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So I’m hearing you say unions are bad because there promote anti-racism and bring up moral issues? And that’s bad because?
Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
251–260 of 493 posts
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#252If I were to join a union it would have to have the following: 1. No protection for incompetent people 2. No seniority based pay or privileges 3. Narrow focus on comp and quality of life Any of these would be a deal breaker for me. And I just don't see it happening. The people who seem to be into unions are the type of people that can't STFU about politics at the office. And if I hear one word about pronouns instead…
Who decides who is "incompetent"? What do pronouns have to do with anything? I don't really see how this is related to the post.
> What do pronouns have to do with anything?
Unfortunately way too much, some of the people who advocate for them the loudest are very political people of a particular polarization that makes a big deal about pronouns. Take this Google union I found from another comment here: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/. Take a look at what they have at the top of their homepage. The forth word is "BIPOC," towards the middle it says "believe in social justice." Those are polarizing political shibboleths.
Frankly, unions will not get off the ground without solidarity across worker political factions, and injecting polarizing ideology not strictly necessary for unionization does the same union-busting job as Google's consultants.
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#253A union at google would be sufficient for the unions to operate a single party state. It's not a workers rights issue, it's a national security one, imo.
This is a weird analogy: Google is not a state, and a union's labor positions don't reflect the individual political positions of its members (this is famously a point of frustration among liberals).
If you're actually worried about national security: consider the fact that many of the police forces in the US are in "unions" that menace your local elected representatives and openly subvert the justice system they belong to when it attempts to prosecute cops[1].
[1]: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-trou...
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#254Having worked for both union and non-union employers - it's a mixed bag. Unions have advantages and disadvantages. They are great for worker representation - but that's a double-edged sword. Ideally, unions protects worker's interests. In practice, they often lead to abuse, stagnation and corruption. I've personally witnessed union employees who contributed nothing for years, get perpetually shifted from team to team…
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…
If unions could, they would regulate the working hours of robots and would represent robots in any discussion regarding work and would want a monetary cut of their productivity —if they could.
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Professional employees whose work is merit-based don't need labor unions." You're living in a dream world, Neo.
What's your argument? That talented people can't get ahead at Google or competing employers?
Bureaucracies often impose arbitrary measures of success on teams and employees that often have nothing at all to do with merit or productivity or any other measure that a reasonable person would use, and reduce or increase staffing levels based on those measures.
See 'stack ranking' for a perfect example.
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#256A 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…
I'm an above average performer. I'm happy to be paid based on my contributions, but I don't really want my negotiation to come into it. They means people who aren't as competent as me get paid more. So I should support the union.
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corporations creates enormous amounts of value, as far as we know modern society cannot function without those structures. Unions however are optional, even if they help they still aren't nearly as important as corporations. Edit: For those who disagree, how many modern societies are there without corporations running a majority of the economy? Not a single one. So as far as we know it doesn't work. It can work in th…
I take it you work 7 days a week, no vacation, no lunch break, in incredibly unsafe conditions? No? Do you consider the fact that very few people have working conditions like those outlined above an enormously valuable thing for society? Great. Then you agree that Unions have created enormous amounts of value as well.
Those were thanks to labor movements, not unions. They are not the same thing, labor movements happens thanks to Democracy. Democracy is crucial, I agree, it lets groups organize, protest and fix problems with how society works. But what we call unions today are not that.
I'm all for labor engaging in politics, but they can do that without paying union dues for working at a company. The problem USA's workers face today isn't lack of unions, it is lack of proper representation in their democracy.
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#258Earlier 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…
> 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." We definitely talk about corporations in this way. All the time, in fact!
> We definitely talk about corporations in this way. All the time, in fact!
But it is always about individual bad actors, not "corporations".
When MacDonald's franchises get press showing they're stealing employees' wages, people blame MacDonald's, or the individual franchises.
When some union leader embezzles money, people talk about "those unions".
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#259Having worked for both union and non-union employers - it's a mixed bag. Unions have advantages and disadvantages. They are great for worker representation - but that's a double-edged sword. Ideally, unions protects worker's interests. In practice, they often lead to abuse, stagnation and corruption. I've personally witnessed union employees who contributed nothing for years, get perpetually shifted from team to team…
Sounds like something a union buster contractor would say!
Re: Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck”
#260Unions don't suck, Google sucks.
If Google does indeed suck, wouldn’t employees leave for a company that doesn’t? I wonder what the attrition looks like
The grass isn't really greener anywhere else, and since so many benefits are tied to employment in the US, leaving a job is often a lot of trouble. Corporations like Google know & lobby for this.