51–60 of 493 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Found the consultant
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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…
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.
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…
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.
A related topic would be collective bargaining - which is often (but not always) associated with a unionized workplace. If you're a sub-standard employee, you win big through collective bargaining because pay bands will move toward the mean. If however, you are a high-performer, you will likely be under-compensated in a collective bargaining environment because your excess effort will be used to compensate those who…
There are plenty of companies that know this, and it is the primary source of their antagonism towards unions.
At a different company, a union worker actually aimed a forklift at me, apparently because I was in IT.
Unions historically served an important role, but they're an anachronism in the U.S. -- especially for coders at Google who are literally in the 1% of top earners.
Google SWE's complaining they're not making enough is just breathtaking hubris. There's so much money sloshing around that they could, and should, go work for another startup or start their own, especially as an ex-Googler.
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…
Seeing comments from previous posts on this forum, I'd say they kind of succeeded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard to believe that people working in one of the most seek-ed/desired jobs in the Valley / tech world, are unaware of how things might be elsewhere.
People still work for Amazon, so we can be sure it is nevertheless true that some people don't know how good things could be for them.
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…
American Unions: fat cats (presidents), dues, fancy dinners with the execs, mafia ties, corruption, pay offs, forced politics, exclusion of work based on joining, lowering of salary, years of law suites, subcontractors (non union) to actually do the work, brain drains, unmotivated work forces, forced protesting, layoffs, forced clicks, voting, forced discrimination. "We can't use her she is non-union". "Sure he touch…
Everyone can benefit from a union IMO. The Googlers that most need one are probably contractors (ie, not actually Googlers).
If a contractor isn't happy with the work or conditions then they should move on to the next job.