anyone wish that they could work for an LLC). But a corporation is chartered to make money - we expect it to act accordingly and for the most part companies do make money (when they fail to make money, they ce…

>But a corporation is chartered to make money - we expect it to act accordingly and for the most part companies do make money (when they fail to make money, they cease existing They are supposed to serve a higher purpose than just make money. If you were being equivalently fair to unions you would say that their sole purpose is to take dues. >a lot unions don't really carry out their core function and there are no co…

> Yes, they do, they lose members.

And they often use violence or threat of violence to try to stop this - see their reaction to 'scabbing'.

If I say I don't want to work for my company any more they'd either say 'farewell' or even offer me money to stay.

If you don't want to be part of a union or a strike, you better be prepared to be harassed and intimidated.

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

#223

Post by dfxm12 »

blululu wrote: post #194
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 think that the difference here is a matter of principles. A lot of people view corporations in a justifiably negative light (very few people say that corporations are an unalloyed good, and I have never heard anyone wish that they could work for an LLC). But a corporation is chartered to make money - we expect it to act accordingly and for the most part companies do make money (when they fail to make money, they ce…

a corporation is chartered to make money - we expect it to act accordingly

We don't expect a corporation to abuse workers, even if it makes them money.

when they fail to make money, they cease existing and the general consensus is 'good riddance'

The history of bailouts would suggest otherwise.

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

#224

Post by chrisseaton »

sandworm101 wrote: post #203
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…

>> For some reason we hold unions to an incredibly high standard of "no problems, ever" Because they are democratic institutions. They can be held to a no-problems standard because every time a problem occurs then those involved can be sacked and replaced. The level of acceptable corruption is set by the membership. Rules should therefore focus on openness and member participation in leadership selection. Everyone wh…

> I say join the leadership and run the union the way you think it should be run

This is like saying if you don't like the gangs in your area you should join them and try to reform them to do social work instead.

Why isn't it valid to say you don't like unions and so don't want anything to do with them?

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

#225

Post by tablespoon »

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #17

A related topic would be collective bargaining - which is often (but not always) associated with a unionized workplace. If you're a sub-standard employee, you win big through collective bargaining because pay bands will move toward the mean. If however, you are a high-performer, you will likely be under-compensated in a collective bargaining environment because your excess effort will be used to compensate those who…

> If however, you are a high-performer, you will likely be under-compensated in a collective bargaining environment because your excess effort will be used to compensate those who contribute less.

And of course, we all assume we're far above average high-performers.

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

#226

Post by VirusNewbie »

sanxiyn wrote: post #197
VirusNewbie wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Honestly yes? Higher pay, less overtime. Enjoy https://github.com/line/armeria from a unionized tech company of South Korea!

Higher pay? You can't be serious. SWEs can make 200-300 without a college degree working from home?

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

#227

Post by pydry »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #208
pydry wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who doesn't talk about corporations in this manner? Corporations are usually horrendously corrupt so we should abolish them all? No. Bit of a fringe view, that. The rule is, if it's a court, company, government, NGO or serbian tennis club then corruption should be met with reform. In the predominantly investor owned media, corruption in unions leads to calls to abolish them. It's standard.

> " Corporations are usually horrendously corrupt so we should abolish them all? " People voluntarily don't work for corporations whose mission or behavior is incompatible with their values; they do not have that option with unionization. If the union allows workers to not join the union, not charge dues for being an non-member, and not support them, then nobody would have a problem with them.

It's almost impossible for me to work for a corporation whose values align with mine.

It's really really easy to work in a non unionized workplace if thats what you want.

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

#228

Post by tablespoon »

mikkergp wrote: post #219
agentdrtran wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions aren't just for compensation - it's about having a say in your work.

This is the bigger part that bugs me, I don't my job description enforced by committee.

> This is the bigger part that bugs me, I don't my job description enforced by committee.

Huh? If you choose to work for a company with any size, your job description is enforced by a committee. It's just a committee of managers.

If you don't believe me, try to stop working on your assignments and instead work on the cool new project that really interests you.

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

#229

Post by pessimizer »

savant_penguin wrote: post #185
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…

There are things I do not want to be democratically controlled. My ability to negotiate salaries with my boss is one of them. The scope of my job (some unions get to decide what you are allowed to do). Who should get fired (teachers unions make it impossible for bad teachers to be fired, so students are forced to put up with them) If you should be allowed to work. Some unions forbid you to work during strikes. Often…

Is there any reasoning that you'd like to share about why those things shouldn't be democratically controlled, or did you just make a list of the things that unions do?

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

#230

Post by CountSessine »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #157
CountSessine wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The average operating margin for companies on the S&P 500, the "best of the best" of US corporations, is 9.35% - and that's a figure that is inflated by all of the pharma companies that have crazy 20% margins and sell into a dysfunctional drug market in the US and don't have to compete with generic drugs. Remove them and the operating margin is even lower.

There's no pot of gold in most cases. But I still think there's a good case for unionization.

Post reply on HN