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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

#981

Post by ksec »

karaterobot wrote: post #536
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.

At least part of the reason not to credit individual engineers is that it damages the myth of the genius CEO. Ask most people who invented the iphone, they will not say "it was the work of hundreds of people at a dozen companies inside and outside Apple", they'll say "Steve Jobs".

That is different though. Steve Jobs never claimed credit himself. As a matter of fact his autograph are extremely rare;

"Steve politely declined several times, stating that everything at Apple was a group effort, so he didn’t like to sign and take credit for everything. " [1]

And with every Keynote Steve will thank all teams who has been working nights and days, often using the phase "separated from their families". And constant and consistently reminding everyone that "We, at Apple." Not "Me, Steve Jobs".

I remember some made the observation Elon Musk is more about selling himself than Tesla or SpaceX. Steve Jobs is more about selling Apple himself.

But at the same time let's admit it, Apple without Steve Jobs is just different. There is no one to keep the balance between everyone. Jony, Eddy, Tim, Phill, Scott Forstall and lots of others. Steve often likes to refer Apple as the Beatles, where the whole is greater than sum of its parts, and they kept everyone's flaws in check.

[1] https://live.autographmagazine.com/profiles/blogs/steve-jobs...

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

#982

Post by Udo_Schmitz »

antisoeu wrote: post #242
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 in Germany unions (in tech) will for example make sure that older employees can't be fired, so the younger employees will be fired instead. So I don't think you can simply claim they are beneficial for everybody.

You are misinformed, in Germany/EU there is legal protection against age discrimination.[1] You don’t need to be a member of a union or even have any union representation at the company.

[1]https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kündigungsschutz#Kündigungssch...

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

#983

Post by spiralx »

yrimaxi wrote: post #849
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…

I think we can just end the whole thread with this comment (the parent’s). It’s perfect. To summarize: unions might in general be good or bad, but any talk of tech unions on HN will be controversial because of how massively—and this cannot be overstated—, stupendously better the average HN reader is compared to the average tech worker. Thread over.

Yep, that is an accurate summary of every thread I've read on software developers and unions since I first joined Slashdot in 2000. The only thing missing might be "better and whiter" lol.

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

#984

Post by thu2111 »

RichardCA wrote: post #810
thu2111 wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody in this union is going to fight against "injustice". Look at their list of demands. It's indeed a red scare because they are really, really red. For example, refusing to work with the defence industry - which country in the world would benefit most from a damaged US/European military? China! We can see what kind of union this is by the fact that: 1. They aren't going to try and bargain collectively 2. Their an…

The whole point of unions is that no one is subject to the vagaries of summary termination. But don't worry, I'm not holding my breath on this. But the left/right pendulum swings both ways. It would also protect people from the next kerfuffle over Cancel Culture. People should have the right to not be threatened with the removal of their livelihood for arbitrary reasons. I mean, there's nothing unreasonable in that p…

The justification for its existence is to propagate cancel culture - read what they've written about their goals! A part of their mission is to cancel whole customers and let's face it, if they think Gebru was "fired" they aren't going to stick up for James Damore are they?

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

#985

Post by umvi »

AshWolfy wrote: post #963
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…

> One thing that wont happen: better working conditions. Some of these are true, some are not, but workers in unions make more money, have better benefits, and have better working conditions overall

> but workers in unions make more money

But could that be due to just paying the lowest tiers more and highest tiers less?

Companies usually make salaries opaque, but say you have 9 software engineers. Your 3 underperformers are being paid $10 per year, your 3 average performers are being paid $15 per year, and your 3 top performers are being paid $20 per year. So average worker pay is $15 per year.

Now a union comes in and over the years the pay structure changes so that the most senior employees make the most, not the top performers. Now 4 youngest employees make $14 per year, the 4 middle employees make $16 and the most senior employee makes $18 per year. So average worker pay is now $15.3 per year, and you can now make the claim "workers in unions make more money (on average)", but I would argue this new structure is overall worse for the company since you are basically rewarding underperformers and punishing top performers in order to raise wages.

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

#986

Post by kayfox »

labcomputer wrote: post #745
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.…

> 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…

In the theatre industry the union's work to limit supply and demand is usually along the lines of assigning work by seniority and seniority based on how much work someone has done, so when you first get into IATSE, you have to be really flexible and available for whatever work comes along so that you can accumulate the time to get more work.

This somewhat limits entrants. Some IATSE locals use different variations on that work assignment strategy and some entrants get work outside the union, so it varies by location, specialty, sector, etc.

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

#987

Post by raiyu »

dogprez wrote: post #859
raiyu wrote: post #549

Any system that aggregates power can be used towards detrimental efforts. Unions aggregate power and as such are heavily dependent on their leadership. When there was no employment law in the US and you had children working, obviously change was necessary and so unions were able to provide worker protections that an individual couldn't establish for themselves since they had no power against the corporation. If you l…

> The other challenge with unions, is that while one can succeed it leaves everyone else that is outside of the union at other companies completely unprotected. The 5 day 40 hour workweek was championed by the trade unions but everyone got the advantage of that eventually.

Proves my point.

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

#988

Post by michaelbrave »

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…

Perhaps in your ML union example they would be motivated by things other than financial compensation, perhaps ethical concerns.

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

#989

Post by esoterica »

AshWolfy wrote: post #960
esoterica wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Most of these problems are industry wide, poor work life balance is the rule in tech jobs, and jobs that are better have such high competition almost nobody will actually be able to shop around. Flexibility can be built into union contacts, and its unlikely each of the 100,000 people will have entirely different and opposed interested to you

Tech jobs have by far the best work life balance among any job where you can make well into six figures right out of college. How many hours do you think investment bankers, biglaw attorneys, management consultants, medical residents etc. work?
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