That is such clear retaliation that I don’t know how Google hopes to get away with it.
Why shouldn’t companies retaliate? Anchorsteam workers unionized and it went bankrupt
People unionizing have never bankrupt any company.
Don’t buy this crap propaganda that treating workers with respect will break a company.
European companies somehow survive just fine with people being in unions. There are many strong protections in place, which is why we have 6 weeks vacations, maternal leave and so on.
Don’t many European countries have like 20% youth unemployment?
Nope.
You’re consuming too much American anti-labor propaganda.
I remember a propaganda a few years back that European countries with decent unemployment compensation made people leave their jobs to stay at home spending their welfare on cupcakes. But these American fake news don’t even try to hide their how American they are, because cupcakes aren’t a thing in many European countries.
No offense, but it seems like a really dumb idea to unionize in the middle of mass industry layoffs.
Maybe you would do it when things are going good, but if everyone around you is getting laid off and you unionize, it almost seems self-evident who’s going to get laid off next.
Is it illegal? Probably. Are they going to get away with it? Probably.
Everyone should remember that big tech companies aren’t your friend.
When working conditions are getting worse and people are being fired, that’s when you need a union more than ever.
It didnt work though
These things are measured in decades.
Imagine where they’ll be 5 years later if they do nothing
In the fable of the and and the grasshopper the grasshopper needed food stored up more than ever when the winter came, but the time to be preparing for winter was the spring, summer, and fall when you plant, tend, and harvest. By the time winter comes it’s too late.
The best time for someone with a variable rate mortgage to refinance as fixed rate would have been 2020. You didn’t need a fixed rate back then because variable rate was in some cases less than 1%, but you need one now because mortgages are around 7%. If you refinance now it won’t help.
The time to unionize was when labor had power by being in demand. 2020 would have been a good time, but maybe even the mid 2010s.
There’s a Chinese proverb that goes like this: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
We can’t go back in time to plant the union tree. But we can do it TODAY. Doing it late is better than never doing it at all.
Planting a tree isn’t going to war (and unionizing is in a sense mobilizing for a war). Both you and the seed want the tree to grow. If you go to war and the time is not right, then you will be wiped out and history will be written by the victors.
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The Fable of the ant and the grasshopper I’m referring to comes from Aesop’s fables, a work collected around between 500 and 600 BCE.
It’s been told and retold in many different languages around the world, and in virtually every example of the Fable being told, the story is basically the same: the ant works through the summer, and the grasshopper dances. Eventually the winter comes, and the ant survives and the grasshopper dies of starvation. For over 2,000 years the moral of the story has been but there’s a work time for work and there’s a time for play, that you need to work hard in the summer or you will starve in the winter.
It’s wonderful that somebody reinterpreted the Fable for a modern kid’s movie, but that does not change the original meaning of the fable. Aesop was a slave born in Greek society, a society that utilized slavery. It’s not likely that greek society would have been super into a slave teaching their kids that one day the slaves would overcome their Athenian masters.
Aristophanes wrote many plays criticizing greek society a few hundred years after Aesop. The following was from his play “Ekklesiazousai”, which was a comedy about what would happen if women took over the government. It’s a sort of hilarious example of the difference between greek society and modern society for many reasons, especially this exchange:
Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; […] I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. […]
Blepyrus: But who will till the soil?
Praxagora: The slaves.
In Orwell’s 1984, the main character’s job was in the ministry of truth, ironically changing history to better suit the party. In this sense, replacing a 2500 year old fable with a 25 year old movie sounds more like that 1984 than simply citing the original fable.
Union busting is as American as apple pie.
The first recorded recipe for apple pie was written in 1381 in England.
An import thriving in the US? That is about as American as it gets.
How can we change this?
By unionization… The stronger the labour force is, the less they are able to get pushed around like this.
Well yes. My question is how can we change union busting, because that’s what the article is about.
By unionizing.
To afford good lawyers in order to fight back, unions need money, which requires more members to pay union dues.
To keep politicians honest and to credibly threaten their electibility, unions need more members that can be politically mobilized.
It’s a feedback loop. The more people unionize, the more powerful unions become and the more powerful unions become, the more they can protect people who unionize.
If all the employees are in a union, you can’t get rid of all the unions without getting rid of all the employees.
Why should I care?
Because it affects your salary, your benefits, your holidays, and your rights.
Ya, that’s a lawsuitin
I find it hard to believe that the workers didn’t see this coming…
They’re contractors. They’re not permanent employees. They can, generally, be let go at any time for any reason whatsoever - or no reason at all. It’s crap, but they’re some of the risks of being a contractor. The benefits of higher pay, choose your own hours, choose your own workplace, etc have to be weighed against said risks.
It’s a bit misleading. They’re not private contractors but employees of a different company instead. The union busting in the US is pretty extreme. I just hope these people can put their talents to work in a company that doesn’t have so many issues complying with the rule “don’t be evil”.
Yeah Google is well known for employing “contractors” which is just really a way for them to avoid any of the annoying regulations you have with actual employees, by having them be employed by a third party but really they’re just working for Google full time. Also looks better on the balance sheets.
There have actually been a few cases that have made it through the courts that apply “employee” status based on how the company treats the worker rather than how they’re paid.
Especially in cases where the worker is on long-term assignment somewhere like Google.
How does a contract union even work? Isn’t the whole point of contractors that it’s a less binding temporary position that can be terminated if needed?
How does a contract union even work?
It works because a company far too transparently pretends that “contractors” aren’t employees. I also helps to prove to be BS when the “company being contracted to” sets the rules of employment and decides who is a suitable “contractor” and who is not.
Most contracts are through contract companies, who then employs (ala W2) the workers.
I could see all tech workers that work for these companies forming a union—that could make a real, honest change in the tech workforce overall.
Every major contract I’ve worked on has has a union presence.
I mean here in Argentina, we IT workers push against unions. When we have issues at work, be it salary or whatever, we just leave and jump ship into the next one Most work is remote and beyond junior positions, salaries are good. We don’t even have to worry about compliance with law because most work in IT has to be taxed.
Negotiations? We do that when the relationship between both parties begins. Firing? Sure go ahead and do it, we don’t give a shit.
I imagine IT workers in USA have even better salaries and benefits, so this measure makes no dent. Obvious even, given the size of the union, I mean 80 people come on.
I tell you, this isn’t the news item they are making it out to be
After all, Argentina isn’t known for its economic smarts.
Indeed, that’s why it has about 3500 unions. None work at all thanks to the leftist in charge of the country
