Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 473 posts

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#81

Post by malvosenior »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #77
googlerthrowaw wrote: post #69

I'm a googler, going anonymous for soon-to-be obvious reasons. While I think this headline is overblown, I think the change would be for the better. For the past couple of years working at Google has been like what I'd imagine it's to work for the Trump administration: constant scandals, people around you being outraged, constant diversion of internal attention to issues unrelated to the core business etc. Nominally…

I dont think anyone is arguing it wouldnt be better for stock owners. Workers rights are generally the opposite of an improvement for stock owners. Thats not what they are there for. Its targeted at improving and safeguarding workers and in a broader sense society. In this case its so employees arent just silently doing what they are told matter the consequences those actions will have for the rest of the world.

He's also speaking as an employee who is uncomfortable with the current state of Google. Do workers rights include the right to not be constantly bombarded with political messaging you don't agree with and to be intimidated into keeping your own opinions silent?

This poster's message and the internal dialog that came out during the Damore hearing make Google sound like a horrible place to work that is aggressively overly politicized. So yeah, the stock holders would benefit from this but so would the employees.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#83

Post by nabla9 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #56
nabla9 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Court room is an adversarial game, everything the defense or prosecutors say should be considered in this light. They should use every argument to defend themselves. Google has fiduciary duty to not lose money unnecessarily. The corporate policy is completely different from legal defense when sued.

This is fine, but then you can't claim the moral high ground if your legal defense is that employees don't actually have the rights that your policy says they do. It's worth noting that people don't like doing business with hypocrites either, so Google has a fiduciary duty to avoid pissing its customers and employees off by systematically eroding their rights through legal arguments as well.

If I think that castling should be removed from the chess rules. Am I a hypocrite when I use it when I play with others?

In the same way proposing laws that would limit legal tax evasion loopholes and using those loopholes is not a hypocricy. They work at different levels.

Wanting to change rules (laws) so that everyone must play with the same rules and using rules until they are changed is not hypocrisy.

Court battle is like debate competition, you can use arguments you don't believe in.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#84

Post by whieee »

austincheney wrote: post #39

> If the Labor Board did what Google wanted, “it would have a huge chilling effect,” said Google employee activist Colin McMillen Weird, I guess then they would have to use the employee email system for employment related matters. There isn't any restriction to prevent any employee from using a non-employer email system for organizing the very same activities. The unintended consequence of allowing this kind of activ…

> There isn't any restriction to prevent any employee from using a non-employer email system for organizing the very same activities.

Actually, in some cases there is. By using third-party email systems employees might violate non-disclosure agreements or company rules, which would in turn give the company cause for direct termination.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#85

Post by cf141q5325 »

malvosenior wrote: post #81
cf141q5325 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think anyone is arguing it wouldnt be better for stock owners. Workers rights are generally the opposite of an improvement for stock owners. Thats not what they are there for. Its targeted at improving and safeguarding workers and in a broader sense society. In this case its so employees arent just silently doing what they are told matter the consequences those actions will have for the rest of the world.

He's also speaking as an employee who is uncomfortable with the current state of Google. Do workers rights include the right to not be constantly bombarded with political messaging you don't agree with and to be intimidated into keeping your own opinions silent? This poster's message and the internal dialog that came out during the Damore hearing make Google sound like a horrible place to work that is aggressively ov…

>Do workers rights include the right to not be constantly bombarded with political messaging you don't agree with and to be intimidated into keeping your own opinions silent?

As a said, workers but also in a broader sense society.

edit: Maybe a more concrete example would help, lets take Whistleblower protection for example

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#86

Post by SolaceQuantum »

barnesto wrote: post #80
bendoernberg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is that being a human with moral and ethical obligations to the rest of humanity should take precedence over being a corporate leader. If you don't sell censorship and weapons tech or cut backroom deals to silence victims of sexual harassment, there's no need to try to stop your employees from talking about it.

And there’s nothing preventing employees from finding a new place to work if they don’t agree with how their company handles things. It’s a multinational corporation not college or even a democracy.

But the company shouldn't prevent employees from trying to improve their workplace for their fellow employees either way, especially given the power imbalance between employers and employees. Children, debt, high COL, and health emergencyes can easily prevent employees from seeking new places to work.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#87

Post by philwelch »

austincheney wrote: post #39

> If the Labor Board did what Google wanted, “it would have a huge chilling effect,” said Google employee activist Colin McMillen Weird, I guess then they would have to use the employee email system for employment related matters. There isn't any restriction to prevent any employee from using a non-employer email system for organizing the very same activities. The unintended consequence of allowing this kind of activ…

Making matters worse, if you talk a big game about allowing free and open discussion and then make a big show of firing people for expressing views that are too right-of-center, you’ve thrown your institutional weight in the direction of radicalizing the left wing.

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#88

Post by eeZah7Ux »

mehrdadn wrote: post #17
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. I think it shows precisely what's going on in every MegaCorp in the US: Woke Capitalism. Everything is calculated to maximize profit, including campaigning, branding, and marketing to say that you're NOT all about profit. In this case, both the saying of soothing things to the people who are complaining, AND lobbying the government to make those complaints less effective in the future are in line with…

What could a company like Google do to convince you that this isn't the case, if it truly isn't the way you imagine for that company? Because it sounds like there isn't anything.

Not engage in this kind of actions would be a start. Not building weapons, not lying to people...

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#89

Post by mbostleman »

josephv wrote: post #79

These comments read like a bunch of low-income retail shoppers defending Walmart because they provide something they otherwise couldn't get. I think these types of debates are bellwether for programmer/IT professional unionization. These are the exact types of lawsuits brought against organized labor as it was trying to get organized to prevent exploitative behavior. It's disturbing to see these same anti-organizatio…

If one holds strongly a principle that opposes monopolies and supports strong anti-trust protections in the market, it would explain why the same argument is made regardless of industry.

Also, the issue focusing on using the company email system sounds to me like a bit of a strawman. Why in the world would you want to use a communication medium owned and controlled by your opponent for such a thing? And even if you wanted to, being not allowed to doesn't in anyway limit your ability to organize in any practical way. I mean seriously, these are presumably some of the smartest tech people on the planet. They can't figure out a way to commmunicate independently?

Re: Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers

#90

Post by typon »

josephv wrote: post #79

These comments read like a bunch of low-income retail shoppers defending Walmart because they provide something they otherwise couldn't get. I think these types of debates are bellwether for programmer/IT professional unionization. These are the exact types of lawsuits brought against organized labor as it was trying to get organized to prevent exploitative behavior. It's disturbing to see these same anti-organizatio…

Programmers, maybe ones on HN especially, are super conservative and anti-labour for some reason. I don't know the history of Silicon Valley enough to figure out exactly why
Post reply on HN