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

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

#811

Post by tengbretson » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #749

pwned1 wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the cart before the horse. Tell me I'm signing up for something that I have no idea how it will turn out, and then present me with a take it or leave it contract months later. And I'm stuck.

You would have a part in shaping the contract, though. And if you don't like it, yeah, leave the union, you're no worse off than you were before.

And you have about as much leverage in shaping the union contract as you do in negotiating your individual employment contract, so where's the win?

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

#812

Post by sidlls » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

esoterica wrote: post #682

thesuitonym wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>tell me what the terms of the contract will be and I'll decide for myself. Nobody can tell you what the contract will be because the contract won't be drawn up until the union exists and has enough members to bargain. What you DO know is the current contract you have. You DO know that you have virtually no say in what is in that contract, "accept it or leave," is not having a say in that contract. You DO know that a…

> You DO know that you have virtually no say in what is in that contract, "accept it or leave," is not having a say in that contract. Not only is "accept it or leave it" very much a form of "having a say" in your work parameters, it's a much more powerful way of exerting your preferences than voting. If 100,000 people are voting on a contract your 1/100,000th share of the influence functionally rounds to zero. The co…

"Accept it or leave it" is a post-facto event: one accepts or rejects the contents of the contract. What the OP is referring to is participation ("having a say") in the drafting of the contract itself. By definition "accept it or leave it" is not having a say in it.

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

#813

Post by compiler-guy » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

xtian wrote: post #405

csharptwdec19 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find really, really baffling the general position in the US regarding unions. It is like there's a general discourse that they are a bad thing, just like with "that other" thing (cough socialism cough). I'm from the 'birthplace' of US Auto unions. This part of your reply is actually a good place to start the explanation, because that's actually the perception of some other unions, and at times there is historical…

Are these negative characteristics you’re describing from before or after Taft-Hartley?

The mafia influence over the Teamsters Union was at its height in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Well, well after Taft-Hartley.

The UAW and related issues absolutely killing the domestic US auto industry is late 1970s, early 1980s. It wasn't just unions there, but that was a major contributing factor.

Police unions create issues today.

Taft-Hartley barely even registers.

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

#814

Post by delaynomore » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

subsubzero wrote: post #667

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.…

> 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 Agree, things that a union can address: - Pay transparency, Have detailed info about pay bands, and ensure some new hire from a hot company doing the same job as you is not making 2-3x your salary. - Broken promotion process, at my company promotion is completely…

I worked in a unionized IT shop for 6 years (now in SV) and here's my take:

Pay transparency: union mandated pay band helps - no 2x/3x pay for the same position that's for sure. Though I do think this problem could be solved without a union. It's really about opening up compensation information.

Broken promotion process/age discrimination/interviews:

First of all, broken processes are not going to get better with a union. They will still be broken, just in different ways.

Union favors/protects seniority therefore the promotion process will still push out high performing employees because they need to "wait for their turn". In fact the running joke we had about promotion was that you could only get promoted if someone: 1. Dies 2. Retires 3. Quits

Age discrimination happens less than in SV tech companies but not by design. In general the workforce in a union shop is older but you also have a lot of low performing lifers counting their days to retirement. On the other hand, interview is far less rigorous since the key factor is "likability" (aka culture fit). Many interviews took place just to satisfy a policy when a pre-determined candidate was already chosen.

Will I ever work for a unionized IT shop again? Not a chance.

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

#815

Post by farazzz » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

akie wrote: post #766

dannykwells wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very important comment, not sure why it's not higher. This isn't really a union in the traditional sense - it's just a group of hyper liberal Google activist employees who are banding together to try to get institutional change.

"hyper liberal" you say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In societies that are not America, unions are traditionally left of center but most definitely still more or less in the center. It seems that political discussions relating to the US don't have the appropriate vocabulary to discuss political opinions that are positioned to the left of the corporate wing of the Democratic party.

I think the OP meant liberal in the sense that activism at Google tends to be for liberal causes

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

#816

Post by hudsonjr » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #506

capableweb wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the mission statement seems to be "personal agendas" to you? Here they are listed: - All Alphabet workers deserve a voice - Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just outcomes - Everyone deserves a welcoming environment - All aspects of our work should be transparent - Our decisions are made democratically - We prioritize society and the environment - We stand in solidarity with workers and a…

The 'personal agenda' refers to the fact that it is unclear whether these values represent the opinion of an overwhelming majority at Google. Some of these statements are _actually_ controversial. (Without saying whether I personally agree with them or not -- I am saying that they are far from being universally accepted.) Examples: > All aspects of our work should be transparent, including the freedom to decline to w…

> Democratic Decision Making I'd question whether it's wanting "democratic" decision making or if the group wants a great role in decision making, perhaps beyond that which it's numbers justify. I say this as I work at a place where topics for all-hands could be submitted and voted on. This seemed to work well until a topic was submitted and the downvote to upvote ratio was "disappointing" to the person/group that submitted. After this meeting, only upvotes were allowed on submissions.

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

#817

Post by throwaway894345 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

minimuffins wrote: post #804

throwaway894345 wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know whether something like that would work in the software industry, but it seems at least plausible to me that it could benefit everyone who is currently employed in tech (at the expense of future potential tech employees). I doubt it, if only because actors are hired in large part due to their celebrity. There are no celebrity SREs (at best they have some cache in the software/SRE community, but not in t…

Most people in film and TV unions aren't actors.

I was responding to a particular comment that was talking about the mechanics of these entertainment unions with respect to actors specifically:

> First, the film unions provide useful benefits (like reasonably-priced health insurance), so most professional actors want to be part of the union. Second, union members are prohibited from working on non-union productions. Additionally, most well-known actors are union members. This gives a strong incentive for a production to be a union production. Third, union productions are prohibited from hiring more than a token number of non-union actors (unless they pay a fine to the union). This gives a strong incentive for productions to only use union talent (which also gives actors another reason to want to be a union member).

Note that by observing important differences between the film and software industries, I'm not arguing that unions couldn't work for the software industry. I suspect this is why I've been downvoted.

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

#818

Post by throwmamatrain » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:55 PM UTC

As the most spoiled class of workers to ever exist, it seems strange to want to unionize. I would think it sounds like inviting the vampire in (legal, HR, etc) without board representation of workers / codetermination similar to the German system. In America's way of doing things, I'm not sure if it's good. Would not look forward to "You have appropriate amount of non-union experience but you are 10th in line so we'll be calling you in 12 months, if we do." A theoretical for tech, not so for film unions which are being excitedly pointed to as good. It can take a very long time to get work under these schemes, which seems incompatible with how tech has worked.

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

#819

Post by sitkack » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:58 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #765

labcomputer wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is because those unions are serving a very different purpose to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear. [...] I think there's another purpose of the film industry unions that doesn't get mentioned much in these (tech industry) discussions. Specifically, that the film unions raise wages by limiting the number of people who enter the industry. It's simple supply and demand. This works via the follow…

> I don't know whether something like that would work in the software industry, but it seems at least plausible to me that it could benefit everyone who is currently employed in tech (at the expense of future potential tech employees). I doubt it, if only because actors are hired in large part due to their celebrity. There are no celebrity SREs (at best they have some cache in the software/SRE community, but not in t…

> There are no celebrity SRE

Twitter is full of them.

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

#820

Post by jonas21 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 8:58 PM UTC

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.…

Are you really holding up the film industry as a model that tech should emulate?

Because the median annual wage for SAG-AFTRA members is about $7500 [1]. And that doesn't even include members who failed to find any work during the year. 85% of members don't make enough to get health benefits through the union, which kick in if you make over $18K/year [2]. These are poverty-level wages.

[1] https://www.smdp.com/noteworthy-your-union-has-screwed-you/1...

[2] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-actors-insurance-2014...