A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#571

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

rdgthree wrote: post #187

avianlyric wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the article, it sounds like they do need to find ~40,000 votes. The article mentions that now they've announced the unionisation attempt, they're gonna starting doing lots of public campaigning to collect the votes they need.

Yeah, they definitely need to gather support of some sort, I'm just curious about the scale. 40,000 people from within the 120,000+ organization seems huge. If that's really the case, the coverage so far would seem fairly sensationalist - 0.25% of employees signing on to unionize is a drop in the bucket next to a required minimum 30% of the workforce signed on.

I mean, I think it is always the case that organizing efforts start with a small number of very activist employees and escalate from there. That has at least been my understanding of organizing MO, so sort of an odd standard to hold.

Huge difference between signing on and voting in a secret ballot - esp. in the context of in a company.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#572

Post by grumple » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

pacificat0r wrote: post #83

objclxt wrote: post #38

When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve. People often seem to think of unions as being purely blue-collar operations, and this just isn't true. For example, I've had people tell me that they don't support unions in tech because they'll be "paid less", or less competent engineers will be promoted faster.…

So these are really good examples, but I still don't understand what unions can do for 1% of someone's pay. They kind of look like subscription services, or worse places you have to join or else there are unintended consequences from other examples where they mention looking at union membership as an indicator of some experience (so kind of like a tax). The screen actors guild and all the movie-related guilds seem in…

Firstly, unions prevent abuse. This includes unjust termination (for a million different reasons), handles disputes with supervisors where the individual employee otherwise has no power, such as the HN post the other day about the extremely abusive Apple team, or the many things we hear about sexism and racism. On HN and reddit, every time we talk about these issues the comments are always "find a new job", "don't bother with hr", "hr is not your friend". With a union, the union IS your friend and they make it so you DON'T have to find a new job. For devs, with our extremely painful and broken interviewing process, this is great.

Second, they negotiate for higher wages and benefits. Given that tech is churning out billionaire ceos, we certainly could be paid more. I have never met a dev who said "I don't want to be paid more". Yes, we make decent wages, but we still produce far more value than what we're paid for.

Thirdly, they negotiate for better working conditions. Examples from the past were things like the 8 hour workday, safety measures, etc. I suspect there's a lot of opportunity for growth here in the tech industry, through I haven't had enough coffee to come up with a list. The 8 hour workday is certainly one of them, as I've heard endless nightmares of people being forced to working extremely long hours. The lack of overtime in our industry is a big deal, and "get a new job" is a crappy answer and hard to do in practice, especially if you're being worked to death.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#573

Post by briandear » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #84

karl11 wrote: post #60

Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable" the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's better off or not. Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns, hospital staff, etc.). Unionizing at Goo…

> People don't want to leave a cushy job for one where they would have to work harder for their money, so instead, they are trying other means to have their cake and eat it too. You're saying this like it's a bad thing. Why shouldn't employees expect, and get, better working conditions? > engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply leaving and working somewhere "better" How is individuals leaving "coll…

What’s the pay for a software engineer in Germany? Compared to the US?

Citing German unionization as support for unions doesn’t help your case.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#574

Post by musingsole » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

matsemann wrote: post #556

Siira wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions also fuck non-union members, which in turn creates a lot of economic deadweight and inefficiency.

No, that's just normal anti-union-FUD. A union doesn't have to imply that it controls everything, or that everyone has to be part of the union to work somewhere. A union could also just be a large entity that collectively bargain on behalf of the workers, and can do so better than they could separately. Often that involves stuff like better safety, pay, getting rid of bad stuff like non-competes etc. And where I'm fr…

>A union doesn't have to imply

As there's no set definition that would capture every union/guild to have ever existed...a "union" doesn't imply a thing other than some collective decision making apparatus.

However, turning from Plato to my good friend Aristotle, history shows that unions tend to not notice non-members or - even worse - actively work against them. It's not FUD; it's a pattern.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#575

Post by Odoia » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

karl11 wrote: post #60

Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable" the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's better off or not. Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns, hospital staff, etc.). Unionizing at Goo…

> Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable" the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's better off or not.

> Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns, hospital staff, etc.).

Unions are for all workers in all industries and sectors. Unions protect workers rights through collective action and ensure the work force isn't marginalized, mismanaged or abused.

A worker has a right to a voice. Unions are the body of that voice.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#576

Post by spicybright » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #471

scsilver wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I full on support their goal to clean up their yard before moving somewhere else. Employees are stakeholders and can use their leverage as they please. You somehow cast a negative moral light on workers for using this leverage when every other stakeholder, managment, stockholders, board members, government agencies, voters all use their leverage to change the ecosystem. Entitlement? You are entitled to what you can g…

This shows how deeply ingrained right-wing ideology has become in America. Outside America it is obvious that billionaires, oligarchs and CEOs wield power in their own self-interest, and that workers benefit from collective action in their own self-interest. But inside America the billionaires, oligarchs and CEOs are mythologized as benevolent actors, and workers should be thankful for the gifts graciously bestowed u…

Don't know why this is down voted, because it's spot on.

It's what gives us advantages in areas like medical/technical research, powerful mega corporations that can effect global markets, and schooling. All at the cost of the lives of people that crank the cogs forward to maintain it all.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#577

Post by throwawaysea » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

mkohlmyr wrote: post #10

230 Google workers announce plans to unionize, ftfy

This seems like a common tactic with many of these employee activist campaigns. They partner with a sympathetic news media outlet that will amplify their story (examples: Vox, Geekwire, etc.) but leave out details and perspectives that undermine their push - like how few employees are behind it. If you look at past activist campaigns (for example people trying to stop AWS from working with the US government), it's the same story of trying to paint a picture of widespread support where there isn't any.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#578

Post by ProjectArcturis » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

karl11 wrote: post #110

avianlyric wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don't want to leave a cushy job for one where they would have to work harder for their money, so instead, they are trying other means to have their cake and eat it too. You're saying this like it's a bad thing. Why shouldn't employees expect, and get, better working conditions? > engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply leaving and working somewhere "better" How is individuals leaving "coll…

Employees can ask for better, but when you already work at the company that pays and treats their employees like Google, I'm not sure what more you are entitled to. It seems clear to me that these are people who are unwilling to sacrifice some of the money they earn to follow their ideals and principles, so they are trying this instead. There are very few perils of leaving Google - a top tier company in an industry t…

"Entitled" has nothing to do with it. Workers get paid based on how much they can negotiate. Forming a union improves bargaining power.

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#579

Post by sl1ck731 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

I was investigating unions over the holidays and saw that these types of things are specific to companies which didn't make sense to me. I'm not familiar with unions in general, but the ones I hear about most in the trades seem to be exterior to any specific company.

Making unions specific to a company rather than a profession seems less useful...or are trade unions specific to their companies as well?

Re: A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

#580

Post by dagmx » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #533

karl11 wrote: post #60

Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable" the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's better off or not. Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns, hospital staff, etc.). Unionizing at Goo…

I have friends who are in the animation industry (which has been heavily unionized since the 50s) and they tell me the Union is constantly fighting with the studios over the studios trying to get more work out of them for less money. I have friends in the visual effects industry (which has never been unionized) and their lives are full of stuff like effects houses that did work on award-winning films with huge budget…

Minor nitpick...the animation industry is only really unionized in LA. Outside of LA, the animation union dwindles dramatically and is close to non existent.

For example, Titmouse was the first studio in Canada to unionize and that was just in mid 2020.

The Bay area studios like Pixar aren't unionized either, even though their sister studio WDAS in LA is unionized.