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

Post by Jensson » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #278

Jensson wrote: post #189

Earlier 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…

> There are however many examples of modern economies with very little union influence, USA is an example No there aren't. USA is not an example, every significant aspect of modern employment in the US has been shaped by unions.

Post by d4mi3n » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

rapind wrote: post #274

marricks wrote: post #147

Go figure the top comments on this thread echo how companies talk about unions. “Oh unions can be good but those Americans don’t know their downsides…” Or “Unions are great but it’s awful people can be forced to join them!” I’m just saying Google’s money was well spent.

Yeah when I clicked into the comments I was hoping for a discussion on the ethics of hiring a firm to trash talk unions (for or against). Instead it’s like the Google 50c party arguing the merits of unions. I’m uncomfortable with companies constantly trying to influence their employees opinions. It’s marketing turned inwards. I’m not so naïve to be surprised, but I would never work at a business who employed tactics…

  prŏp″ə-găn′də
  noun
  1. The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.

Post by steelstraw » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #12

Having 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…

Post by VirusNewbie » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

sgift wrote: post #279

VirusNewbie wrote: post #267

Unions are helpful when you have a homogeneous workforce all doing similar work with similar outputs. We have studies showing how different software engineering is, where some workers vastly outperform others, some workers are interchangeable, some are specialists, and some underperform. This is exactly the wrong type of work that benefits from collective bargaining and gatekeeping. Unions help subpar workers. They d…

> We have studies showing how different software engineering is, where some workers vastly outperform others, some workers are interchangeable, some are specialists, and some underperform. Do we? Please, show these studies. Obviously, we can only accept peer-reviewed replicated studies. Not some study which was never replicated (there are a few) or even worse some blog post by someone stating they personally know 10x…

    >. Obviously, we can only accept peer-reviewed replicated studies

Post by lovich » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

padastra wrote: post #172

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…

Businesses create value. That's not universal -- there's regulatory capture, monopolies, tragedy of the commons, etc. -- but it is fundamentally why capitalist economies have raised billions of people out of poverty. Unions fundamentally redistribute the value that's been captured. That's not universal -- there's unions that make workers happier and result in more productivity, unions that are not adversarial and tak…