391–400 of 493 posts
In the case of Google specifically, what problems or grievances would be addressed by unionizing?
Everyone can benefit from a union IMO. The Googlers that most need one are probably contractors (ie, not actually Googlers).
It often came up in the company Q&A, and it was often ignored or glossed over with an answer by Sheryl detailing how contractors "actually had it pretty good". That is, unless there was recent public press coverage how they in fact did not "have it pretty good" in which case the answer was your usual "we're working with our outsourcing partners to make sure every contractor has what they need to do their best work", etc.
I am an engineer. I might've been more difficult to hire, but I wasn't doing work that was nearly as important or taxing as content moderation contractors, for example. Revert my work and some obscure internal metric somewhere is a little worse. Revert a content moderation contractor's work, and thousands get exposed to suicide, CSAM, graphic violence, etc.
I know the value of an employee at companies like this is determined by how difficult they are to replace and how their work affects company profits; "anyone" can respond to content reports but not "anyone" has the technical knowledge I do. I just think it's wrong that people working on something so vital to Facebook have it so much worse than the rest do. Facebook could and should do a better job rewarding and protecting the people doing the hard, dirty work— it definitely has the means to.
Learn from South Korea: all top tech companies are unionized. #1 search engine (Naver), #1 messenger (Kakao), #1 game company (Nexon), etc.
> #1 game company (Nexon)
Aren't Startcraft and League of Legends more popular? Being the #1 game company in South Korea doesn't imply you make the #1 games there.
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With regard to the lazy worker, honestly, who cares? You still get paid. The company isn't going under. No doubt like most situations of abuse, this is a minority case because in general people like being productive.
Isn't it a fairly common thing to not appreciate it when other people get the same reward for no contribution? It's like when you're a kid and you win some sweets, and your parents decide you have to share them with your little brother. There may be a desire to do so, but does he get half your sweets?
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> 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".
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.
I want to add that I agree with some of AWU political stands. For example, they opposed Project Dragonfly, a censored version of Google Search intended for the Chinese market. They opposed Google contracts with the DoD and CPB. I think these are all worthy causes and I hope that employees continue to agitate against them! But I am under no illusions that AWU would represent my interests as an employee. Primarily, they are a political action committee set up by and for an extremely vocal minority of Google's employees.
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Resistance to Unions in America is pretty deep. This is a 150 year old issue that previously involved hiring consultants with guns to shoot at anyone who dared to ask for an 80 hour work week. I doubt that a crew of modern consultants did much more than run up some bills on a corporate expense account. *Note that support/opposition to Unions is often form from petty core experiences (first hand and family relations).…
And _currently_ involves hiring consultants to force employees to sit through hours of anti-union fear mongering the second management smells a whiff of pro-union organizing sentiment. The 'American Factory' documentary has a great example of what this looks like in real life. Hearing that Amazon or Google or whoever else worked to convince employees to vote against unionizing is one thing, seeing what that effort is…
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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 prop…
None of those have proven to work at scale though. So as far as we know corporations is how you have to do it. You can believe that there are other ways, but you cannot know that there are other ways as nothing else has proven to work.
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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.
Also, company wage setting guidelines are more likely to prioritise "retain and reward the staff we think are best" in the first place. (Obviously unions prioritising things like reducing wage inequality or rewarding the union leaders' core constituency are good for other people's wages instead.) Seems far odder to insist that as companies have some sort of guidelines, unions can take credit for but accept no blame for any of the changes they negotiate whilst formalising them.
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> 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!
That's because that's not a contract. Real contracts can only bind people who sign them, but in places that don't recognize right to work, you can be forced to join a union just because 51% of your co-workers signed.
"Right to work" only covers whether you can be made to pay union dues as part of this arrangement.