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A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

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

#751

Post by dang »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #347
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.…

Great point. The funny thing about unions is that the HN community believes that every other organization and industry can be disrupted...EXCEPT unions. It’s hilarious. The comments are usually all anecdotal with some story about an uncle or father who was “screwed over” by his union back in the 80s or 90s. We are capable of creating a new type of union and making collective bargaining better than what previous gener…

The HN community doesn't "believe" that—people have different opinions, as on many topics. As evidence you don't need to look any further than the massively upvoted subthread that you replied to. It's at the top of this page because a large slice of the community obviously supports this view. That many others don't agree is evidence that the community is divided, not that it's lined up against you; it's basically a variation of sample bias that makes things feel that way [1].

Would you please review the site guidelines [2]? They include this: "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." One common kind of sneering is this sort of supercilious dismissal of everybody-else-in-the-community and their dumbass "hilarious" opinion—this is an internet genre we need to avoid in order to have real conversation. If you're posting here, you're as much the community as anyone else is.

I understand what it's like to feel surrounded by enemies/jerks/assholes when you constantly run into comments saying things you strongly disagree with. But it's important to understand that this effect is largely a consequence of the fact that everyone is crammed into one big non-siloed space here—i.e. there's no self-selecting into silos the way other sites do it (follow lists, subscriptions, social graphs, and so on). If you don't understand that, this place will feel much more fractious than it actually is [3], and the consequences of that are pretty stark: one ends up feeling surrounded by demons [4], and tends to retreat to things like defensive sarcasm, putdowns of others, etc.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098

[4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

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

#752

Post by colejohnson66 »

pulse7 wrote: post #233
kenhwang wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit everyone by name or credit no one by name. It is inherently unfair to only credit key talent.

Isn't the moral right of every (software) author that his name is mentioned next to the authored intellectual property (software)? This is even written in copyright laws of some countries...

Unless as part of your employment, you agreed to an implicit copyright reassignment to the organization. In that instance, a “(c) Alphabet ####” is allowed.

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

#753

Post by kilotaras »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #705
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at Google, and when I started, I thought the idea of unionizing there is ridiculous. They already have a very well defined leveling system. The promotion and hiring system - people hate - but it is as un-nepotistic as possible and (I think) fairer than pretty much anywhere else. The compensation is already higher than basically everywhere - as you mentioned - ESPECIALLY considering expectations for your work.…

> " employees having a voice in corporate decisions than compensation " Should your waiter, your dentist, your auto mechanic, your daycare worker, your landscaper, etc. have a say in your decisions? They're your employees, albeit temporarily, so why not? The shareholders are the owners of the company, not employees. The right to set the direction of the company belongs to its owners. The profits belong its owners, ju…

> people attempting to pick their own pockets since increasing employee compensation (themselves) is taken from shareholders (themselves)

Unless employees make up 100% of the shareholders that is trivially not true.

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

#754

Post by Arelius »

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…

> Employees can ask for better, but when you already work at the company that pays and treats their employees like Google

I think one important aspect is this union includes their contractor workers, which are treated far worse than Google SWE's, this allows the union to do collective bargaining on their behalf. Which I do think is a pretty worthwhile goal.

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

#755

Post by reaperducer »

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.…

People often seem to think of unions as being purely blue-collar operations, and this just isn't true.

If you need an example to back this up, the million-dollar television news anchors in the United States are all union.

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

#756

Post by Cd00d »

influx wrote: post #269
lithos wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not union myself watching how IBEW (international brotherhood of electrical workers) works, it ends up working well for all involved parties. For workers pay is kept higher, benefits stay active between jobs, and benefits stay unchanged between jobs at different companies. Companies also gain the ability to support surges/drops in manning requirements (without ruining life's of workers), and know workers have a…

My experience with unions is setting up a booth for a trade show and being unable to plug into the outlets myself because I had to wait for a union electrician. Total scam.

>Total scam

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the union electrician is there because once upon a time someone setting up a booth daisy chained a bunch of extension cords of small gauge to run lights and demos and started an electrical fire in a crowded convention hall.

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

#757

Post by Rebelgecko »

mondoshawan wrote: post #63

Googler here, these articles are literally the first I've heard of it. No internal emails, rabblerousing, or any kind of comms about it, and it seems as though the union discussed doesn't actually exist yet. Seems a bit odd (and bad reporting), but we'll see where it goes. After watching how a mechanics union did absolutely nothing while CEOs ripped apart my Dad's pension and put him through hell, I have a bit of a d…

Also Googler. When I previously worked at a unionized company the union actually helped a lot when our corporate overlords cut retirement benefits. For that sort of collective bargaining I think unions can be useful. It looks like this isn't that type of union however. This one seems much more like a political advocacy group (I realize all unions are political, but the idealized union is political as a side effect of improving the welfare of their constituency, not as their primary purpose).

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

#758

Post by Apocryphon »

pelasaco wrote: post #738
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…

> look at Germany where every industry has unions And the Companies in Germany pushes more and more the workforce to outside of Germany. The company that I work for has moving massively the workforce to Czech republic, China and since 2019, Bulgaria. I could imagine Google doing the same.

U.S. has been outsourcing to cheaper countries for decades now, and while workers rights here aren't necessarily bad, unions have definitely been weak. As those countries are enriched and developed, eventually they will become more expensive for production, and might have their own stronger labor organizations as well. And then the cycle will continue until eventually you run out of countries/labor markets.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25635380

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

#759

Post by artursapek »

dcre wrote: post #657
rdgthree wrote: post #94

It seems incredibly significant that only 230 people are officially involved with these plans to unionize. As of 2019, Google had nearly 120,000 employees.[0] That seems quite small, relatively speaking. Legally (I think, just learning about this now), to form a union, a majority of workers must show their willingness to form a union. Alternatively, to choose an existing union to join, an election with 30% of the wor…

They are not trying to form a traditional majority union. > unlike a traditional union, which demands that an employer come to the bargaining table to agree on a contract, the Alphabet Workers Union is a so-called minority union that represents a fraction of the company’s more than 260,000 full-time employees and contractors. Workers said it was primarily an effort to give structure and longevity to activism at Googl…

Sounds like exactly the type of stuff Coinbase was wise enough to smother recently.
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