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

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

#361

Post by petre »

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…

I'd rather have a union negotiate for me, because then I don't have to worry about dealing with HR scum myself. It's just like having a lawyer handle legal stuff for you. If the companies are discontent with lazy workers they should hire lawyers to deal withe the union and the firing process.

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

#362

Post by brandmeyer »

fallingknife wrote: post #31
nosequel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money. As soon as a lot of people leave a team or location in Google, Google responds by giving everyone bonuses. When a bunch of people started quitting from the Boulder office a few (5?) years back, they offered to send everyone on a trip to Hawaii. Google's Do No Evil has been gone for a long while, but people stick around because they are making so much goddamn money.

Ok, so unions aren't designed to make companies not be evil. They're designed to increase comp. So since you have stated that Google pays lots of money, what's the point of a union.

The manifesto for the one union which attempted (is attempting?) to organize at GOOG is explicitly trying to reducing what they perceive to be evil, and aren't trying to increase comp.

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

#363

Post by d4mi3n »

Jensson wrote: post #325
d4mi3n wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A country being hostile to unions isn't nearly as bad as a country being hostile to corporations. This is a very subjective conclusion that is likely very dependent on what economic class you fall into. Many folks on HN (myself included) fall into the category white collar or professional workers. For many other parts of the labor market, you're literally trading sweat and toil for money. Add to this that labor int…

Not sure you understand, but every single developed nation has pro-corporation policies. Some of them also have pro-worker policies. But none of them are hostile towards corporations like for example Soviet or old China was. There are plenty of billionaires in Scandinavia etc.

"Every single developed nation" is a very broad generalization that I'd be skeptical of being true. I'd also dispute that all countries are pro-corperation and instead state that most countries are pro-economy.

Corporations are just a vehicle for organizing work and profit around a venture. There are many other ways to organize work that have nothing to do with corporations or unions. Consider partnerships, sole proprietorships, cottage industries, co-ops, and more specific arrangements within those vehicles like profit sharing, limited partnerships, and employee ownership (not to be confused with stocks/options, though they are similar in concept).

Capitalism can take many forms, and not all of them require we turn the way we organize work and wealth generation into a zero-sum game between entrepreneurs and laborers. It's just the first thing we've found that's worked out in the environments it's been attempted in. I think there's room for businesses and economies to try out novel models for organizing work, and I suspect many of them could get us better or more efficient trade-offs between profit, productivity, and general welfare for all parties involved.

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

#364

Post by VirusNewbie »

discardedrefuse wrote: post #338
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…

Here is my copy/paste response to another extremely similar comment: > This is non-sense. There's no rule that says collectively bargained contracts can't include rewards or incentives for higher-performance. In fact, many do. > Look at any professional sports contract. Players usually get bonuses for hitting predetermined stat goals on the field. Look at any teacher contract. Teachers get bonuses for attaining highe…

Teachers unions actively fight against performance metrics and instead focus on seniority as the main way to get pay increases. People who have worked and doing the same job for 30 years are payed more than twice as much as newcomers to the field. The existence of a teacher's union is actively harmful to new teachers.

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

#365

Post by devilbunny »

croes wrote: post #309
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…

Unions in Scandinavia are pretty strong, doesn't look worse than the USA.

They're also embedded in very different societies and legal structures.

Unions don't have to be bad. I'd just argue that the labor law system in the US is pure awful.

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

#366

Post by savant_penguin »

pessimizer wrote: post #229
savant_penguin wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are things I do not want to be democratically controlled. My ability to negotiate salaries with my boss is one of them. The scope of my job (some unions get to decide what you are allowed to do). Who should get fired (teachers unions make it impossible for bad teachers to be fired, so students are forced to put up with them) If you should be allowed to work. Some unions forbid you to work during strikes. Often…

Is there any reasoning that you'd like to share about why those things shouldn't be democratically controlled, or did you just make a list of the things that unions do?

Those are things I care about and do not want to give away for a union to decide for me or to have power over me. And some things just piss me off. In NY you are forced to pay unions dues just to be a teacher. It does not matter of you do want to participate or not. They have government like powers to charge you for something you do not want.

In addition, it's quite possible that in the future someone like me could not get my current job due to regulation. I know people in the same line of work as me that is forced to pay union dues because of his degree. The unions associated with the undergrad course he took forced him to pay union dues unless he can prove his current job does not relate to his degree. This is just absurd but still happens. I'd rather not have other people have even more control over me, no matter how much the word "democratic" is added to the argument

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

#368

Post by joshuamorton »

notahacker wrote: post #335
joshuamorton wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true whether not not the company you work at is unionized. Ultimately what you appear to be saying that the union is valuable since you'll get paid more until you leave.

No, I'm saying that if you are an above average employee in $role an industry where there is already competitive pressure to offer good wages, a union fixing your wage at the level it is able to negotiate for the average employee in $role will mean you earn less. Until you leave, obviously.

Companies, generally speaking, already have guidelines around what wages they will pay.

So to get significantly better pay you need to leave anyway (how often do you get counteroffers that meet or exceed the competitors offer). Blaming a union for the thing the company already does seems odd.

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

#370

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

dls2016 wrote: post #269
cool_dude85 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is in "Non Right to Work States" the unionized can clobber people that choose not to unionize and coerce them into participation. You are badly misinformed about what "right to work" is. In a union shop, the unionized "coerce" all employees in their bargaining units to participate, even in "right to work" states! Everyone is covered by the same contract! That's the whole point! Even in "right to work" st…

> In all cases, all relevant employees are "coerced" into the union contract. It's funny because usually the libertarian response to a lot of problems is "put it in a contract". But not that kind of contract!

No; the libertarian perspective would be "everyone should negotiate their own contract".
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