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

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

#391

Post by my_username_is_ »

billhathaway wrote: post #356
lrem wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, while known for software engineering, employs also people in other professions: - salespeople, - tech support, - cooks, - childcare providers, - all kind of office support folk, - data entry, hmmm, technicians? - probably many more I can't think of. Not all of them can have it as nice as we do.

Almost all the cooks/childcare providers, office support, etc are contractors not employees. A significant amount of SWE and other technical roles are contractors as well. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/25/alphabet-google-employed-mor...

The mechanism by which they get paid (W2 vs 1099) isn't important. The parent comment was listing several occupations that people fill at Google that don't fit the idea of "highly compensated software engineer" as examples of people who may be interested in organizing in search of better working conditions.

For what it's worth, I don't agree with the implication of the comment--it isn't fair to say software engineers can't have any reason to organize or protest against things that their company does.

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

#392

Post by int_19h »

scottlocklin wrote: post #297
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 Classic retcon argument, which sums up why we can't have nice things any more. Don't unionize it might hurt foreigners or minorities! Almost as good as Hillary Clinton's observation that breaking up the big banks won't end sexism or racism. So like ... why b…

There's ample historical precedent of unions in US being anti-minorities and anti-immigration. It may be a far fetched worry in this climate (although given electoral demographics, I wouldn't be so sure), but it is a legitimate one.

Here's history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_Exclusion_League

Here's a recent example of unionized workers exhibiting racism:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/us/gm-toledo-racism-lawsuit/i...

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

#393

Post by Zarath »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #241
MattyRad wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relations with Google are definitely starting to sour, here are a few recent examples: - IE switches to Chromium engine, Chrome has full clearance to dominate the web. - Questionable actions toward ad-blocking (seen only just yesterday). - Colluding with China to create a blatantly dishonest search engine. - Questionable products (Google Fi, Pixel phone, Google Home, etc, are share their own controversies) - Search r…

Search results quality is decreasing (which is just my personal speculation, DDG is usually retrieves less polluted results). My experience is that DDG results are terrible. I try it periodically and never lasts more than a day. Has that changed?

It is definitely not as good, especially for certain queries. Those tend to be queries that have additional semantic meaning outside of just the keywords typed.

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

#394

Post by [deleted] »

austincheney wrote: post #60
blub wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that their employer made special deals with people accused of sexual harrassment or wanted to work on military projects are employment related matters.

As a corporate leader what is more important: allowing employees to use employer resources for personal politics or solving for toxic/hostile behavior?

[deleted]

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

#395

Post by Aunche »

Zombiethrowaway wrote: post #355
Aunche wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time an Googler has a minor complaint about something that is miles away from their area of expertise expertise, it blows up to the front page of Hacker News. That's what I find entitled. They can't accept that one of the largest companies in the world is not going to bend to the wills. This happened with the Damore memo or project Maven, so they feed misleading information to the media to get populist pressure…

>Every time [...] it blows up [... on] Hacker News. Or only every time you hear about it? Yes, employees are fighting for their wills. What's wrong with that? If you don't fight you don't get anything

There is a fair and dirty way to fight. I think most people on HN agree that Damore was out of line to milk all the controversy when his memo leaked out. I would argue that similar things happened with Maven, Dragonfly, and exit payouts to execs, but I don't want to go down that rabbit hole.

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

#396

Post by JumpCrisscross »

DannyBee wrote: post #227
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you have the timing wrong. " In filings in May 2017 Conceded. Pardon me--cannot edit the original comment. > it was solicited, as they were written as a legal response to a legal claim Do we know these filings were in response to a legal claim? It could have been in response to something more frivolous. (I am having trouble finding the filing.) > Do you believe that criminal defense attorneys express a policy prefe…

"Do we know these filings were in response to a legal claim? It could have been in response to something more frivolous. (I am having trouble finding the filing.)" Yes, it is in front of proceeding at the NLRB that they have to exhaust before they can file in court. "Two, when criminal defense attorneys defend a murder suspect, they don't advocate overturning murder statute. There is a wide berth between arguing agai…

> There are no right answers in these situations, only shitty tradeoffs

Companies have lee-way in where they make those trade-offs. Just because a company could argue to roll back back rights for gays or women doesn't mean they have to. And if they choose to advocate for rolling back protective rules, they'll deservedly get flack.

> FWIW: I have been in multiple large companies in that role (for 8+ years), and nobody would ever brief senior management on a claim like this one. It's way too low level.

This might say more about the corporate cultures you've been exposed to than what is normal or right.

Accepting your argument, we have a multi-billion dollar tech company, rightfully in the political cross-hairs, viewing its workers' rights as "way too low level" to merit management's attention. Furthermore, following a first-hand experience with why such organization rules are important, the official response is shying away from a defense. Nothing in the way of meaningful action.

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

#397

Post by Aunche »

lrem wrote: post #331
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…

Google, while known for software engineering, employs also people in other professions: - salespeople, - tech support, - cooks, - childcare providers, - all kind of office support folk, - data entry, hmmm, technicians? - probably many more I can't think of. Not all of them can have it as nice as we do.

I'm specifically referring to the well-compensated Google full time employees. These are the ones who are usually talked about in articles like this one.

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

#398

Post by mbrumlow »

newscracker wrote: post #373
mbrumlow wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By men youean man. And isolated events with individual employees who arguably had alot of power -- given he founded Android -- is a non issue in this argument. Google or any company has no responsibility or should be required to publicly shame employees who misbehave. And it really is non of your or my business that any of that happened. The rest of your conserns seem valid though.

Please read this recent news about a lawsuit brought by a shareholder against the board. [1] There's more than one man named in that. > And it really is non of your or my business that any of that happened. I strongly disagree. If we have to criticize or call for action only when we're personally impacted, we wouldn't have civilized society. Google paid "hush money" to not reveal what happened. Also, more than 20000…

Number of people doing something does not strengthen any argument.

I can point to 100s of things that the masses do that are completely wrong. So the fact that 20k Google employees did anything does not mean they were right.

A civilized society does not have people getting outraged and storming out of work every time they feel offended, or don't agree with the actions of others. Even more so when those people simply do not have the facts of the situation -- mostly because it was none of their business in the first place.

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

#400

Post by skookumchuck »

xg15 wrote: post #384
skookumchuck wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Management can "demand" whatever they want, and employees can refuse whatever they want. It's how supply and demand works, and how free markets work. The problems happen when the government interferes in this process. For example, recently Washington State removed the exemption mentally disabled workers have from minimum wage laws. This was hailed as a victory for justice and fairness. The result is those workers can…

Well yeah. Not being able to make ends meet while working is more morally justifyable than not being to make ends meet while unemployed, I guess.

Making ends meet isn't really the issue. Mentally disabled people are usually taken care of by relatives. They can't live on their own.

But they want to feel valued and do worthwhile things. By pricing them out of a job, they are denied that opportunity.

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