Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#321

Post by jupp0r » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

hoaw wrote: post #292

jupp0r wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that performance is proportional to hours worked? Research shows that this is not the case for most people and that returns past a certain work/life balance ratio are marginal or negative.

I don't think that is the implication. What is being said is that people start e.g. working 10 hours a day and that becomes expected regardless of performance. This type of thing is very common in Asia.

That doesn't sound like overperformance, but toxic culture to me.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#322

Post by zjaffee » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

bmj wrote: post #46

Retric wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a very high turnover rate relative to company age pay etc at just 3.2 years on average. So, I suspect they really do lose a lot of people over this stuff, they just keep hiring at a very fast pace.

I wonder at what point working for Google will lose its shine, and their hiring pace will drop off.

Goldman Sachs has been on the back-burner of ethical issues for decades, yet they're still one of the most desirable employers among college graduates.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#323

Post by hoaw » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #303

hoaw wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one could really say what the absolute position of a union would be in that question. Unions are membership organizations that work in the interest of current, and to some extent future, members. The rest is politics. A union would have incentive for foreigners to e.g. come to the US, so the US get a larger slice of the market. On the other hand they don't have an interest in those workers e.g. having lesser right…

Do you have an example of such pro immigration labor union?

You are unlikely to find a western labor union that is specifically pro immigration these days. Since labor has been in decline in the west for the last few decades. Before that I am sure you could find those who were pro labor immigration. The Nordic countries have for example had relatively large labor immigration under social democratic governments (which are usually associated with the labor unions).

Also it depends what you mean by pro immigration. No union is going to be pro liberal immigration rules, since they don't want to undermine their own members. For it make sense for a union it has to be employees who are lacking, either in numbers or skill, in the country and can therefor expand the country's share of the market.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#324

Post by Itaxpica » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #116

josephv wrote: post #79

These comments read like a bunch of low-income retail shoppers defending Walmart because they provide something they otherwise couldn't get. I think these types of debates are bellwether for programmer/IT professional unionization. These are the exact types of lawsuits brought against organized labor as it was trying to get organized to prevent exploitative behavior. It's disturbing to see these same anti-organizatio…

The difference is that software engineers, especially those at Google, have high social mobility and are well educated. I think that unions are inefficient, but I'm sympathetic towards or even support most of them because those workers don't have a better option. Googlers just come off as entitled. They should be intelligent enough to acknowledge when they're making clickbaity populist arguments that misrepresent com…

Funny how people only ever use "entitled" to describe labor demanding better treatment from management, but never to describe management demanding that labor do more for less.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#325

Post by ben_jones » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

gcb0 wrote: post #309

Aunche wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that software engineers, especially those at Google, have high social mobility and are well educated. I think that unions are inefficient, but I'm sympathetic towards or even support most of them because those workers don't have a better option. Googlers just come off as entitled. They should be intelligent enough to acknowledge when they're making clickbaity populist arguments that misrepresent com…

let me try to help you fill the data you assumed with concrete examples. search H1b applications for google and other companies. you will see google hires with 60-100k salaries. being stuck for 10yrs on the lowest end of our category pay is very far from "high social mobility"

Only one data point but this [1] suggests otherwise. It invalidates the idea that the median is in the [1]: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=GOOGLE+INC&job=SOFTWARE+EN...

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#326

Post by morningcovfefe » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

jackpirate wrote: post #212

hippich wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all these ideas (regulation, minimum wage, laborisation, etc) protect existing workers and harms lower skilled or newcomers, foreigners, minorities, etc. Many computer professionals still remember how nice it was to be able to get an edge by giving up something (undercut competitors to get the first crucial project in the portfolio, not being judged by your credentials, etc) My prediction - time will pass and…

Because all these ideas (regulation, minimum wage, laborisation, etc) protect existing workers and harms lower skilled or newcomers, foreigners, minorities, etc. I don't understand your point at all. Unions explicitly fight to support all of these people. The standard argument against unions (esp. in the tech sector) is that they harm high-skilled overperforming workers by capping the maximum benefits they can receiv…

Untrue.. if you take a look at what existing software unions are right now lobbying for in congress

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#327

Post by mbostleman » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 8:58 PM UTC

manifestsilence wrote: post #296

mbostleman wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm familiar with that argument. My take is that I don't make much of a distinction between a worker and an entrepreneur. I think the healthiest approach is for everyone to see their personal financial journey the same as if it were a business. The situation of owning (or rather heavy leveraging the purchase of) a house and working for a company that is unique in the town, etc. is the result of a series of risk/rewar…

A counter perspective to this: what is a company? Is it not a group of people organized with a central purpose? So to discourage or ban other forms of organizing that may overlap this organization is actually the compromise of principles in this case. A union is just another group of people making an agreement together. The difference is, the company is organized by, and empowers, the person at the top. The union is…

Yes, a company is a group of people organized with a central purpose. However, companies are not allowed to coordinate with each other to fix pricing or availability or other terms. Nor are they allowed to take actions that shut non-coordinating companies out of the market. I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that unions do not have these constraints and, in fact, the reason they are even legal is due to statutory exemptions from anti-trust law that makes that combination of "purpose" an option. So to me, it's not an apple to apple comparison. And that's the problem of principle that I have. I don't think a market operates well when the ability to fix it is granted to some parts but not others.

The comparison to me would be operating only within a single company. I don't think there's anything stopping a group of employees from using whatever bargaining value they have to move the company in one direction or another - whether it's pay, working conditions, product development, etc.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#328

Post by mbostleman » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

manifestsilence wrote: post #296

mbostleman wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm familiar with that argument. My take is that I don't make much of a distinction between a worker and an entrepreneur. I think the healthiest approach is for everyone to see their personal financial journey the same as if it were a business. The situation of owning (or rather heavy leveraging the purchase of) a house and working for a company that is unique in the town, etc. is the result of a series of risk/rewar…

A counter perspective to this: what is a company? Is it not a group of people organized with a central purpose? So to discourage or ban other forms of organizing that may overlap this organization is actually the compromise of principles in this case. A union is just another group of people making an agreement together. The difference is, the company is organized by, and empowers, the person at the top. The union is…

I think you were composing your edit as I was composing my reply. I'm with you completely on companies that merge being a form of collusion in many cases. I believe that the US government needs to act on anti-trust way more than it does. Not a fan of wage controls because to me that's an indirect approach. But yea, collusion is really damaging - at whatever level.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#329

Post by zavi » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

gcb0 wrote: post #309

Aunche wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that software engineers, especially those at Google, have high social mobility and are well educated. I think that unions are inefficient, but I'm sympathetic towards or even support most of them because those workers don't have a better option. Googlers just come off as entitled. They should be intelligent enough to acknowledge when they're making clickbaity populist arguments that misrepresent com…

let me try to help you fill the data you assumed with concrete examples. search H1b applications for google and other companies. you will see google hires with 60-100k salaries. being stuck for 10yrs on the lowest end of our category pay is very far from "high social mobility"

Software engineers don't get hired to Google with 60-100k salaries, not even close.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#330

Post by JeremyBanks » Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

polishTar wrote: post #312

Retric wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a very high turnover rate relative to company age pay etc at just 3.2 years on average. So, I suspect they really do lose a lot of people over this stuff, they just keep hiring at a very fast pace.

This is absolutely not true. You might be confusing median tenure with turnover rate, but those are drastically different things; especially so in a company that’s growing.

http://go.corp.google.com/percent

Give us the stats.