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

Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 293 posts

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#281

Post by drdeca »

Spooky23 wrote: post #32
docker_up wrote: post #23

I would be perfectly fine with forced arbitration that was perfectly fair and not skewed towards the employer. The problem with forced arbitration is that it's completely skewed towards the employers. Being able to have a fairly arbitrated conflict that was inexpensive and had looser rules than a formal lawsuit would be a benefit to all. Look at how small claims court is so much more efficient and fair than a regular…

There’s no scenario where a legal proceeding between employee and a large company is fair. The main advantage of court is the ability to appeal and the public nature of the proceedings. The only fair fight is if you have a competent union. That comes with its own problems.

What if, instead of aiming at “fair”, we instead aim at “Just”?

Edit: if there is a difference, that is. If there isn’t, then nvm.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#282

Post by phamilton »

stale2002 wrote: post #275
phamilton wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone handling PII is dealing with high stakes. That's not my opinion, that's the post GDPR world we live in. And that's pretty much everyone in the B2C space.

> that's the post GDPR world we live in. In America nobody cares about that. This isn't going to effect any of the major companies that matter, and is already causing companies to merely stop doing business in countries that have bad laws like this. But also, I don't care. I will defect and fight every step of the way any of your efforts to keep out people from non-traditional backgrounds. (regardless of whatever mis…

> stop doing business in countries that have bad laws like this

That's not how GDPR works. Any EU citizen, regardless of residence is covered. There's no real way around it.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#283

Post by scarejunba »

Apocryphon wrote: post #273
scarejunba wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't build things that will kill people if they're wrong. If I get this slightly wrong, the wrong people will be advertised the wrong car. The world won't end.

There's a new story about passwords getting hacked and leaked every month, if not every week. This industry needs stronger standards, and if the industry doesn't come up with it ourselves, the law will.

I don't hold people's data like that. I don't need your law. I don't need your regulation. Always with the slowing down of development. Ugh.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#284

Post by Apocryphon »

scarejunba wrote: post #283
Apocryphon wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a new story about passwords getting hacked and leaked every month, if not every week. This industry needs stronger standards, and if the industry doesn't come up with it ourselves, the law will.

I don't hold people's data like that. I don't need your law. I don't need your regulation. Always with the slowing down of development. Ugh.

Don't complain to me, complain to all of the Facebooks that resell data to third parties, and all of the Googles who store that so that the NSA can tap into it, and all of the Equifaxes that leak all the data so the criminals can make use of it.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#285

Post by stale2002 »

phamilton wrote: post #282
stale2002 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's the post GDPR world we live in. In America nobody cares about that. This isn't going to effect any of the major companies that matter, and is already causing companies to merely stop doing business in countries that have bad laws like this. But also, I don't care. I will defect and fight every step of the way any of your efforts to keep out people from non-traditional backgrounds. (regardless of whatever mis…

> stop doing business in countries that have bad laws like this That's not how GDPR works. Any EU citizen, regardless of residence is covered. There's no real way around it.

Sure there is!

The way of "getting around it" is to block all traffic coming from certain countries.

Sure, they might sue you anyway, but just imagine how many tens of billions of dollars in damages would be caused to European countries if Google or Facebook started blocking all traffic going into and out of these countries.

There would be huge negative political consequences, that the citizens of these countries would not stand for.

Also, it doesn't matter if they sue you, if your company is entirely based in the US. american companies don't worry that it is illegal to be gay in Saudi Arabia, so I see little reason why they would worry about bad laws in Europe.

But anyway this is completely irrelevant to the topic of conversation, which is barriers to entry in the tech industry.

And in order to fight these barriers to entry, I will defect, and sabotage any unions that try to do this, at every step of the way.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#286

Post by [deleted] »

icebraining wrote: post #222
toomuchtodo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most unions and guilds do this. I don’t find it unreasonable, and would still sign on to a technology workers union, dues and all. Credentialing? I’d be okay with that, otherwise if everyone can “be an engineer” just by saying so, no one is (and credentialing would be superior to the white board gauntlet mess tech interviews currently are). Collective action is the only way to improve working conditions and dissuade…

And this shows exactly why many oppose unions in the tech industry, despite the incredulity of union supporters: they make it easier to impose rules which many of us profoundly disagree with.

[deleted]

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#288

Post by rmc »

kodablah wrote: post #114
kelnos wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that was the point. The original parent was making a tongue-in-cheek reference to how tech workers seem to resist the idea of forming a union, but occasionally band together to do union-like things informally, in an ad-hoc, not-particularly-reliable fashion.

I read it as "see, didn't require forming a union to get something done in the tech industry"

It walks like a union, talks like a union, and quacks like a union.

It's the same idea. Workers doing things collectively.

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#289

Post by bradleyjg »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #259
bradleyjg wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and where agreeing to it was entirely optional for either party That’s really the crux of it, isn’t it? In general it is entirely common in a contract situation for one party to care so much about a particular provision that it would rather not contract at all than contract without that provision. Generally the better the best alternative to a negotiatied agreement (BANTA) for a party the more likely it is to be wi…

> I think the root of the perceived unfairness here is that people think a take it or leave it attitude is not fair. I think the root of the perceived unfairness is that forced arbitration concerns using a power disparity to force renunciation by default of fundamental political rights (access to the court system) to the benefit of the powerful party. The take it or leave it attitude is fine, but only when the partie…

The power disparity remains whether or not we restrict arbitration. If isn't take it or leave it on that, it'd be take it or leave it on salary or vacation days or whatever else. I don't see how tweaking one, in the grand scheme of things, small available contractual term is doing anything about power imbalances generally.

Instead the crux then seems to be "fundamental political rights". I guess I don't see it that way. When you go into court to sue the government, or even in tort against a private party, sure. But in a contractual relationship the right and reason to go to court flows directly from the contract. The fundamental right here is the parties' ability to form an enforceable agreement under terms they agree to. (I should note as a matter of rhetorical fairness that the New Deal Court discarded the notion of "liberty of contract", but as a political philosophy matter I still think it is crystallizes an important notion of freedom.)

Re: Google Ends Forced Arbitration for Employees

#290

Post by ionised »

scarejunba wrote: post #283
Apocryphon wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a new story about passwords getting hacked and leaked every month, if not every week. This industry needs stronger standards, and if the industry doesn't come up with it ourselves, the law will.

I don't hold people's data like that. I don't need your law. I don't need your regulation. Always with the slowing down of development. Ugh.

Doesn't matter that you don't want law or regulation.

You'll get them regardless.

Post reply on HN