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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

#941

Post by dionidium »

sjg007 wrote: post #937
dionidium wrote: post #927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It had the effect of driving up wages for veteran players. Collective bargaining in Major League Baseball produced service time provisions that artificially limit the salaries of young players while driving up the pay of established veterans. Seniority provisions are a common feature of union contracts and they’re a direct wealth transfer from younger, generally poorer workers to older, more established employees.

Um, yeah you don't know what you are talking about. https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Minimum_salary You make the real money after free agency. Draft picks get slot bonuses. If you are on the roster you make $500k+

> You make the real money after free agency.

To be clear, nobody would argue that any of the players are starving, but the agreement is structured to reward seniority. That’s literally what I argued. The “real money” comes in free agency, access to which is restricted by service time.

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

#942

Post by GauntletWizard »

joshuamorton wrote: post #823
Apocryphon wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the people behind the Google Graveyard, the company's awful track record on UX and product design, and its core business strategy of making you, the user, the product through data monetization?

That's a bit of a reach.

It’s less of a reach than you think. These people may not be directly responsible for those decisions, but their distractions have allowed a lot of the people responsible for those decisions to bully them through. They’ve also created a climate where the people who push back against those bad decisions are uncomfortable or outright persecuted.

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

#944

Post by 374733636373384 »

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.…

I'm not sure a lot of this is really relevant in this situation. From the articles I've seen, the employees forming a union are the activist employees. So the fear for a non-union tech worker in this scenario would be if the union behaved like many others and demanded a certain ratio of union to non-union workers since the dynamic in this context would boil down to deprioritizing applicants who don't have the same political views as the union employees which seems wildly toxic for society.

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

#945

Post by IX-103 »

cactus2093 wrote: post #587
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.…

Here's a bit of an implementation detail question I have wondered about unionizing in tech, within software engineering specifically - how would a union work in a field where the lines between managers and employees are so blurred? Most companies have a parallel IC track where the most senior ICs are paid more and are more senior at the company than many managers. And there are tech leads/team leads that have no repo…

I don't see why the union would necessarily be pitted against the employer in tech. Yes their goals are not perfectly aligned, but that sort of work environment is something that both benefit from so I don't see that disappearing.

With a more centralized organization as a check on management decisions, the employer can find out earlier what the employees will tolerate by asking the union representatives (and not have the employees walk out when an unappetizing project is discovered). I expect the AWU would also fight against the reduction in transparency across the company, as that is a common concern among people I know that work there.

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

#946

Post by anoncake »

tempuser189 wrote: post #632
kanbara wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... in germany works councils don't get rid of young people because they want to protect their senior ranks. First: it's really hard to get fired in germany, almost impossible. Second: they help formulate who gets laid off when, when there are layoffs, and prioritise people who can and will find a job more easily. So young people and people without families. This is because older people are more vulnerable to discr…

First: that's awful because it means business don't have any flexibility to change. you're forced to work with people who don't work, because they can't get fired. The lower productivity of those workers becomes a drag on everyone else. Second: this is the worst. Instead of shedding the dead weight it insists on protecting the people who've been paying dues the longest, at the expense of young people. No this is not…

> First: that's awful because it means business don't have any flexibility to change. you're forced to work with people who don't work, because they can't get fired. The lower productivity of those workers becomes a drag on everyone else.

There are reasons why an employer may fire a worker. "Refuses to work" is one.

> Second: this is the worst. Instead of shedding the dead weight it insists on protecting the people who've been paying dues the longest, at the expense of young people.

Maybe if people did not understand "dead weight" when they read "older people" employers could be trusted to decide who to keep and who to fire.

> A just society is one where people doing more work get more pay.

That cannot be the only or even the main criterion else people who can't work starve.

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

#947

Post by hedora »

minimuffins wrote: post #788
ransom1538 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These are all real problems, especially in a lot of today's older unions that have been completely hollowed out and have become a kind of do-nothing "labor aristocracy." They don't function as democratic institutions serving laborers' interests anymore, only their own narrow, elite, institutional needs--often institutional self-preservation at the expense of their members' interests. They're decrepit, corrupt dinosau…

The CWA is a fairly old union, right? They’re hoping to join it.

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

#949

Post by [deleted] »

taurath wrote: post #901
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 would add - finally, the nature of the film industry is to work on a contract project basis, with individual funding rounds rather than being a "regular" employee. Thats why the union benefits in terms of health insurance is so important. So imagine a union of software contractors - that union would have no power because anyone wanting to use a contractor could sidestep them immediately by hiring a non-union contra…

[deleted]

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

#950

Post by [deleted] »

finnthehuman wrote: post #98
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 Because everyone talking about unionization refuses to get into the nitty gritty of what I might gain, what I might lose, and the structural changes to the workplaces that are inherent with unionization. And if/when I/others start spitballing about what those might be we're treated like dolts uneducated on organized labor, and should just…

[deleted]
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