Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 493 posts

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

#411

Post by Jensson »

mendigou wrote: post #380
Jensson wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a lie, labor movements shaped those long before there were a legal concept of unions. Unions != labor movements. Unions are often a result of labor movements, but they are not the same thing. For example, the 8-hour work week was demanded by labor movements who weren't organized as modern unions are organized. Edit: Labor movements often called themselves unions though, but that was just a group of people get…

I'm not from the US so I'm probably misunderstanding this whole conversation. What's the difference between "a group of people getting together to protest and demand rights" and a union apart from the union being a legal entity? What you wrote in your edit is what a Union means in Europe, it's just formalized as an entity.

Would you say that a labor party is a union? I wouldn't. A labor party is a labor movement though. If you call labor parties unions and say we should be thankful to them, then I agree, but that is totally different from workplace unions.

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

#412

Post by bakuninsbart »

tw04 wrote: post #66
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…

So what you're saying is you think everyone should have a worse standard of living to prevent that one lazy guy from not pulling his weight?

Not everyone, the lazy guy will be worse off and a couple of rich people will be much richer.

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

#413

Post by 5560675260 »

agentdrtran wrote: post #37
flerchin wrote: post #9

Everyone can benefit from a union IMO. The Googlers that most need one are probably contractors (ie, not actually Googlers).

Unions aren't just for compensation - it's about having a say in your work.

But you, the worker, will not have more say in your work than you do now, probably less. Union will have. It's great if your views will align with union's views, but that's far from guaranteed.

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

#414

Post by [deleted] »

chrisseaton wrote: post #222
pydry wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But a corporation is chartered to make money - we expect it to act accordingly and for the most part companies do make money (when they fail to make money, they cease existing They are supposed to serve a higher purpose than just make money. If you were being equivalently fair to unions you would say that their sole purpose is to take dues. >a lot unions don't really carry out their core function and there are no co…

> Yes, they do, they lose members. And they often use violence or threat of violence to try to stop this - see their reaction to 'scabbing'. If I say I don't want to work for my company any more they'd either say 'farewell' or even offer me money to stay. If you don't want to be part of a union or a strike, you better be prepared to be harassed and intimidated.

[deleted]

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

#415

Post by culi »

andrewon wrote: post #354

What's wrong with letting employees to hear both sides of the argument, from professionals? Both unions and "consultants" are resourceful organizations. Perhaps they can keep the good and take out the bad practices in their unionization, if they ever choose to.

I don't think

> Two employees who helped organize the 2018 walkout later left the company, saying they were facing retaliation

is the same as

> letting employees to hear both sides of the argument

I've worked in a place that had a unionization effort underway and, let me tell you, the company certainly did not let people hear the union side of things. They'd make sure to schedule our lunches async so the employees couldn't talk to each other; they banned chatting about non-work stuff during work time; etc

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

#416

Post by CountSessine »

mullingitover wrote: post #356
CountSessine wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company's in a competitive market, it's unlikely that there's a huge pot of gold somewhere to hand to employees in operations. The whole value-add for unions lately has been pitched as better employee representation in decision making. I'm all for that - if that stops management from colluding with some hedge fund to engineer an awful reverse-buyback-privitazation scheme to load the company with unservicable d…

> If the company's in a competitive market This typically translates to "the company's successfully lobbied for trade agreements that allow us to force our domestic labor to compete against impoverished foreign workers in a developing nation with nonexistent environmental and safety standards," which is a race to the bottom for everyone but aristocrats. I think the problem in the US is that the country is deeply righ…

I wonder what most labour activists in the US would think of German worker councils, though? Works councils are basically company unions (which are loathed in US labour for some good reasons), but they are strengthened and protected through legislation. It doesn't stop at representation at the board level either - union busting is illegal and worker council reps enjoy job protection. But the flip side of this is that the union can't engineer a labour monopoly the way the UAW did in the 60's - the union and its employees are incentivized to keep the company healthy and competitive rather than just screwing over consumers by raising prices across the industry and lobbying for trade barriers.

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

#417

Post by wyre »

paisawalla wrote: post #346
wyre wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I’m hearing you say unions are bad because there promote anti-racism and bring up moral issues? And that’s bad because?

I'll engage as though this is a good faith attempt to read the complaint, for the benefit of anyone who is interested by this critique. 1. A union purports to represent the interests of a labor force to its management. Those interests are diverse, because the workplace is diverse, but the issues with largest intersection tend to be compensation, time off, and health benefits. 2. In the past several years, there has b…

1. Unions are a democratic force and it’s important to consider that it’s faults are problems of democracy, not something inherent or restricted to unions.

2. Lots of big words to justify being a bigot here imo. There is nothing cool about being against gay marriage. Also menstrual cups are exactly for people with periods and not women. Why would a post-menopausal woman need a menstrual cup? Your sexism is exclusionary and doesn’t benefit anyone while actively harming the people you are denying.

3. Citations please. Even a journalistic anecdote would mean more here than your opinion.

4. You might have to dumb this down for me, your mental gymnastics are getting hard to follow.

5. I don’t know what journalists you’re talking about but I would imagine it boils down to maintaining journalistic integrity being more important than the unconditional support from the union.

> anti-racism is a moral abomination

Looks like one small step to racism to me.

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

#418

Post by lovich »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #314
lovich wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unions have just as much an incentive to help the company as the company has to help the workers. Both will have nothing without the other so they can’t extract 100% of the value, but they do want to maximize their take. What I don’t get from your comments is why you think unions are bad because they can have bad actors, but are ignoring that the company’s bad behavior doesn’t go away if the union does. And this…

> Look at examples like when Apple, google, and a few other companies entered into a cartel agreement to suppress engineer wages. Wasn't that already illegal? Did unions help?

The unions didn’t exist so how could they have helped?

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

#419

Post by dls2016 »

exabrial wrote: post #377
dls2016 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which other human rights are violated by representation dues? I can name dozens of corporations who have used their profits not to increase worker compensation, but instead to lobby directly against their workers. And the workers have no vote or voice in the matter. Google in the article, for instance. But think of all the other dubious lobbying corporations engage in. It's never discussed in this context because you…

The right to your own wages

Doesn't corporate lobbying also lessen your wages?

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

#420

Post by discardedrefuse »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #364
discardedrefuse wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Teachers unions actively fight against performance metrics and instead focus on seniority as the main way to get pay increases.

Unions may have fought against it, but many have not succeeded. Those teachers now get paid on performance metrics. Those metrics punish teachers at schools in low income neighborhoods; leaving those schools devoid of good teachers. Those metrics punish teachers working with at-risk kids. Leaving those kids without access to good teachers. But I digress, that's a different conversation. My actual point is, these teachers, even though they get paid on metrics, are still unionized because there are more benefits to unionization than salary. Ask any charter school teacher.

> 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.

These were called "steps". And it was a way to encourage teachers to stay teachers. When new teachers signed on, they were given their step salary schedule and they knew exactly how much money they would be making at any point in their teaching career. To suggest this is punishing new teachers is ridiculous. If you don't like the salary schedule, you shouldn't have taken the job. Aside from that, many school districts have already moved away from stepped salary schedules to a flat salary with COLA increases negotiated by...you guessed it...the union.

A unionized labor force can bargain for any kind of contract it wants. Paid by seniority? Do it. Everyone paid the same? Go for it. Merit based pay? Not a problem. But without a union, "Here's what I'll pay you. Don't discuss it with your co-workers. Or else."

Post reply on HN