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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

#831

Post by xtian »

compiler-guy wrote: post #813
xtian wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Taft-Hartley was a decisive stroke in the effort to defang and depoliticize labor unions in the US (e.g., outlawing solidarity strikes and political strikes, expulsion of communists). Should we be surprised that kneecapping the militant labor struggle led to the corruption of its leftover power structures?

We should definitely abolish police unions, though.

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

#832

Post by 8note »

ransom1538 wrote: post #395
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.…

unintended consequences 1. Fat cats. What are the due fees? %1 now?, later then? %5 of gross annually? 200 people * 300k year * %5 of salary = 3 million. They will use this on fancy dinners with Google execs? Or spend it in "wrongful terminations" law suites with google for years? What happens when 50x more join. 2. Who runs it? Will it be a 10 year long president? What is her union salary? A non-google person? Will…

8. Will the union be providing housing?

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

#833

Post by jiraticketmach »

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.…

> 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.

This is something that has always amazed me.

Your typical tech worker does a lot of unpaid overtime under the guidance of a manager whose only merit to management is being friends with someone. It also has to retrain him/herself for free on it´s own spare time and by the time it reaches 35/40 it tends to be let go by not raising his/her salary anymore or by putting him/her in lower status position. (Not to mention working as a contractor for years, etc.). These are the kind of problems unions are expected to fight for.

But every time someone mentions unions they go after the salary cap, time of service, etc, discourses.

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

#834

Post by nitrogen »

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.…

How long will it be before I have to wait for a union React dev to open a PR on the frontend as a backend dev, and a union DBA to write a new SELECT statement for me, and a union CSS dev to shift a header three pixels to the right, and a union mathematician to approve my simple arithmetic ?

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

#835

Post by nitrogen »

bradleyjg wrote: post #828
minimuffins wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The other unions are even harder to get into. At least occasionally a casting director will insist on a non-SAG actor. Many of the other unions are effectively impossible to get into except via their apprenticeship programs. Similar to the physician cartel ...

Similar to the physician cartel ...

Indeed, sports and entertainment unions probably aren't a good comparison for tech. Other professions like accounting, medicine, law, and engineering might have better examples of cost/benefit, though it's hard to think of another professional industry with the ridiculous level of functional duplication (a million frameworks for everything) in tech.

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

#836

Post by alacombe »

thundergolfer wrote: post #257
eznzt wrote: post #211

Google wanted a leftist culture, there you have a cultist culture. May this serve as a word of warning to fangless executives all around the country.

Who is the “Google” that you say wanted the leftist culture? Is it the shareholders? The majority of shareholder ownership in Google is held by wealthy non-employees, who probably didn’t want a leftist culture. Is it the executives? Seeing as unionisation probably reduces their power and their pay, they probably didn’t want it. Is it the rank-and-file engineers? These people tend to be left of centre, and the younger…

"Leftist culture" is the only way to make any kind of money right now in the US, so of course Google want a "leftist culture" there. Is the rest of the world, it might be different, of course (eg. China).

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

#837

Post by bumby »

Sodman wrote: post #663
commandlinefan wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> put in more hours I'm skeptical of unionization in tech, but the one thing I can imagine unions would fix is the constant unpaid overtime that's associate with tech jobs. In a union situation, you'd be paid more if you were working more hours period, rather than hoping somebody would notice and give you a pay raise at some indeterminate time in the future.

It's not a huge stretch to imagine the following scenario play out though: 1. Tech workers unionize, negotiate with employer that any work > 40 hours / week get paid overtime. 2. The company now has two choices: A) Pay their employees more than their competitors for the same work. Or B) Don't authorize any overtime. 3. In scenario A, they're either running at (much) higher cost than their competitors, and thus a disa…

One unfortunate consequence in A is that it may cause the unscrupulous to delay work in order to work overtime at a higher rate. This was sometimes an issue with (non-software) maintenance

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

#838

Post by bumby »

commandlinefan wrote: post #633
da_big_ghey wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I am such a person. For most workers, you're right that a union will probably increase wages. But for me, it will do the opposite. In most jobs I have worked, I ended up paid significantly more than counterparts in the same job. I usually was better at my job and put in…

> put in more hours I'm skeptical of unionization in tech, but the one thing I can imagine unions would fix is the constant unpaid overtime that's associate with tech jobs. In a union situation, you'd be paid more if you were working more hours period, rather than hoping somebody would notice and give you a pay raise at some indeterminate time in the future.

To be fair, there are other avenues to fix this. I came into a job that just settled a lawsuit over this for the very small number on non-union workers it applied to. From then on, that small group received increased overtime pay despite being non-union

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

#839

Post by vitus »

my_usernam3 wrote: post #729
vitus wrote: post #392

The prevailing fixation seems to be on how unionization would help the highly-compensated engineers, when the people who need and would benefit most from unionization are the TVCs, who aren't considered Alphabet employees, don't get benefits, are regularly excluded (from all-hands, mailing lists, even affiliating with Google on LinkedIn). Suppose a barista's phone dies. Employees are not permitted by policy to chip i…

I think thats because this unionization attempt is for the FTE to speak out over social justice causes and not face retaliation. Aka not about compensation. I do wish there was more focus around the contract employees, in fact I think this petition (or whatever its called where they all sign) is only for FTE.

From the article:

"The Alphabet Workers Union will be open to all employees and contractors at Google’s parent company."

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