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Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

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Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#251

Post by vmception »

sonotathrowaway wrote: post #27
vmception wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a trillion dollar company with some/many employees delivering quite a bit more value than they are paid 1) Collectively getting the better stake of the pie influences other organizations compensation methods/amounts 2) the market is telling employees what to do, meaning that it doesn’t matter that an individual can do far more work for less pay somewhere else - just don’t do those things.

The underpayment was a top priority of google, to the point that individual executives committed crimes that should have led to their incarceration - had the DoJ interpreted the law according to its text rather than according to their political ideology. As it stands, all the DoJ was capable of was issuing guidance that acknowledged that crimes were committed that should have led to jail time, and politely asks corpo…

DoJ and other parts of the government have been successfully convinced that consequential enforcement is counterproductive to their greater anti-trust goals.

basically, because the government also wants competition in the market, they can't be the reason why there is no competition after they curb stomp one of the major few competitors in many fields.

there is some degree of truth in this, but it has also been co-opted to prevent any meaningful consequence for people and their organizations, once they are big enough

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#252

Post by lucumo »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #217
lucumo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just to the company. They aren't always good for all the people they claim to represent. I'm not American, and live in a place where unions have pretty strong protection and usually have industry-wide negotiating power. They are also gerontocracies and will screw over young people to favour the old. I will no longer work for places where unions negotiate. I prefer the clear incentives of an employer over the uncl…

> They are also gerontocracies and will screw over young people to favour the old. This probably says as much about the wider society that you live in as it does about the unions.

My wider society is much more balanced in is treatment of the age groups. There's definitely issues, but when the unions get involved there's no balance anymore.

This society is not a gerontocracy either. There's quite a few 30-somethings in the government.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#253

Post by kingkawn »

Jiro wrote: post #141
kingkawn wrote: post #76

A union is a business association among people who market, sell, and deliver the labor of a single individual. To repress these associations of business results in inefficiencies that obscure the true product of the market.

Attempting to convince employees of something is not repression.

Do you really believe that’s the full extent of Google’s anti-unionism?

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#254

Post by micromacrofoot »

mgaunard wrote: post #105

Unions only exist to protect mediocre people, and only cause harm to top performers. Wasn't Google supposed to be a place that only hires the best and brightest?

If you have the wherewithal to constantly be a top performer... then why are you working for someone else to begin with?

I think there's a point during everyone's career when a union could be useful. Maybe it's not apparently useful to you right now, but we'll all experience hardships at one point or another.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#255

Post by jedberg »

A lot of people have this terrible notion of what a union is, where they force you to do things and set wages and work hours.

But I suspect a union for programmers would look more like the Actors union or screenwriters union in Hollywood. They would negotiate minimum rates and benefits, but top performers would still be able to get significantly more. The union just sets the minimums.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#256

Post by jrockway »

awb wrote: post #219
queuebert wrote: post #23

Imputing altruistic morals to profit-seeking entities and then continually being surprised and offended when companies act shady puts employees in a pointlessly weak position. Instead, treat the relationship as adversarial and come ready for battle every day against the legal structure designed to exploit you for the benefit of distant shareholders. There is no shame in fighting for yourself. You are worth it.

> treat the relationship as adversarial and come ready for battle every day against the legal structure designed to exploit you for the benefit of distant shareholders Exploit you with industry leading pay and perks? Unions are designed to balance out monopolistic / low pay / highly geographical companies like large auto manufacturers or airlines. There is so much competitive hiring in tech, it’s one of the easiest c…

People supporting a software engineering union are looking for equality in the group, even though every member of the group is already objectively doing pretty well. I personally worked with many women who were just as smart and productive as me, but got paid less.

Why is that? There are many reasons; self-selection for promotion was noted as one reason at the time. Managers need to encourage employees to go through the promotion process, but managers don't do this consistently. The data shows that the result of this is that there is a gender gap in pay, and that doesn't feel very good. Some system other than individual managers encouraging people to go up for promotion is needed; a union looking out for that is one solution.

I don't know how it would work, I'm not really up to speed on how to organize a union or anything, but issues like that is where the core of the support comes from. (The article also mentions binding arbitration clauses being another sticky bit.)

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#257

Post by julienb_sea »

guyzero wrote: post #170
timmg wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. To take it one step further: I have a pretty good relationship with my employer (coincidentally, Google). I don't need or want a third party to get in the middle of it.

Everyone has a good relationship with their employer _until they don't._ And when the relationship goes bad it also becomes very, very one-sided.

From what I can tell, a "bad relationship" with employer particularly in competitive tech fields is a direct result of poor performance by the employee, which actually seems reasonable. I don't think it makes sense to introduce bureaucracy with the explicit purpose of covering for poor performance, as that pummels incentives to actually perform well at work. It seems actively unfair to people that are doing their job well if a union is covering for people that aren't.

Of course, a union can offer other benefits, but the downside of devaluing good performance seems strikingly not worthwhile.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#258

Post by dekhn »

_wolfie_ wrote: post #133
ergocoder wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same problem, isn't it? If I want to work on those projects and don't agree with the union, and 50% of the Union vote the other way, my only choice is also to quit. I don't agree with the union's direction of forbidding company to work on a perfectly legal project. If you want the project to be illegal, maybe call your senate instead?

I don't know how the union law works in the US. Over here (Europe), you can have multiple unions in one company. It takes minimal 3 people to form one. So you could probably form a union for pro-DoD people?

I think typically there is just 1 union. Otherwise you don't have as much collective bargaining power. I don't want to form unions over single issues.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#259

Post by beachy »

lovecg wrote: post #243
awb wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> treat the relationship as adversarial and come ready for battle every day against the legal structure designed to exploit you for the benefit of distant shareholders Exploit you with industry leading pay and perks? Unions are designed to balance out monopolistic / low pay / highly geographical companies like large auto manufacturers or airlines. There is so much competitive hiring in tech, it’s one of the easiest c…

There are things beyond compensation that individuals cannot easily negotiate by themselves. For example, a reasonable ask could be to never get contacted by boss or work colleagues (about work) outside of work hours (unless oncall, etc.). In the absence of group coordination that a union provides this work arrangement is simply out of reach for most.

A union won't help you get your own tailored work situation, where you enjoy never ever being contacted after hours.

They'll work for a situation where everyone gets that, and everyone is treated the same. That's the whole point.

Goodbye work flexibility for your entire company.

Re: Google Had Secret Project to ‘Convince’ Employees ‘That Unions Suck’

#260

Post by dls2016 »

brightball wrote: post #127
dls2016 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are comprised of large groups of people, and are subject to make the same kinds of "self-serving" mistakes as any other large group of people (like corporations and governments and universities and churches and...). Which is entirely the point! Why should we trust a large monopoly like Google to have workers' best interests at heart when there's no counter-balancing force with the same power (be it a union, or…

There is another counter balancing force...numerous other opportunities. It's not a situation like Boeing where there's a very limited number of other places that you can take your skills.

> There is another counter balancing force...numerous other opportunities.

The "take it or leave it" attitude strongly insinuates that corporations should be allowed dictatorial control over the manner in which work is completed. There are too many examples to point to which demonstrate the b.s. in this line of thinking.

I may be reading too much into what you wrote, but I never understand the libertarian need to reject government and union control but embrace everything corporate. It's plain weird.

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