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Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

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Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#51

Post by username90 »

sixothree wrote: post #19
the_jeremy wrote: post #11

Unlike Uber, Google has proactively taken steps to ensure contractors are not able to be considered employees. If Google wants to use contractors, for one reason or another, lawyers have told them they need to take these sort of steps. This whole article is basically complaining that being a contractor sucks because the law forces Google to follow these sorts of practices, but then blames Google for following these s…

The law forces google to choose contractors instead of hiring employees?

Contractors are easy, you just throw money at a contracting firm and they solve your problem. Doing it inhouse means they have to hire managers and all other support personnel needed to hire and keep employees, that is a lot more complicated. The law makes it more complicated to throw money at contracting firms to make them solve your problems, hence why they get fired every 2 years etc.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#52

Post by yanderekko »

pydry wrote: post #45
yanderekko wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because companies reasonably try to avoid throwing away money? I mean, I'm not sure exactly why companies higher CWs as opposed to just lower-paid FTEs. Could be a remedial stopgap to deal with issues in the "normal" hiring pipeline, I'd guess? But the answer to why they don't just throw extra money at people who are already willing to work for you is obvious.

"Impractical" and "not throwing away money" are really interesting choices of words when discussing why one of the world's richest companies gives PTO or health insurance.

I think it's a lot less interesting than people want to pretend it is. A company's willingness to throw away money should be largely invariant to its overall financial health.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#53

Post by dcolkitt »

taurath wrote: post #23
jasode wrote: post #13

>Contractors love the good pay and engaging work in Google's data centers. They resent that Google and its staffing firm, Modis Engineering, make them quit every two years. >[...] But those two-year contracts are written in stone. Workers like Wait are not usually allowed to apply either to renew their contracts or to do the same job as a Google employee. If they want to keep working in the same job, they have to lea…

The right thing for the company to do would be to hire people as employees, but it appears that worker protections are too strong for them to want to financially. Universal healthcare/dental/paid leave would allow for companies who’s employees currently are the only receivers of these “benefits” to not require companies to hold onto people so long. Worker protections are supposed to be so that catastrophic job loss i…

Employee-status may come with certain benefits, but it also comes with many drawbacks and burdens for the employee.

For me, and probably many on this board, the biggest risk is "works-for-hire". Under US law, contractors have strong legal protections of their own intellectual protection. Whereas it's much easier for a W-2 employer to claim IP made in personal time.

I don't really care about healthcare of unemployment insurance. I'm well compensated enough that I can buy my own high-deductible insurance and have more than enough assets to feed myself between jobs. Forcing freelancers into W-2 status is just another example of the government screwing people over "for their own good".

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#54

Post by Retric »

dannyw wrote: post #48
taurath wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right thing for the company to do would be to hire people as employees, but it appears that worker protections are too strong for them to want to financially. Universal healthcare/dental/paid leave would allow for companies who’s employees currently are the only receivers of these “benefits” to not require companies to hold onto people so long. Worker protections are supposed to be so that catastrophic job loss i…

Some people, like the grandparent or me, don't want to be employees.

The difference between a contractor and an employee isn’t arbitrarily. Basically, if you’re using company equipment, following the companies schedule, and don’t have a clear task with a clear finishing condition then you’re an employee.

Finding someone to fill in for a secretary on maternity leave is fine, but open ended contacts on their equipment and schedule without some specific task is just opening them up to lose another lawsuit.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#55

Post by HarryHirsch »

caseysoftware wrote: post #37
donkeyd wrote: post #12

> Love the good pay. > It pays relatively well ($15 per hour for most contract workers). How is that relatively well? Compared to McDonald's employees, probably. Compared to other actual technical jobs, like electrician, I can't imagine. Compared to Google devs, not at all. Working 40 hours a week with no vacation that's about 31k. Being a contractor means no sick leave, vacation days, pension, insurance, etc. The US…

> Compared to McDonald's employees, probably. Compared to other actual technical jobs, like electrician, I can't imagine. When someone has few work skills - as noted in the article - do they more closely resemble a McDonald's employee or an electrician? Yes, people with low/no skills and little/no experience tend to start in crap roles. Some people will not further their skills, abilities, or knowledge and stay there…

Tell me - are there any possibilities of advancement in today's streamlined datacenter job? In the past, someone eager and capable might have been given training opportunities, but that doesn't really exist any longer, does it?

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#56

Post by geodel »

dx034 wrote: post #40
yanderekko wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. It's an awkward situation. A lot of the data engineers I work with are CWs, and under the circumstances of normal interaction they're pretty much indistinguishable from FTEs. But there are all sorts of compliance reasons for why you aren't supposed to treat them as real "team members" with all the attendant perks and privileges. Many ICs will not even realize that their colleagues are CWs since it's not the defa…

Why do you have to give them a huge boost in comp? There's no union at Google, they can pay whatever they see fit. They could just hire them at lower salaries but that'd destroy the image that anyone working at a FAANG makes at least $250k/yr.

Yes, that would just compound the grief. Endless media articles on how certain employees are considered second class citizens at Google.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#57

Post by LinuxBender »

mraza007 wrote: post #14

Aren’t data center employees crucial as they are making sure your services are running perfectly even in an event of emergency. Why not hire them and pay them better wages

I assume some day they will want to use robots for this work. Amazon is already working on it for their warehouses. It is not much of a stretch to imagine they've had conversations about what physical work can be automated. I could be wrong.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#58

Post by decafninja »

Seems very different to the story in the legacy financial tech world (i.e. tech in old school investment banks and hedge funds) - often times contracting is preferred to being a full time employee. As a contractor you can get paid 1.5-2x+ what a FTE might get, albeit without insurance or vacation days. For insurance, many who are young and healthy (knock on wood) just shrug it off, while those who are married often times rely on their spouse's employer's plan.

I've seen contractors at IBs and hedge funds decline the offer to be converted to employees because it would mean a big paycut for them.

The 18 month period limit could be seen as a downside, but in this day and age when spending too much time at one company is ironically seen as a bad thing (unless maybe you're at a FAANG tier org), maybe it's not really a big downside either.

Other than that, at least in the legacy financial world, you don't get to put on a fancy but utterly meaningless (and quite frankly, stupid) "Vice President" or "Director" title the employees have.

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#59

Post by [deleted] »

taurath wrote: post #23
jasode wrote: post #13

>Contractors love the good pay and engaging work in Google's data centers. They resent that Google and its staffing firm, Modis Engineering, make them quit every two years. >[...] But those two-year contracts are written in stone. Workers like Wait are not usually allowed to apply either to renew their contracts or to do the same job as a Google employee. If they want to keep working in the same job, they have to lea…

The right thing for the company to do would be to hire people as employees, but it appears that worker protections are too strong for them to want to financially. Universal healthcare/dental/paid leave would allow for companies who’s employees currently are the only receivers of these “benefits” to not require companies to hold onto people so long. Worker protections are supposed to be so that catastrophic job loss i…

[deleted]

Re: Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

#60

Post by geodel »

donkeyd wrote: post #12

> Love the good pay. > It pays relatively well ($15 per hour for most contract workers). How is that relatively well? Compared to McDonald's employees, probably. Compared to other actual technical jobs, like electrician, I can't imagine. Compared to Google devs, not at all. Working 40 hours a week with no vacation that's about 31k. Being a contractor means no sick leave, vacation days, pension, insurance, etc. The US…

> The US is such an odd country.

I guess this is why no one want to come to US to work as contractors.

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