Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

https://m.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/anti-union-activity-is-heating-up-ahead-of-google-contractors-vote-to-unionize/Content?oid=15886644

by claudeganon • 7 years ago

358 365 7 years ago

m.pghcitypaper.com

adamnemecek• 7 years ago

It's funny how progressive everyone is until it impacts their bottom line.

entropea• 7 years ago

They really only care about the social aspect so they can use it as PR. LGBT & the rainbow flag sell really well. The second anything challenges capital, all gloves are off.

danans2• 7 years ago

How can you be so sure that every progressive at Google opposes this? Speaking only for myself, I support their unionization bid.

statusquoantefa• 7 years ago

It's funny how everybody covets more power and more money, employers and employees alike, and always want to wrap it all up in a facade of being the moral choice.

stjohnswarts5• 7 years ago

Unions are as much about fairness as "more money". People genuinely want better work conditions, better hours, and better benefits just as much as "more money".

cobookman• 7 years ago

Should replace Google with HCL. The actual employer and one lobbying against unionization

benologist2• 7 years ago

There's a parallel effort to detangle who employs Google et al's workforce too.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/29/california-b...

KirinDave4• 7 years ago

Well, its Google's responsibility in this to make it clear unlawful anti-union activities are grounds for terminating contracts. They have a lot of the power here and if they set a precedent, a lot of other companies can follow.

asdfasgasdgasdg5• 7 years ago

That's actually not Google's responsibility. It's the government's. I mean, it would be a nice thing for Google to do, but Google is not law enforcement. It's important not to assign the responsibilities of the state to a private company, as that inevitably leads to disappointment.

I'll also just point out that Google probably lacks a sufficient, just apparatus to evaluate the claims being made. I mean, USW claims that illegal anti-union activities are occurring. HCL would probably deny those claims. Google is not a detective agency, and it shouldn't be. If it observes illegal activities occurring on its own property, or has substantial knowledge of them, that would be one thing, but I imagine that if HCL is doing this dirty stuff they are not going to make it obvious.

Finally, I doubt the unionizing HCL workers would appreciate the remedy that some people here are proposing. People are saying to terminate the contract with HCL. What? What good would that do? Do you think the unionizing workers would appreciate having their positions eliminated? If anything should be considered anti-union, this proposed remedy is it!

close04• 7 years ago

Google shouldn't wash their hands of this and claim ignorance. They are the ones contracting a service and should have a share of the moral responsibility. The same goes for Apple and Foxconn, or Facebook and their contractors, etc.

Knowing your partners are breaking the rules should put at least some moral pressure on them, if not legal. This is expected from you even as an individual (in situations like buying stolen items). It makes even more sense for companies since they have the actual power to shift this in any direction.

ocdtrekkie• 7 years ago

Many tech companies right now, Amazon and Microsoft included, specifically use contractors in order to deny them benefits their employees are entitled to and provide a level of plausible deniability or reduced liability. It is absolutely accurate to hold the big guys responsible for the ecosystem they're creating.

tyingq2• 7 years ago

"HCL employee and union organizer Ben Gwin says HCL workers make between $30,000-60,000 a year, and it varies widely."

That's really low. I wonder what kind of work they do for Google.

benologist2• 7 years ago

I think the important thing is they contribute to Google's wealth, which includes over $100 billion in savings.

Operyl2• 7 years ago

If I recall correctly, generally janitorial, stuff like that now.

EDIT: geez, sorry guys, I already admitted I misremembered down below. Sorry :/

danans2• 7 years ago

According to their website, they are an India-based IT services contractor. Not janitorial.

dev_dull• 7 years ago

The painfully obvious answer is that the work is low skill. Why? Because the job market in the Bay Area is such that high skilled labor can easily and quickly find more gainful employment.

It doesn’t make it better for them to earn less, and a union is one way to group high and low skill labor pool such as the whole can have a better quality of life.

goatinaboat• 7 years ago

The painfully obvious answer is that the work is low skill

No, that isn’t obvious at all. Well it probably is relatively low skill for programming - because it’s HCL - but the reason it’s that low because this is indentured labour. Wipro, Tata even IBM are all in the same game.

youeseh• 7 years ago

This is not true. There are a large number of contractors working at Google, Facebook and other companies in engineering and other skilled roles. Their contracts are from 3 to 6 months long.

If you're in a bind and need a job, you get placed quickly by one of the firms supplying contractors to the large companies. Since you're in a bind, you accept making a lower salary, which ends up being around 60-75% of the base salary of a full-time employee without any of the other benefits of being full-time.

tyingq2• 7 years ago

Looks like IT analyst work:

https://www.indeed.com/q-Hcl-America-Google-jobs.html

skwirl• 7 years ago

It doesn’t make it better for them to earn less, and a union is one way to group high and low skill labor pool such as the whole can have a better quality of life.

It is definitely better for some workers to make more than other workers. Is this really part of the argument in favor of unions? I always thought this was an anti-union straw man argument.

pcnix• 7 years ago

For Indian developers that's above average pay, and HCL has a heavy Indian presence.

Prices for developers outside of the US and Europe are actually quite low, and part of the reason is the low costs in other countries that let companies get away with paying less, and another part is that there's a lot of engineers available.

Even if the average engineer is not as good, there's so many engineers in India that companies have a huge candidate pool from just the above average ones.

rtempaccount12• 7 years ago

I'd say it's mainly just the US, from my experience (UK outside of london) developer salaries in Europe are much lower than the US.

For one example https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Software_Developer/...

Aloha2• 7 years ago

Maybe this is the way it shapes out - the contractors of the new economy are equivalent to the hourly worker in the old economy, the perm people management. The contractors have representation from a union, and the perm people, none.

claudeganon7• 7 years ago

It probably won’t be that analogous. I suspect that having the parallel, contract labor force is at least somewhat about exerting additional control over those employees that are actually permanent. A kind of implicit threat that your employment status can be downgraded.

Aloha2• 7 years ago

I think the threat of firing is more relevant - no one gets downgraded to a contractor, you just get pushed out the door

1-6• 7 years ago

Good, if unions can make it less appealing for Google to hire less temp, vendors, and contractors, they might hire more full time employees. There's already a chasm forming between TVCs and FTEs. It's only going to grow bigger.

burtonator• 7 years ago

I had a recent request for a HIGH-level position at Google that was not an FTE... they're really pushing it now.

H8crilA• 7 years ago

Just remember that if this happens and spreads out the insane software engineer salaries will be gone. Whoever makes a Silicon Valley salary is a benefactor of the current setup (which, I agree, is a little outrageous).

baby• 7 years ago

I think it is possible to be a benefactor and also understand that the disparity is insane.

t-writescode• 7 years ago

The people that will be most impacted by any sort of equalizing are the people who make like 120-250k per year. Not silly rich, but they have a house or two that they rent out, etc.

This is okay, because everyone is better off, despite the upper-middle-class being knocked down a peg or two.

Yes, they’ll have to sell their 2nd rental because it’s unsustainable.

rdiddly2• 7 years ago

I always wonder about these ham-handed anti-union efforts. I assume they must work to some degree, or they wouldn't do it. But it seems like the sudden escalation of anti-union arguments would only end up working in favor of the union. Because it betrays how against it they are. It confirms that yes, this union will have an effect, and not in management's favor. Like "Clearly we're onto something here if they oppose it this much."

chrisseaton• 7 years ago

I think their angle is that it’s not in anyone’s favour to unionise.

rapind• 7 years ago

It's hard to pinpoint where it originated but anti-union sentiment existed conversationally my entire life. The view being that union's are big inefficient bureaucracies of lazy people who get nothing done.

It parallels the view of government I grew up with.

Never really questioned where this view came from though, but my guess would be persistent long term marketing by interested parties. "Nudging" if you will.

That's what socialism, union's, and co-ops are up against. A sentiment that's been groomed over a long time, that makes you feel like a Commie or a conspirator if you question it.

It's lead me to think that capitalism has become a religion. If you question it you get labeled subconsciously by otherwise reasonable peers.

claudeganon7• 7 years ago

I think it has to be framed against the baseline of pervasive anti-union ideology in the US. When people have been inculcated all their lives with the idea that labor organizing is bad, they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs, it doesn’t take too much to push them back towards this baseline. Or at least enough to quash the union.

cgag3• 7 years ago

What percentage of your life have you been being inculcated with the idea that your political opponents believe themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires?

staticautomatic2• 7 years ago

One can be pro-organizing but not pro-union.

coupdetaco• 7 years ago

Or the unions are composed of reprehensible bigots who support the Vietnam war and are bad on race

rayiner2• 7 years ago

I’ve spent 30 years in the US, many of those in red states, and I’ve heard the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” canard way more often than I’ve heard anti-union rhetoric. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anti- (private sector) union rhetoric.

Have you considered that maybe peoples’ reactions are based on bad experiences with unions? In particular, public sector unions. Even liberal areas are pretty anti-union, and with things like the DC and NYC Subways falling apart despite massive funding, who can blame them? With police unions protecting crooked cops and teachers unions protecting bad teachers, who can blame them?

(I think it’s also fair to say that the sheer rapaciousness of American public sector unions is the result of an anti-union war that has otherwise receded from the public consciousness. They fight everything tooth and nail, even reasonable reforms, because they’re the outnumbered survivors of anti-union movements.)

mbostleman• 7 years ago

Count me in. Inculcated into the backwards ideas that free markets are good and monopolies are their enemy.

oh_sigh2• 7 years ago

I'm fine with unions if they are voluntary, but not if I'm forced to join, forced to strike, forced to pay dues even if I'm not involved, and forced to not seek employment at a place under strike through threats of violence.

ThrowawayR24• 7 years ago

When people have been inculcated all their lives with the idea that labor organizing is bad, they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs, it doesn’t take too much to push them back towards this baseline.

Okay, everyone, think carefully about what the trite "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" quote implies. The underlying meaning is "These people are too ignorant/foolish/some other pejorative to recognize that they are not, in fact, 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires', LOL." It also has a implication of "I, however, do recognize this because I am wiser/smarter/etc. than them and I know what's good for them better than they do themselves."

If the people who repeat these kinds of things think that ordinary folk are not bright enough to pick up on these subtexts and resent the hell out of them for it, maybe they are not a tenth as smart as they think they are. Maybe it's time to stop parroting Wright's stupid quote and stop looking down on these people if you all actually want to, like, win elections or something.

AnthonyMouse6• 7 years ago

they’re all just temporarily embarrassed corporate execs

I've always found this condemnation odd given how often it's actually true.

If you break down salaries by demographics, one of the biggest correlations with salary is age. Senior positions pay more than junior ones. It's an extremely common career path to start off in an entry level job and ultimately end up in management by the end of your career.

So the reason people think they'll be making more money in ten years is that most of them will be. You may not be Warren Buffet but you could easily be the manager of your branch office and making two or three times your current entry-level compensation.

CryptoPunk12• 7 years ago

I would say that there is a pervasive anti-free-market ideology in the US. Otherwise there's no way the laws that blatantly violate people's contract rights in order to empower union action would be tolerated by society.

kortilla8• 7 years ago

But the view you’re espousing is basically propaganda as well. Corporate execs + all of the management layers below them are frequently promoted from within.

Viewing employment as a collaborative endeavor rather than a hostile negotiation goes a long ways towards improving both sides.

Finally, part of the issue is that basically none of the innovative companies in the US are union shops. Because of the ham-fisted salary control most US unions are known for, they are just seen as a way to get a company to pay more than the market price for a skill by forming a cartel.

shams93• 7 years ago

Right now workers often put in more "give back" than they get paid I often had to work 20 hours to get paid for 8, forcing workers to do 12 hours a day for free is a great deal even if it mentally and physically breaks them who cares they're just temporary. I didn't work for Google but I assume the culture is the same as those places who forced me to work that hard.

rhizome3• 7 years ago

FWIW, in the US, the Department of Labor takes wage theft complaints very seriously in the event that you or anybody else submits a complaint about that kind of working situation.

option2• 7 years ago

the unions tend to have an effect in favor of union’s leadership

refurb• 7 years ago

Yup. Often forming a union just replaces self-serving management with self-serving union leadership.

Nothing like those union leaders making $300k per year!

rhizome3• 7 years ago

It confirms that yes, this union will have an effect, and not in management's favor

If you're in California right now and watch enough TV to see anti-vaping commercials, you'll relate to the idea that hammering a message into a viewer's head as if with an adze is seen as a useful strategy, regardless (or maybe because) of the quality and integrity of the message itself.

This is also of a piece with the generally constant push for employees to identify with the company's interests over their (and their colleagues') own. I think that finding Google's moves here as ridiculous is not something that can be counted on to be common sense. It sure feels like a material if-this-then-that relationship, but a lot of times people (you know...them ;) will only remember the last and/or loudest message they heard about something.

frgtpsswrdlame• 7 years ago

It's about putting fear into the workers. I recently watched 'American Factory' on Netflix and this is what a union avoidance consultant says to the workers:

Good afternoon. I want to thank you so much for coming. I know you didn't have a choice. The union will go out of their way to try to convince you that it's a good thing for you and that it is in your best interest. The contract that you get, if you get one, might include better wages and benefits. That contract might include the same wages and benefits you have today. And that contract finally might include less wages and less benefits. And the threat of a strike is no longer scary to employers, because today if you go on strike, while you can't get fired, the employer has the right to permanently replace you. I'll let that sink in.

einpoklum• 7 years ago

Intimidation doesn't work by changing someone's rational opinion... it's enough for management to have employees afraid of unionization, even if they think it would probably help them. Their mind will come round to rationalizing the action-out-of-fear.

anigbrowl7• 7 years ago

Well, it's like looking at marketing/advertising and thinking ' nobody could fall for that, and certainly not me', but if it wasn't so effective firms wouldn't keep paying for it.

brightball• 7 years ago

They are always in response to ham handed pro union efforts.

I live in SC and the volume of pro union propaganda that gets put out every time there’s an upcoming vote for Boeing is mind blowing. It’s not something you see often around here so when it suddenly appears it’s very out of place and noticeable.

It’s a vote. People are going to campaign for their interests.

darawk• 7 years ago

It confirms that yes, this union will have an effect, and not in management's favor. Like "Clearly we're onto something here if they oppose it this much."

I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees". It is possible that unions are bad for both, by gumming up the negotiating process, and insulating low performing employees at the expense of high performing employees. It may or may not be the case that this is what happens, but it does not follow from the fact that management opposes it, therefore it is good for employees.

moocowtruck• 7 years ago

well, USPS has an IT union and I can tell you first hand it is no good for employees, the things you mentioned happening absolutely happen and the place is just a disaster

LeoPanthera• 7 years ago

I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees". It is possible that unions are bad for both

It's become clear in the past few years that a lot of people care less about winning than they do about their "enemies" losing. To them, it doesn't matter if you hurt yourself, as long as you hurt the people who disagree with you as well.

stjohnswarts5• 7 years ago

On average unions work better for the most people. People on the upper end will not stop contributing or trying, people on the lower end don't matter much anyway. It's the middle that provides most of the advancement.

Can_Not• 7 years ago

I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees"

Also important to note there is a difference between "bad for employees" and "bad for employees because we're going to retaliate".

walshemj5• 7 years ago

Your just repeating some of the anti union messages the union busters hired to oppose organising campaigns.

peisistratos• 7 years ago

gumming up the negotiating process

The negotiation process is the workers trying to keep more of the wealth they themselves create. "Gumming up" is when the people parasitically appropriating surplus labor time from those workers demand more.

insulating low performing employees at the expense of high performing employees

Who will insulate us from the heirs expropiating dividend profits from high (and low) performing employees? What hubris that the heirs who do not work want those of us who do work in some Hunger Games competition against one another.

rdiddly2• 7 years ago

Yep I agree, and just to be thorough, it's also possible that unions are good for management and bad for employees (let's say the mgt and the union bosses collude to split the difference and shaft the workers), or good for both management and employees (for example better health plan, lower turnover, lower absenteeism, better morale & customer/client service and ultimately greater market success & higher profits).

There's no particular reason to assume out-of-hand without further information that the interests of employees and management are intertwined (basically my earlier point), nor that they're separate & opposed (basically your point). But management by opposing the union so strongly is implicitly asserting that at a minimum they believe it'll be bad for management. They can also be wrong vs. right in that prediction. They may also explicitly assert it'll be bad for workers, and be wrong or right in that. Seems like there's a lot of game theory happening here and I bet there's some concise notation for all this. (Not my strong suit.)

skissane• 7 years ago

I think it's important to note here that "bad for management" doesn't necessarily mean "good for employees"

What is “good for employees” or “bad for employees” may not be the same for all employees. A policy which favours the interests of one group of employees may disadvantage another. Which group of employees’ interests will a union prioritise?

For example, suppose management has budgeted enough for a 2% across the board pay rise. Management has two basic choices about how to distribute this:

Option 1) Everyone gets 2%

Option 2) Above-average performers get more than 2%, every one else gets 0%

If you are an above-average performer, Option 2 is best for you, whereas if you are not, then you will be better off with Option 1. Which of those two options will the union advocate for?

dv_dt• 7 years ago

Why reduce it to terms of bad or good of relation, there is also an element of a union of contractors gaining greater degree self determination instead of management being in a stronger position to dictate terms of employment.

supercanuck• 7 years ago

What if, I know i know this is crazy, but it isn't a zero sum game?

What if both could benefit? What could a modern union look like today?

We think in terms of unions = bad, but union is simply employees organizing and negotiating as a group.

sharkjacobs• 7 years ago

Wow, looks like anti union activity is heating up right here in the comment section

kortilla8• 7 years ago

“Bad for the company” doesn’t mean “good for employees”. If the employees were planning on burning the office down, management would pretty obviously voice dissent but that doesn’t mean the employees are “onto something”.

tokai• 7 years ago

Unions have been have been suppressed for over 150 years. At least they have stopped killing unionist.

CryptoPunk12• 7 years ago

Over the course of the early 20th century, unions got laws passed that violate the rights of employers, in order to give themselves enormous leverage over every capital-intensive work site where a large number of workers concentrate, and they attained a complete stranglehold over all major industries by the 1950s, and all the while, they've had the public at large convinced that they're the underdog.

jldugger• 7 years ago

I assume they must work to some degree, or they wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't be so sure. Unionization is usually rare in the US, and combatting it therefore won't have much evidence to go on. So you end up with crazy people making shit up and seeing what sticks. Like the guy working for Oregon's negotiation team who created fake aliases 'Aanus McFadden' and 'Roy Vragina' to post anti-union messages on social media: https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/08/06/oregon-health-and-scie...

tomohawk2• 7 years ago

I always wonder about ham handed union activities.

Cases like this are just sickening: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/news/seiu-fights-to-force-hom...

Several of my family members have been in unions, and all I can say is no thanks. I cannot imagine working in such an adversarial us vs them environment, where its all about assigning blame and working to rule. I cannot imagine being told I'm not allowed to work when I want to, just because the union boss wants to make a point.

markdown• 7 years ago

Agreed. Also, if you haven't, watch the documentary American Factory on Netflix.

onion2k2• 7 years ago

I assume they must work to some degree, or they wouldn't do it.

The people doing it must believe it works. That's not the same as it actually working. People do things that don't work believing that they do all the time.

jzb• 7 years ago

You'd think that... but apparently not.

Worked at a factory many years ago (early 90s) where we supplied a union shop with parts. UAW was trying to unionize our plant, and management flipped its shit and went on the warpath. Prior to that I was really not pro-union, despite my father having been a UAW member and drilling into my head the times when the union kept the company from dicking people around.

They showed their true colors loud and clear, but people still voted against the union. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they had people convinced that they were each and every one high performing employees who'd be held back by things like standard pay scales and agreements on overtime, etc.

Sadly by that time I wasn't at the shop to vote anymore, because I was fired for speaking up against random drug testing. (Technically, I was fired for a "willful work stoppage" after coming back from lunch fifteen minutes late despite company policy saying you had 3 strikes in, IIRC, 90 days for being late to or back to work. It just happened to coincide with making noise about the brand new random drug policy introduced right around the time the UAW started trying to organize the shop.)

I get that the UAW and other unions have their problems, but I wish people would work more on fixing those problems than giving up on the idea of unions. The older I get, and the more corporate bullshit I see, the more I believe we need more organized labor and not less.

telaelit• 7 years ago

We should all unionize IMHO

ISL• 7 years ago

We have -- we are all citizens. If you're a citizen of the United States, here is the first sentence of the document that instantiates that union:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

At its core, it is about people agreeing to act together in order to live better lives.

robbyt• 7 years ago

Are H1B workers included in this union?

viburnum• 7 years ago

Nordic social democracy isn’t magic, it’s just what you get when most workers are in a union.

elihu• 7 years ago

I agree with you. For what it's worth, I work at Intel in Oregon. I would be interested in joining a union if that were an option.

I suspect that tech industry work is sufficiently different from most other kinds of work that the optimal union might be somewhat different than unions that currently exist.

Some questions we would need to work out:

What do we want the union to advocate for? Pay and benefits are the usual ones, but what about cube/office size, cube wall height, noise levels, access to dual monitors, freedom to use any editor, 20% time to work on projects outside your usual scope of work, public credit for work, ability to open-source work, a ban on draconian intellectual property agreements, and so on...

How do we prevent the union from being co-opted by leadership that isn't representing the workers well, or is neglecting the needs/desires of some minority of members?

How do layoffs work? Job security through seniority doesn't seem good for productivity or morale, but if management can lay people off for arbitrary reasons then it can create excuses to lay people off for union organizing.

walshemj5• 7 years ago

Well UK unions do represent on minimum office standards and other political things like employment law.

foogazi• 7 years ago

Why?

Is it because of at will employment?

tempsy• 7 years ago

Union tech is a very interesting startup idea. How do union organizers keep track of members, handle dues, plan, and communicate?

advisedwang• 7 years ago

There are some out there, like nationbuilder.com (not union specific, but used by some)

walshemj5• 7 years ago

They use membership systems brought from the usual suppliers of such things and adapted to suit the differences that unions have.

microcolonel• 7 years ago

So is "pro-union activity". Of course when an important vote is about to happen, the campaigns on either side of that vote will make their case.

matchagaucho2• 7 years ago

USW is completely the wrong union for representing Tech Workers.

This will not turn out well for the Workers. The USW membership dues will start at $100+ per month and go to strike funds, Lawyers, Representatives, and Stewards who have their own self-interests in mind.

This is basically just paying protection money to thugs.

EDIT: For those downvoting, perhaps you'd care to kindly suggest a better union for this cause?

stjohnswarts5• 7 years ago

Running a union costs money, it's as simple as that. I often blow $100 bucks on a night out on the town. I would much rather pay that if I can get better hours, vacation, and negotiating power with the guys who just want to maximize quarterly profits at all social and moral costs.

matchagaucho2• 7 years ago

The question is... will the United Steelworkers make the best use of that money?

Traditional Unions haven't evolved into the 21st century. They're still using signup sheets, phone trees, FTP, Fax machines, and Post-It notes to organize.

anigbrowl7• 7 years ago

I mean, it seems like your job to suggest a better one, but how about the (syndicalist) IWW?

walshemj5• 7 years ago

IT does depend on how the USW is structured internally but its probably not the best $110 is high I am paying abut $24 for Prospect /BECTU UK as that's the main union for tech.

A more realistic one might be the union that has experience representing people in the federal government organise in the public sector as well or oddly enough IATSE (film and TV non actors union)

whytaka• 7 years ago

I wonder to what extent the the thirst for a union could be quenched if the compensation of all members of a company were to be made public and always updated.

If management wants to maintain direct negotiation with their staff, they must eliminate information asymmetry.

iscrewyou• 7 years ago

Look at government jobs for this example. Salaries and their limits are public record. The unions can keep them up to market rates.

Unionizing isn’t a thirst that needs to be quenched. It’s simply asking for fair compensation. That’s why the contracts are up after a certain time so everything can be negotiated again.

Simulacra• 7 years ago

Before there were proper labor laws unions served a purpose, now it's more self-serving to the coffers and political power of the union itself. What should be equal is tipped in the unions favor at the detriment of the company. I think that's wrong.

S_A_P3• 7 years ago

Is there a good place to learn about what unionizing tech workers will do/is trying to accomplish? Also, isn’t being a contingent worker an implicit contract that you are willing to give up benefits and (in many cases theoretical) stability for a higher hourly rate? Obviously I don’t/can’t speak for everyone but my spouse has the full time job and insurance and I grind it out to pad the bottom line. If widespread unionization happens I don’t see any way that my take home pay will increase.

AlexTWithBeard4• 7 years ago

I think it's a very good question.

Google employees have some of the best salaries, generous benefits, plentiful vacations, massages, psychological help, free food - you name it.

I see how a union can make things worse for googlers. I cannot see how unions can make things better.

ramphastidae2• 7 years ago

The Google employees advocating for unionization are contractors and do not enjoy the benefits you mentioned.

ramphastidae2• 7 years ago

You might be interested in https://www.freelancersunion.org/

wolco• 7 years ago

You will see steady raises instead of being forced to switch roles to keep pace. For contractors this isn't a concern but should be attractive for someone fulltime.

Setting rates/minimums/standards would help.

tomohawk2• 7 years ago

To really make a dent, put a stop to H1B. It is an unnecessary program. All people doing work here should be citizens or green card holders. The employer should not have any say about this or sway over the employees about their status. People should be free to choose their employer and change their employer without entanglement of H1B.

linuxdude3142• 7 years ago

I sort of shocked contractors at Google want a union. Typically contractors make more in total comp than full time employees. I suspect this is not the case there, but in general it’s true.

Forge36• 7 years ago

I've never seen that at a job I worked at. While I know other fields where this can be the case (typically housing related), Google's difference was rather extreme

ShadowKitten2• 7 years ago

"HCL itself would be violating the National Labor Relations Board law if the company fired workers for forming a union, but Gyrgo is concerned the union can’t protect them from the work they do with Google, since they don’t actually work for Google."

In other words:

Google won't be violating the law if the company fired workers for forming a union because they will be doing so using a proxy organization as a scapegoat. This in effect allows them to circumvent the law referenced above.

Complete horseshit

MiroF4• 7 years ago

Labor law in the United States is so obviously broken, I'm sort of amazed that it isn't talked about more.

Even beyond unionization, the fact that I had to waive my right to sue my employer for gender or racial discrimination in the courts (in favor of a private arbitrator they hire) as a condition of getting the job is just bullshit.

darren0• 7 years ago

I don't understand how a contractor unionizing gives them any more power over Google. Either which way they are a contractor and have to negotiate a contract. This article seems to imply the workers have an issue with Google, but unionizing just gives them power over HCL. So are they not happy with HCL?

kebman• 7 years ago

I wouldn't worry too much. Good working conditions are a boon to both the employer and the employee. A good union will negotiate that to the benefit of both. The reason is simple. If union negotiations lead to worse profits, then employees risk the whole business toppling, and then everyone loses. However, too much job security can actually make it harder to get a new job, once you need it, as it makes it harder to fire underperforming employees. The net effect of it, are employers who are extremely picky and careful about hiring anyone new, which is pretty muh bad for the whole economy.

ycombonator• 7 years ago

HCL is an Indian outsourcing company and they will do everything in their power (paying off politicians) to quash this.

baq• 7 years ago

Where are the anti-HR movements I ask, only half jokingly?

no_user• 7 years ago

Really unions for Tech works from IT services companies. God bless tech industry.

Not good for anyone.

Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize

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