Google Had Secret Project To 'Convince' Employees 'That Unions Suck' (vice.com) 173
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A National Labor Relations Board ruling sheds light on a highly secret anti-union campaign at Google, that a top executive explicitly described as an initiative to "convince [employees] that unions suck." The campaign was called Project Vivian, and ran at Google between late 2018 and early 2020 to combat employee activism and union organizing efforts at the company, according to court documents. Google's director of employment law, Michael Pfyl, described Project Vivian as an initiative "to engage employees more positively and convince them that unions suck."
In his January 7 ruling, a NLRB judge wrote that Google must "immediately" produce 180 internal documents that he reviewed related to Google's Project Vivian campaign, including the document with Pfyl's description. Google has so far refused to hand over these documents to an attorney representing aggrieved former Google employees, citing attorney client privilege. The fired employees filed a subpoena for these documents as part of an ongoing NLRB lawsuit against the company. Google fired the workers in 2019 after they organized against the company's contracts with immigration detention agencies. In late 2020, the NLRB issued a federal complaint against Google for illegally firing and surveilling the four software engineers. Google claimed at the time and maintains that it fired them for breaching security protocols. In 2019, Google employees discovered that Google had hired a union avoidance firm called IRI Consultants. IRI Consultants is known for assisting employers in anti-union campaigns by collecting information on workers' personalities, finances, work ethic, motivations, and ethnicity in order to defeat union drives. At the time, Google was facing an unprecedented wave of employee protests and activism for issues related to sexual harassment, contracts with Department of Defense and Customers and Border Protection.
In his ruling on the documents related to Project Vivian, the NLRB judge describes evidence he reviewed of a situation where a Google attorney proposed to find a "respected voice to publish an OpEd outlining what a unionized tech workplace would look like, and counseling employees of FB (Facebook), MSFT(Microsoft), Amazon, and google (sic) not to do it." Kara Silverstein, Google's human resources director said that she "like[d] the idea" of the op-ed, but that it should be executed so that "there would be no fingerprints and not Google specific." IRI Consultants eventually provided a proposed draft of the op-ed to a Google attorney, according to the judge's report. The secret documents pertaining to Google's Project Vivian also reveal that "the decision to hire IRI was not made by lawyers but by a group composed primarily of non-attorneys" including Silverstein, Google's human resources director and Danielle Brown, Google's vice president of employee engagement. Project Vivian also included discussions of Google employees' "opposition to mandatory arbitration," the judge's report says. Ending forced arbitration at Google has previously been a crucial rallying point for employee activists at Google. The company agreed to end mandatory arbitration in February 2019, following employee protests. "The underlying case here has nothing to do with unionization, it's about employees breaching clear security protocols to access confidential information and systems inappropriately," a Google spokesperson said. "We disagree with the characterization of the legally privileged materials referred to by the complainants. As we've stated, our teams engage with dozens of outside consultants and law firms to provide us with advice on a wide range of topics, including employer obligations and employee engagement. This included IRI Consultants for a short period. However, we made a decision in 2019 not to use the materials or ideas explored during this engagement, and we still feel that was the right decision."
In his January 7 ruling, a NLRB judge wrote that Google must "immediately" produce 180 internal documents that he reviewed related to Google's Project Vivian campaign, including the document with Pfyl's description. Google has so far refused to hand over these documents to an attorney representing aggrieved former Google employees, citing attorney client privilege. The fired employees filed a subpoena for these documents as part of an ongoing NLRB lawsuit against the company. Google fired the workers in 2019 after they organized against the company's contracts with immigration detention agencies. In late 2020, the NLRB issued a federal complaint against Google for illegally firing and surveilling the four software engineers. Google claimed at the time and maintains that it fired them for breaching security protocols. In 2019, Google employees discovered that Google had hired a union avoidance firm called IRI Consultants. IRI Consultants is known for assisting employers in anti-union campaigns by collecting information on workers' personalities, finances, work ethic, motivations, and ethnicity in order to defeat union drives. At the time, Google was facing an unprecedented wave of employee protests and activism for issues related to sexual harassment, contracts with Department of Defense and Customers and Border Protection.
In his ruling on the documents related to Project Vivian, the NLRB judge describes evidence he reviewed of a situation where a Google attorney proposed to find a "respected voice to publish an OpEd outlining what a unionized tech workplace would look like, and counseling employees of FB (Facebook), MSFT(Microsoft), Amazon, and google (sic) not to do it." Kara Silverstein, Google's human resources director said that she "like[d] the idea" of the op-ed, but that it should be executed so that "there would be no fingerprints and not Google specific." IRI Consultants eventually provided a proposed draft of the op-ed to a Google attorney, according to the judge's report. The secret documents pertaining to Google's Project Vivian also reveal that "the decision to hire IRI was not made by lawyers but by a group composed primarily of non-attorneys" including Silverstein, Google's human resources director and Danielle Brown, Google's vice president of employee engagement. Project Vivian also included discussions of Google employees' "opposition to mandatory arbitration," the judge's report says. Ending forced arbitration at Google has previously been a crucial rallying point for employee activists at Google. The company agreed to end mandatory arbitration in February 2019, following employee protests. "The underlying case here has nothing to do with unionization, it's about employees breaching clear security protocols to access confidential information and systems inappropriately," a Google spokesperson said. "We disagree with the characterization of the legally privileged materials referred to by the complainants. As we've stated, our teams engage with dozens of outside consultants and law firms to provide us with advice on a wide range of topics, including employer obligations and employee engagement. This included IRI Consultants for a short period. However, we made a decision in 2019 not to use the materials or ideas explored during this engagement, and we still feel that was the right decision."
Nice try (Score:2)
but that it should be executed so that "there would be no fingerprints and not Google specific.
Looks like they failed on that one lol
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Easy solution. Just call anyone that tries to link big tech with brainwashing a "conspiracy theorists", people will shit themselves trying to fall in line fast enough not to be mocked by the establishment.
I think I found it (Score:2)
I think I found Google's secret project to convince people that unions suck.
Most people call it "the internet."
Re: I think I found it (Score:2)
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We all know they do, hence most of the US workforce blowing them off over the past few decades.
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Police union: Celebrated and lauded by republicans. Auto workers union: How dare those lazy bums bargain for wages and benefits!
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I think you meant to say conservatives, rather than republicans. And I would argue that conservatives largely support Police, but not specifically Police unions.
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Police union sucks because it helps criminal cops get off scott-free. Corruption sucks, wherever you find it. Unions are, for the most part, good for workers. Study after study shows that workers in unions earn higher wages, which is good for the economy, as people with a decent income buy more goods and services. Plenty of unions police their own and weed out the bad eggs, for example, thank the IBEW for maintaining industry standards in electrical work.
Are you just parroting back the propaganda about unio
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Fuck those guys. I spent three sleepless days repairing the gear.
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They make colorblind assistive glasses. Hiring someone with a disability is an ADA thing, not a union thing. But they should be required to use the glasses.
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Some cardboard 3D glasses would have done something
Re:Nice try (Score:4, Informative)
They didn't have them back in '92 when this happened.
Probably time to move on then.
Re:Nice try (Score:4, Informative)
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Your company didn't test anything before throwing the switch? Every spec we issue calls for testing.
Not sure you can blame that on a union, they typically like anything that creates more work for them.
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You repaired it? Didn't you have a contract? Jesus man, are you gonna tell me you never even went to court, and just ate the cost of someone else's mistake? Why?!?!
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Weird, IBEW is usually solid. In fact many of the trade unions are. They aren't the same thing as the labor unions . . .
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Every country the US ought to be comparing themselves with has better working conditions, including things like holidays and overtime pay, but somehow the Land of the Free is better off without Unions.
Including the idiot below who assumes anyone is believing his story about a colourblind "union" electrician., which is clearly bullshit.
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Not all unions are good. Not all unions are bad. The UAW is doing a rather poor job of policing their own, for example. But yeah the IBEW is pretty highly-rated by all the people I've known that work with them or for them.
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Well, I don't think they all suck. But it's not just google, I think all corporations do this to some extent, and the propaganda machine has been out there for a century that all unions are evil, they're all corrupt. Not a full century, but also since the 50s the propaganda is that they're all run by the mob. Don't believe that there's no propaganda out there, then just look for all the posts saying "tell them the truth upfront that unions suck". That's how you recognize propaganda, it's black and white
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Does that bandwagon fallacy often work on those around you? Because it certainly worked on whoever modded you up...
It's possible that unions suck, but behind every union is an employer who gives them a reason to exist. Why should employers have all the power? What makes employers better than unions?
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Seriously. As bad as unions can be, a lot of people decided that it was still better than dealing with the employer directly. But surprising. Have you seen how hostile most large employers are?
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This is demonstrably not correct. Many smaller companies, attempting to compete for federal contracts, are compelled to be union employers or be unable to bid on the work.
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlr... [nlrb.gov].
The "employer that gives them a reason to exist" may not even be bidding on the work.
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That's a nice thought but "most of the US workforce blowing them off" would not have happened without the government micromanaging contracts between unions and employers.
"Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan
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Interesting that wages in those transitioned industries have stagnated since. It is almost as if Unions don't suck.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's like people who think that because government can be dysfunctional, it should be eliminated. As with most things useful, when something isn't working out perfectly, you hone and adjust to correct and improve, you don't just discard. I mean, yeah dysfunctional governments can suck, but so do Warlords.
I'd also wager much of the US workforce also
Re: Nice try (Score:2)
Interesting that wages in those transitioned industries have stagnated since. It is almost as if Unions don't suck.
Unions definitely suck⦠for employers. They help to level the playing field between employers and employees, and make it so the employer canâ(TM)t selectively fuck over one employee just because. I work in a non-union org. We had a young woman join our field support team recently. When they made the offer to her, they initially offered her $10k less than the rest of us. We told her to go and renegotiate. It was like pulling teeth.
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Google and it's employees would not in any way benefit from labor unions. The only ones who would benefit would be the parasitic union leaders who would milk the dues money for personal enrichment.
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Re: Nice try (Score:2)
Re:Nice try (Score:4, Insightful)
If there's one thing I've learned from Star Wars, it's that there must be balance in the force.
Companies suck AND unions suck. As long as neither has complete control over you, and they spend their time trying to screw each other instead of you, then there is balance.
However, no unions is basically a management free for all on employees.
Powerful unions is basically a union free for all on employees.
When both are weak and hold each other accountable then it is ideal.
Re: Nice try (Score:2)
I would argue that unions are only necessary and corporations only suck because the government does too little to protect employees. Proper regulation could render unions pointless and make corporations not suck.
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Worked for the Soviet Union, right?
. . .
oh wait no it didn't.
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You say that as if corporations don't do the same thing.
Re: Nice try (Score:2)
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It's harder to get union jobs. You have to deal with more internal politics since you (essentially) have two bosses and two power structures over you. Unions are often incompatible with merit-based pay in favor of seniority-based pay.
If you're in an industry where merit-based pay is already uncommon, and if you can actually get into the shop, then yes a union shop can be good for you. Assuming it doesn't just go out of business.
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LMOL. Yeah keep thinking at Potsy. You are an expense to employers. A liability on the the balance sheet. A cost to control. Never forget that.
You will never get paid what you think you are worth. You will get paid just enough. Nothing more.
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If they didn't want a union, why did they hire so many leftists?
The left is far from monolithic. Many lefties care about the environment, gay rights, and racial justice, but don't care about unions. Many of the "old left" who care about unions are the most strident opponents of environmental progress on fuel efficiency and closing coal mines because union jobs are lost.
Re: Nice try (Score:2)
The us vs them narrative is hard to maintain when you introduce nuance to the conversation.
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Joke's on them (Score:2)
Google Had Secret Project To 'Convince' Employees 'That Unions Suck'
They also had a double-secret project to convince employees that unions blow. ... classic Google. :-)
The two projects canceled each other out
Why does it need to be a secret? (Score:2, Interesting)
Unions do suck.
They invariably make large compromises on things the employees collectively say that they desire or need, and leave the employees with no recourse if they want improvement beyond that but to quit entirely. All of an employee's individual bargaining power is placed in the hands of the union, which claims to be looking out for the best interests of the employees, but rarely if ever actually looks out for individual interests. An employee's own bargaining power with their employer is utterl
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I am not anti-union, but I have a pretty clear criteria for when I am willing to join a union or not. If joining the union will benefit me, then I do it. If it doesn't benefit me, then I don't join.
Joining a union can give you an instant 30% pay raise in a lot of cases. Then joining seems pretty beneficial. Are there disadvantages? Yes, but those need to be weighed, too.
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I am not anti-union, but I have a pretty clear criteria for when I am willing to join a union or not. If joining the union will benefit me, then I do it. If it doesn't benefit me, then I don't join.
Joining a union can give you an instant 30% pay raise in a lot of cases. Then joining seems pretty beneficial. Are there disadvantages? Yes, but those need to be weighed, too.
I kind of view unions as an unfortunate necessity in response to inadequate government regulation of businesses, e.g. because minimum wage is too low, benefits that should be universal (such as healthcare) aren't, working conditions are unsafe, people who should be classified as employees are instead being classified as contractors (without pay bumps adequate to compensate for the lack of benefits), etc. But unions don't really solve the real problem, which is lack of proper regulation. At best, they wall
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I am not anti-union, but I have a pretty clear criteria for when I am willing to join a union or not. If joining the union will benefit me, then I do it. If it doesn't benefit me, then I don't join.
Joining a union can give you an instant 30% pay raise in a lot of cases. Then joining seems pretty beneficial. Are there disadvantages? Yes, but those need to be weighed, too.
I kind of view unions as an unfortunate necessity in response to inadequate government regulation of businesses,
It's worth pointing out that the Nordic model turns this on its head. Government regulation of employers is very light (e.g. there is no minimum wage), but all employees are unionized and the unions have negotiated extensive worker protections.
I'm neither pro-union nor anti-union. I'm not an never have been a union member, but wouldn't rule it out. I'm just pointing out that some very successful countries have found that unionization actually eliminates the need for a lot of regulation. I'm sure there ar
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I remember in the last US presidental election, some bonkers union in Nevada decided that universal healthcare was bad, because access to the union's health care plan was one of the selling points of the union. They feared that people would leave the union if they could get public healthcare.
It can get complicated. It takes work to make unions work.
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Compensation in the form of a medical plan is not subject to Federal income tax. Some single-payer schemes would make all private insurance plans illegal. Single-payer would inevitably drive up taxes for union employees (and possibly in the form of higher FICA payments, which are not subject to deductions of any kind), and it would force the union and/or employers to compensate employees with forms of payment that are subject to Federal income tax. It'd be a big loss for union employees that already have
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While very true indeed, you also need to remember that the Nordic countries have (more or less) realistic unemployment benefits provided by the state, and also free health care. So losing a job isn't necessarily as tough.
Also at least in Denmark there's a specific law regulating office workers. Why it is only about office workers, I have no idea, but it sets forth base rules for termination, vacation, sick days, etc. No mention of salary, though. It's a relatively sensible short law. People might negotiate
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And leave you with absolutely no ability to negotiate for wage increases beyond that for years. The only thing that might offered in many industries is a regular nominal increase that can amount to but a fraction of 1% per year.
Which means that after about 5 years, when the cost of living has completely caught up with what you are making, you will have no choice but to quit if you want to make more money.
Where if the union hadn't f
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That's ok, no company ever gives me a wage increase anyway.
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If you are a laborer you can't negotiate for higher pay anyway. You take what the company offers you (often through a temp agency, at first anyway) or you walk. That doesn't really apply to people in STEM fields though.
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I've never heard of it being a choice. If the employees unionize, then every employee has to be in the union, whether they want to be or not.
Wage increases upon joiing a union are rarely the only matter to be brought when starting union tal
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Which are not in the interests of the union, and if a majority of workers cannot vote to form the union, then the union would not form there in the first place. Once the vote to unionize has passed (by some majority of workers), the union swoops in and completely takes over. In every case that I've heard of, once the vote is over, if a majority of workers voted to have a union, then all new employees of the company at that location hired after that poi
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Honestly, until now, I have never heard of it ever being a choice at a particular place.
If an employee can work for company XYZ and choose whether or not to be in the union, then there is no harm at all to the employees who are not in the union. Partial representation, however, would rarely, if ever, be in the best interests of the union, and I don't know of any union company that would agree to it. If a majority of workers do not want the union, then obviously there will be no union there, but if a ma
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Except that as an individual, very few workers actually have any bargaining power. If you think that you do becuase you're a hotshot developer, then that's because that isn't a union style of job in the first place. Most people are closer to the average and below where they don't have the power to make any demands of an employer, or who don't have an easy choice between employers. Even in tech, if your skills are just whatever you learned in a Microsoft Certificate traing class, then you have zero bargain
Re: Why does it need to be a secret? (Score:2)
Right but people *do* want to unionize the hotshot developers and thats why they are retorting.
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people
And who are these people? The hot-shot developers? I doubt it, since they have the bargaining power to cut better deals for themselves. The "people" who want to organize the hot-shots are the ones who hope to make their way up the pay scale on their coattails.
Bucket of crabs mentality.
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people
And who are these people? The hot-shot developers? I doubt it, since they have the bargaining power to cut better deals for themselves.
bwahahahahahahaha - that's hilarious. The two skill sets are unrelated.
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The two skill sets are unrelated.
This is why people need to go to college. You get a broader education and skill set. Rather than becoming a programming whiz, high school dropout that knows nothing other than how to code.
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If you can't stop an union from happening, you can wreck it from inside by purposefully injecting stupid people in it.
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You can get an "idealist", a person that actively seeks to implement his terrible ideas in the union rather than just being a lazy ass
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Unions do suck.
If companies didn't try to squeeze everything they can out of people maybe unions wouldn't be necessary.
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In Europe unions are much more common, and tend to be associated with higher wages and better conditions.
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What I would do is make dog owners liable. Your dog causes a Post office worker to be off work, dog owner gets to pay the salary for the time the worker is off. If your dog is such a nice dog that does not cause problems you would clearly not have any qualms with such a requirement.
Bu t frankly I would make dog owners liable for *ANY* injury their dogs cause. If your dog runs up and knocks me over pay 10k GBP. Some wouldn't harm a fly dogs did that to my grandfather, with in the hour he had a stroke. Within
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Wow. Just wow. If that isn't the clearest sign of a troll, I don't know what is.
Secret? Who thinks this was secret. (Score:2)
Simple Division (Score:2)
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There's all this legislative effort to break them up anyways.
So there is a legislative effort to subvert the constitutionally protected freedom of association?
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Ok, thanks for clearing that up.
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So there is a legislative effort to subvert the constitutionally protected freedom of association?
Where does the constitution guarantee limited liability protection for your particular association of people?
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Really, fairly simple solution. Corporate can just take, the org chart, run a random name generator ( Alphabet can surely do that ) then spin off 1500 employee-owned subsidiaries, Then let the unions organize away. There's all this legislative effort to break them up anyways.
They kinda already do this with having everyone employed by contractors. This doesn't always work because there is a concept of directing mind in law. This is particularly why Uber keeps getting tagged for sick pay/holiday rights/employers tax contribution (the bit the gov cares about) in Europe. If you tell people what to do and have them wear your brand the law can see through the fictions and tag you as their disguised employer.
target had really bad videos about anit union (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Good luck (Score:2)
Good luck convincing your hyper-educated workforce that the sole engine of worker progress over the last century or two sucks...
unions suck... (Score:2)
...for employers.
Thats why you should join one, you need to balance out the power dynamic.
unions do suck (Score:2)
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You think what you have can't be taken away?
How naive.
Subby should have put secret in quotes too (Score:2)
The most telling statistic regarding unionization I have ever heard is that in every instance of a unionized drive the company threatens to move but they only actually move in 1% of those instances. Funny that on
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Every company large enough to face unionization has an anti-union wing. That's because unions work. They get better wages for employees.
While true, that's not the whole story. Unions also result in companies hiring fewer people. Yes, you make more money, but that's because there are fewer people doing (presumably) the same amount of work. Whether that's a benefit or not varies. And if you ever lose your job for any reason, you're better off living in an area with fewer unions, because you're more likely to find a new job.
So it's a tradeoff — TANSTAAFL and all.
Despite your fervent FUD, You're not scaring me. (Score:2)
Every company large enough to face unionization has an anti-union wing. That's because unions work. They get better wages for employees.
While true, that's not the whole story. Unions also result in companies hiring fewer people. Yes, you make more money, but that's because there are fewer people doing (presumably) the same amount of work. Whether that's a benefit or not varies. And if you ever lose your job for any reason, you're better off living in an area with fewer unions, because you're more likely to find a new job.
So it's a tradeoff — TANSTAAFL and all.
That's a lot of anti-union propaganda there. Do you have any evidence for any of it? I've heard all the anti-union stories and never seen them with my own eyes. In fact union-run industries tend to be well run. I am sure there are cases of abuse, but on the whole, most people are better off with a union than without.
The one thing you're definitely not correct on is working conditions. The stereotype of the union is they actually enforce working condition rules, so you won't be doing 2 people's work.
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Every company large enough to face unionization has an anti-union wing. That's because unions work. They get better wages for employees.
While true, that's not the whole story. Unions also result in companies hiring fewer people. Yes, you make more money, but that's because there are fewer people doing (presumably) the same amount of work. Whether that's a benefit or not varies. And if you ever lose your job for any reason, you're better off living in an area with fewer unions, because you're more likely to find a new job.
So it's a tradeoff — TANSTAAFL and all.
That's a lot of anti-union propaganda there. Do you have any evidence for any of it? I've heard all the anti-union stories and never seen them with my own eyes. In fact union-run industries tend to be well run. I am sure there are cases of abuse, but on the whole, most people are better off with a union than without.
The general consensus among economists is that traditionally union-heavy industries have slower job growth than other industries. Here's a paper [library.fes.de] with data from Australia that cites several other papers with data from the U.K. and the U.S. Basically, unions slow job growth by a couple of percent per year.
From what I've seen, people are better off with a union until the plant shuts down. Then, they're unemployed. This occurred en masse in Great Britain during the 1990s, with union shops showing a 7% highe [psu.edu]
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This likely means more money in the short term, but fewer jobs in the long term.
That doesn't seem realistic. More likely that C levels will have to be paid less and the company will have to share more of the profits with the people whose intellectual effort created that wealth.
I've heard argument that unions are bad for over a decade and for longer than that the amount of crappy employers far outweigh the good ones.
I think there are serious issues in tech, like mental health issues of many tech workers, that employers simply aren't equipped to deal with that unions are. So there a
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That's a lot of anti-union propaganda there.
It's logical to presume that if a company can hire anti-unionizing consultants over $340 million a year, then some of that money is being spent on shills to pollute the discussion here as well. Nip it in the bud , so to speak.
I think many companies would rather pay a bit more and be guaranteed a minimum standard of quality with their tech workers.
Indeed and it also means that Technology professionals have a voice loud enough for government to hear which could influence policy and law.
I just don't really see unions as scary.
Neither do I and I kinda like the idea of a representative that handles everyone's concerns. One person
They do suck (Score:2, Interesting)
Unions do suck. At some point they did good things. Now they suck resources out of the body politic, to everyone else's detriment.
See:
Teacher's unions
Longshoremen's union
Teamster's union
Airline Mechanic's union
Most public-sectors unions
They are unaccountable power centers that operate on the principle of legalized extortion. And because it's unaccountable it goes bad...quickly.
Quick, how much more do the union CEOs get paid than their members? Answer: a lot.
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Quick, how much more do non-union CEOs get paid than their employees? Answer: a lot.
Meaningless.
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Unions do suck. At some point they did good things.
So when was the last time you reviewed labor laws and made a submission to government that got passed into law?
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I don't disagree with most of what you've said, but this is not a problem inherent to unions.
Financial compensation for workers (whether in the tech industry, teachers, teamsters, longshoremen, whatever) and financial compensation of CEOs/directors/shareholders is a zero sum game, the income of the company (or public sector organisation) is finite. If more money is paid to workers, less money is available for CEO/directors/shareholders, a fair balance must be struck. But fairness is the last thing on peop
Buddy of mine has a mom (Score:2)
She's older and has a doctorate. Meaning she costs the district more. They're required to pay teachers a few grand a year more when they get their Masters and a few grand a year more when they get their doctorates. Plus they drive up the insurance rates when they get old like that and don't just retire.
So the district pretty obviously tried to force her int
What other big co's have done (Score:3)
John Oliver covers typical corporate FUD tricks in this video. [youtube.com]
Freedom of association (Score:2)
So in other words Google has a policy against fthe right to reedom of association.
Union should have nothing to do with Activism (Score:2)
> unprecedented wave of employee protests and activism for issues related to sexual harassment, contracts with Department of Defense and Customs and Border Protection.
Sexual Harassment: if HR cannot deal with this, the laws should.
Contracts with Department of Defense and Customs and Border Protection: if you don't like the company's business direction, leave. Nothing to do with Unions.
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Sexual Harassment: if HR cannot deal with this, the laws should.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression HR is there to protect the company from lawsuits. That might have been true at one point but in many companies management capture has meant HR is mostly there to protect the company's reputation. This means undermining and shutting up anyone who might threaten that. If you have been sexually harassed, particularly if the person doing it is senior, HR is not your friend, hire an employment attorney.
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Union should have nothing to do with Activism
Good job they didn't listen to you when they were responsible for the worker's rights you have now getting put into law.
Sexual Harassment: if HR cannot deal with this,
They can't.
the laws should.
They don't.
Google is the result of Slashdot (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That may be the most delusional thing anyone has ever posted here, and that says a lot given the plethora of self appointed Masters of the Universe who endlessly bloviate on Slashdot from their vast stores of ignorance in the dark gloom of their parents basement.
LOL - "Don't be evil" (Score:2)
Yeah, that "don't be evil" thing really didn't last, did it. Google is now the very embodiment of a runaway tech behemoth with no conscience whatsoever. Kind of like IBM with the whole "helping the Nazis with the Holocaust" thing.