Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees “unions suck” • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by Claude_Shannon » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #36

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…

This feels... Unlikely to be a thing of unions. Seems just as likely, if you saw promotions that were unwarranted, that there was incentive for management to get more promotions. Indeed, it is often to grade managers on how many promotions they have overseen. Not shocking that measuring that would cause them to happen unwarranted sometime. Which is just too say that a healthy organization is hard. There are no panace…

City company my dad's working at has SIX unions. Whose leaders sit so deep in the city council pockets it is not even funny.

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

#72

Post by yowlingcat » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

dccoolgai wrote: post #56

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…

People _can_ be awful. I've seen founders, managers and execs bleed people dry - squeezing the life out of critical contributors whole stringing them along with promised of "getting their piece of the pie" that they had no intention of ever sharing. Telling anecdotes about "that one lazy guy who got paid for doing nothing" is tired. We've done that for the last 40 years. Time to try unions again, please.

Not saying I disagree with the idea of "trying unions again" but by your own admission, isn't 'telling anecdotes about "that one lazy guy who got paid for doing nothing"' something that you call tired?

What's to say that founders, managers and execs bleeding people dry isn't also something equally "tired" given that in today's labor market, any such leadership will bleed out talent that will vote with their feet for greener pastures?

As a sibling comment said, unions have their pros and cons.

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

#73

Post by bennysomething » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

dccoolgai wrote: post #56

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…

People _can_ be awful. I've seen founders, managers and execs bleed people dry - squeezing the life out of critical contributors whole stringing them along with promised of "getting their piece of the pie" that they had no intention of ever sharing. Telling anecdotes about "that one lazy guy who got paid for doing nothing" is tired. We've done that for the last 40 years. Time to try unions again, please.

You say let's try again, I think before doing that it would be wise to look at why we got rid of them. I'm the UK, I know people who are doctors and teachers, they all have stories of how their unions are hurting the public.

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

#74

Post by lordnacho » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

brightstep wrote: post #47

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…

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.

Isn't it a fairly common thing to not appreciate it when other people get the same reward for no contribution?

It's like when you're a kid and you win some sweets, and your parents decide you have to share them with your little brother. There may be a desire to do so, but does he get half your sweets?

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

#75

Post by Vinnl » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #17

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…

It's somewhat interesting that you're talking about low and high performers, and then and with "...and negotiation skills". Those don't seem to necessarily be related to job performance, and don't even seem to be purely a matter of skill: there's also a pretty big disparity in access to information between employee and employer.

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

#76

Post by brezelgoring » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

I'd like to open a thread to discuss the optics (?) of unions as an organization, and see what you all think.

A bit of context, I come from a region in which unions are looked at fondly from the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, as they can help avoid the meat grinder and can make shaky jobs stick for longer and have better pay/benefits. However, as you educate yourself and can land better jobs, unions start being more redundant as the jobs are the ones trying to get you to stay for longer and compete with better pay and benefits. Our labor laws are very strong so ideally you don't even need unions, just knowing what your rights are.

All that being said, unions have this undercurrent of mafia going on where politically connected unions have the power to shut down an entire sector of the economy and their leaders use this power to wring money out of big companies, you can call it union donations or extortion but its quite common around here. There's allegations of being affiliated to narco guys, ties to Venezuela and Cuba (their leaders travel there frequently, and all have been photographed with Maduro and Diaz-Canel), and some other stuff related to hiding millions of dollars in their leader's homes (why does a union have this kind of capital? 1M USD is a ridiculous amount of cash here). Some of them follow up this questionable life by straight up becoming senators, on the lists of bigger, more popular left-leaning politicians.

This worries me, it doesn't help that they all seem to look like Richard Stallman after climbing a flight of stairs and have a terrible attitude to boot.

So, you've heard me, now I want to hear you. How are unions seen in your country? Are they worth it, in your opinion?

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

#77

Post by papito » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

It's a testament to how fraudulent this "trickle down" argument is. The contractors in security, the kitchen, cleaning - they get peanuts, while working in one of the most decadent centers of wealth on the planet.

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

#78

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

borepop wrote: post #59

ransom1538 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As opposed to CEOs and upper management, who are all lovely people and want nothing but the best for their employees, and are definitely not motivated by short-term gains.

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by lordnacho » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #17

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…

Mostly agree, but why should negotiating skills be compensated? Should we all be taught poker?

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

#80

Post by 0xbadc0de5 » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

tobr wrote: post #39

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…

Is this the argument against unions? They are made up of people and people can be awful?

In my experience, partially. Although I am willing to acknowledge that conditions will certainly vary from union to union and even between locals. In my experience, they add an additional layer of bureaucracy and significant cost to an organisation. They /may/ improve /some/ conditions for some workers. But they will also likely introduce other problems that affect all workers and disproportionately impact the top-performing workers to the benefit of the least performing. As has been noted, this isn't necessarily a problem with unions as a concept, but rather a problem with human nature and adding an additional layer of bureaucracy on top of another bureaucracy with conflicting interests. It will at the very least slow things down and add cost. Whether that is worthwhile probably needs a case by case analysis.