I'd be interested in that data - I have colleagues with wives / husbands doing union shift work - even if you are 100% gung-ho it seems to be 100% seniority based still or has that changed?
Things like UBI, higher minimum wage, reduce exempt classification loopholes etc all seem like ways that rules could change to benefit everyone.
I would LOVE to see the data that says a seniority based union system results in better retention of high performers and their continued push to perform well.
The union I have experience with (Sound Engineers union in Burbank) was nothing but a complete pain. The union admits members based on nepotism (friends and family only essentially) and the work they did was always second tier in comparison to the non covered studio engineering team.
I was on a systems engineering team at this studio, and our union counter parts were nothing but incompetent pains in the ass.
Unions don’t have to be this way, and I think they serve an important roll, but people should really be careful what they are asking for as the results might not be what are expected.
First two links have loads of commentary with citations. There's plenty of books on the subject, as well, if you're interested. Amazon is a good place to look for them.
Eliminating any motivation to perform well is of course going to discourage people who try harder for rewards. That’s basic economics.
Claiming that the top performers will continue to innovate and lead when they are compensated the same as the bare minimum clock punchers is extraordinary and requires evidence.
About the only place where unions are better (at least the salary negotiating US style ones) are jobs where innovation and efficiency are irrelevant.
Probably better that society pays them to sit on the couch at home than that we force them to pollute workplaces that would otherwise get more and higher quality work done.
There's already no motivation to 'perform well' because promotions don't mean shit nowadays. You can perform better than the rest of your entire company and get a 1% raise as a show of kindness along with maybe a new $50 coffee machine gift.
It's common knowledge in the software industry that the best way to advance is to hop jobs every two or so years. Do you think it's because of the non-existent unions, or because of corporations underpaying employees because they know they can get away with it?
You said "It's common knowledge in the software industry that the best way to advance is to hop jobs every two or so years".
That works out when you start for startups, but if you want to make more than 250k, you're going to need to get promotions. The companies that pay more than that like google aren't going to hire someone into a L5 or above role that has jobbed hopped every two years without getting any promotions to an L5 or above level role at similar companies who also won't hire you at that level. There are routinely stories about people with 15+ years of experience getting hired as L4s because of this.
There are obviously exceptions especially if you write a really popular open source library but this generally holds.
First, this argument chain is about unions in general. Please read up on the full response chain to understand the context of my response, starting with stjohnswarts.
Second, this thread and story is not about Google. It's about Google's contractors. There's a very important distinction there, because contractors are often treated worse both by the companies they're working under as well as the contracted companies they're working with. Google might treat its own employees better (although the jury is still out on that with many stories alleging discrimination in terms of pay and what not) but this story is obstensibly about the anti-union behavior occurring at companies Google is partnered with.
There are contractors to google making a killing - seriously - if you own your own business or provide a service to google you can make bank.
One example -> some of the employee / teambuilding / staff appreciation stuff. If the google FTE's like doing your teambuilding program google is absolutely happy to pay for it.
I know some other direct contract work with google - generally don't fight on price but their focus was on quality.
I'd like to hear some firsthand experiences of direct contractors working for google (ie, google 1099's) getting badly treated because that wasn't what I saw.
The examples are literally in the article we're discussing, complete with salary information and reason why they're unionizing.
>HCL employee and union organizer Ben Gwin says HCL workers make between $30,000-60,000 a year, and it varies widely. According to Glassdoor, a site that collected salary information from 73 people, Google software engineers in Pittsburgh earn on average $121,000 a year, ranging from $88,000-171,000 a year.
If you're going to make claims like that, please read the actual article we're discussing before jumping into the conversation. I've been a contractor before (albeit in different circumstances and not for google), I am very familiar with how the system can work and how contractors can be generally treated.
Ummm. HCL (google contractor) is making a ton of money... they did 1.4 BILLION in net income. Stock price from 76 to 1,000 INR. They are doing fine working for google.
I'm not aware of almost anyone (network infra contractors / team build soft touch providers) who historically haven't been paid very reasonably for their work working for google.
And Google does business with contractors who have unionized employees. I'm not aware of them caring too much about that either.
Google does thousands of H1bs and has something like a 99% approval rate even under trump so they don't mind working with international folks.
Okay, on your first point: You're comparing two very, very different things. For the sake of assuming you're not the one trolling here: Employee salary is different from company income. A company can be paid very well for their work, and then not properly compensate their workforce for that work. Hence, unionization.
For your second point: The intent of this article, which I hope you have read by now, specifically talks with people who say they are not being paid well working for Google as a contractor. They directly quote people who say they are not being paid reasonably for their work.
For your third point: Yes, I'm sure Google does business with unionized employees. This article is about a contractor, which is working for Google, using anti-union practices to prevent their workforce from unionizing because according to the workers they are underpaid.
And your final point has literally nothing to do with the article we're discussing or the entire argument chain we're in right now.
fzero: I know people who work for google as contractors - they are paid VERY WELL.
This constant insistence that google contractors are being paid $30K to do work that $171K engineers are doing in the same geo area is totally false. That does not happen. I am open to a specific example, but I'm not aware of one.
To be a google contractor you need a contract that has google's name on it (or Google LLC etc). That is the literal definition of being a google contractor. You get a 1099 from google. If this describes you - you are, on average, paid well.
Google flies on US airlines with highly paid and unionized pilots - I don't think they care.
Are you confusing google contractors with employees of a large non-google business?
Oh really. Because to me it sounds like a statement about human motivation patterns, and some huge assumptions about it that are, quite often, wrong. Just like cats, humans can be motivated by:
* food (or food-equivalents in the form of flipping some bits in a bank)
* social interaction (60% of cats as long as not starved!)
...also, unlike cats (AFAIK), but very frequently (also AFAIK) humans can be motivated by:
* self-expression
* perceived benefit to society.
If not for the need for self-expression, there would be barely anyone working in the games industry. And pretty much every company's internal relations spew more-or-less thinly veiled nonsense about how spying on customers is good - or at least acceptable - actually. That's because the last part is an _enormous_ part of motivation for many.
> Claiming that the top performers will continue to innovate and lead when they are compensated the same as the bare minimum clock punchers is extraordinary and requires evidence.
...except non-unionised companies often tolerate bare minimum clock punchers, and, conversely, unions often penalise those. Good relationship with management can easily allow slacking, and unions have more interest in company's survival than some nomadic C-level.
You're making things up and then demanding others to provide evidence. Some of us actually worked in an office for more than a day, you know.
