Google staff walk out over women's treatment • Hacker News Board

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#461

Post by jiveturkey » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

sah2ed wrote: post #330

jiveturkey wrote: post #306

Very disappointed with mainstream media coverage here. The walkout is being headlined as a complaint against harassment. It's not. It's a complaint against the company (rightly so) valuing its corporate reputation in the world in which we live vs standing behind the victims as if they were family, and going medieval (eg excommunication) on the harassers. Certainly there's a balance and perhaps google is on the wrong…

> That a walkout like this only happens at Google and not, say, microsoft, where surely sexual harassment also occurs and is also brushed aside, is telling about the employee culture at Google. There's a much simpler explanation than you are implying. The trigger for Googlers is the story from last week in the NYT about a former Google exec. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-...

Yes of course. I recognize that, but I don't understand your argument. Are you saying that from the cause of mainstream media (NYT) exposure of this payment, to the effect of a walkout, there is no aspect of Google-specific culture that makes this a unique Google occurrence? This was primed by previous walkouts such as the protest against the Trump immigrant travel ban nearly 2 years ago, and previous Google-internal petitions against things such as G+ real names (which people actually quit over) and the now infamous Damore memo.

Your comment seemingly argues that the story is just a simple one and I'm a fool (rhetorically) for thinking there's anything deeper.

I submit, again, that there is a deep story here that was missed.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#462

Post by jiveturkey » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #324

jiveturkey wrote: post #306

Very disappointed with mainstream media coverage here. The walkout is being headlined as a complaint against harassment. It's not. It's a complaint against the company (rightly so) valuing its corporate reputation in the world in which we live vs standing behind the victims as if they were family, and going medieval (eg excommunication) on the harassers. Certainly there's a balance and perhaps google is on the wrong…

How do you know sexual harassment at Microsoft is brushed aside? (I haven't heard reports either way.)

I don't know it for fact, but let's not be naive.

The last reported (2017) makeup of $MSFT in the US was 75% male, overall, and 81% for tech workers. 63000 employees in the US and 131k worldwide.

Do you really think that in an org that size with a demographic overwhelmingly skewed male, that there isn't sexual harassment going on? And lots of it unreported and lots of it dismissed?

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#463

Post by joshuamorton » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

vsl wrote: post #445

joshuamorton wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of this is due to incentives. Police and elected officials have an incentive to appear tough on crime. Theres no particular reason a priori, to assume that HR has the same incentives. In fact if anything, the current state of affairs may imply the opposite.

They do: risk of lawsuit. Risk of the PR hit of a Twitter mob descending on the company.

There's a risk of lawsuit from either side though (sexual harrassment/workplace safety vs wrongful termination).

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#464

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Nov 02, 2018, 10:45 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #360

anigbrowl wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a criticism of you personally. The last time we had a conversation was before you created this HN account and I didn't look at you bio before reacting to your comment.

I don't care what your justification or excuse is. If you* can't figure out that Mz and Her First Name and Middle Name are the same person, you aren't paying attention. And that means your criticism is completely vacuous on the face of it, even before we get into other reasons I have no interest in your opinion that would likely be verboten here as some kind of personal attack. * You personally , not the general "you…

I was not paying attention, and frankly Michele (the only name of yours I recall) is not exactly uncommon. It has taken me nearly a year to notice you were using a different HN account, since I have no interest in mounting personal attacks against you.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#465

Post by XorNot » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 4:59 AM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #456

brokenmachine wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior. citation please

That's straight up hyperbole, and probably is totally false. But it's unprovable anyway.

I'm genuinely confused by the apparently incredulousness at the idea that workplace sexual harassment is generally going to perpetrated (at it's roughly ~30% incidence rate) by "everyone" and not "a small but relatively powerful group of people who are generally not discovered".

This was ultimately the pattern at Uber, it was the pattern at Fox News, it was the pattern in Hollywood.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#466

Post by tomcam » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:30 AM UTC

jiveturkey wrote: post #462

tomcam wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know sexual harassment at Microsoft is brushed aside? (I haven't heard reports either way.)

I don't know it for fact, but let's not be naive. The last reported (2017) makeup of $MSFT in the US was 75% male, overall, and 81% for tech workers. 63000 employees in the US and 131k worldwide. Do you really think that in an org that size with a demographic overwhelmingly skewed male, that there isn't sexual harassment going on? And lots of it unreported and lots of it dismissed?

I assume there is harassment going on. I have no idea how much of it is and reported or dismissed. I worked there and saw absolutely none for four years, although that is not dispositive. Being old and a citizen of the USA I believe in the old-fashioned notion of innocent until proven guilty.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#467

Post by rurban » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 11:01 AM UTC

rurban wrote: post #131

Sounds like pre-unionizing to me. Wonder where this will lead to...

So the press reaction was as expected. Wall Street Journal was all over the strikers, with sexist and "snowflake" comments, demands the protestors be fired. Even comparing them to the coal miners. Remember the great coal-miner strikes? The company running the mines had the idea that they are above the law, that state law doesn't apply to their workers, that the company creates and observes their own laws on their ground with their own workers. The miners demanded that the state law be obeyed. Very similar to todays arbitration clauses, the very first point in the google workers demand. Or todays social media censorship, violating most countries constitutions.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/11/quick-thoughts-googl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#468

Post by patrickg_zill » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

jshevek wrote: post #349

patrickg_zill wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Combining "pay inequality" and "opportunity inequality" makes it more difficult to discuss the issue. We know already that "pay inequality" is fictitious at this point. So by elimination, that leaves opportunity - however as anyone who has ever worked in a large company knows, it is very difficult, except in a very regimented corporate culture like the military, to have equivalent opportunity spread around evenly. I…

How are you defining "pay inequality" while claiming it isn't real? If I interpret "pay inequality" as "the average pay for women ages 20-60 is less than it is for men 20-60 in the US in 2018" then I've seen data suggesting it is real.

When corrected for all factors there is no pay inequality.

In some instances, such as Hooters waitresses and associate lawyers, women earn slightly more.

You can search for "pay inequality myth" and figure out which argument makes the most sense. Both sides are presented in the search engine I used.

Myself, I think that the issue that pay varies specifically because of the choices that are made is very valid.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#469

Post by rmc » Sun, Nov 04, 2018, 9:57 AM UTC

ken wrote: post #248

rmc wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes, weeks to get a sysadmin up to scratch. You can't get scabs in if you go on strike. If the employees turn off google.com for 5 minutes, management will talk.

How is this different from other industries? How long does it take an aerospace machinist to get up to speed? 10 years ago, the strike at Boeing lasted 8 weeks and cost an estimated $100M per day.

Many other industries don't require people with lots of experience, like waiters, or front line customer service support or delivery drivers.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#470

Post by Justsignedup » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 8:41 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #261

Justsignedup wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

forced arbitration has been the bane of combatting anything legally. it basically is now used to completely remove any employee or consumer ability to sue. This is used for literally everything. Every employer does this now, every software product, every hardware. I don't understand how this is even acceptable.

Because it doesn't actually do that. Only in the u.s. do people believe that suing over anything and everything is an efficient or effective mechanism of justice "Sue it out" is probably the least effective possible conflict resolution mechanism along almost any axis. The underlying goal of arbitration is to ensure effective resolution of non-complex situations and reserve the courts for actually complex cases, inste…

the primary thing about arbitration

- it prevents class-action lawsuits

- it is funded typically by the company, and is very likely to agree with the company

Maybe suing constantly is an american thing, but if that is to be addressed it should be by congress not by individual companies wanting to circumvent civil law.