A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize

A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize(theverge.com)

1643 points by virde 5 years ago | 1344 comments

objclxt 5 years ago |

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.

And it's strange, because the other major industry in California - the film industry - is heavily unionised, and you just don't see that happening there. You have vocally supportive multi-millionaire card-carrying members of the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, and the Directors Guild to name a few. None of these unions are limiting the work their members are carrying out.

This is because those unions are serving a very different purpose to the stereotypical union some engineers seem to fear. SAG, the DGA, and the WGA aren't guaranteeing hours or limiting pay: they're simply trying to curb abuse in what it a very abusive industry, and putting in place procedures to protect members and resolve grievances.

And they don't always get it right, and I don't pretend that Hollywood is a perfect utopia of worker relations, but I think it's pretty undeniable that the industry is a much better place with the unions around.

labcomputer 5 years ago | |

> 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 following mechanisms:

First, the film unions provide useful benefits (like reasonably-priced health insurance), so most professional actors want to be part of the union.

Second, union members are prohibited from working on non-union productions. Additionally, most well-known actors are union members. This gives a strong incentive for a production to be a union production.

Third, union productions are prohibited from hiring more than a token number of non-union actors (unless they pay a fine to the union). This gives a strong incentive for productions to only use union talent (which also gives actors another reason to want to be a union member).

So far so good. But how does one join the union? That's the catch-22: You must work for at least n days on a union production (n=1 for speaking roles, n=3 for extra roles) to be eligible to join SAG/AFTRA. But most union productions won't hire you unless you're a union member (see above).

I don't know whether something like that would work in the software industry, but it seems at least plausible to me that it could benefit everyone who is currently employed in tech (at the expense of future potential tech employees).

taurath 5 years ago | | |

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 contractor of which there are many.

How it could work is this - imagine you took the top 20 researchers in machine learning and they unionized, and refused to work except under a contract negotiated by the union. If Google wants "that guy" then they have to use that union contract. "That guy" has power, because people want to hire them. That can form an umbrella under which other ML researchers can sign up. Suddenly you can't effectively do ML without working with the union.

Companies with people like that keep those people under extremely lucrative contracts so its unlikely they would be financially motivated to form such a union. There's also the factor that "what even is the top-20 researchers". In movies you know if you have Brad Pitt or not. But you 100% need as many top people as possible to somehow become union-minded. I'd hope that this group of Google workers grows quickly. Its great that they've voted to form.

Note of course I'm just spitballing here and am not at all an expert in labor relations or how unions really form or work. Maybe it didn't go like that. Here's an interesting article thats paywalled, but it at least describes an early unionization and then a big back and forth struggle. It would behoove us all to understand how the labor movement of the 1890s to 1960s came about, because it would appear we are just about to enter such a period.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815030?seq=1

kayfox 5 years ago | | |

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.

throwaway894345 5 years ago | | |

> I don't know whether something like that would work in the software industry, but it seems at least plausible to me that it could benefit everyone who is currently employed in tech (at the expense of future potential tech employees).

I doubt it, if only because actors are hired in large part due to their celebrity. There are no celebrity SREs (at best they have some cache in the software/SRE community, but not in the general public).

finnthehuman 5 years ago | |

>When I talk to colleagues in tech about unions I hear a lot of misconceptions

Because everyone talking about unionization refuses to get into the nitty gritty of what I might gain, what I might lose, and the structural changes to the workplaces that are inherent with unionization.

And if/when I/others start spitballing about what those might be we're treated like dolts uneducated on organized labor, and should just shut my mouth and get on board.

>they don't always get it right

This is the closest anyone every gets to saying something, but it doesn't mean anything. Where the fuck is the actual case study about the structure of the system, constraints, influences, incentives? How does it evolve and how does the contract change and evolve that system?

>I don't pretend that Hollywood is a perfect utopia of worker relations, but I think it's pretty undeniable that the industry is a much better place with the unions around.

SHOW don't TELL.

tl;dr: Don't tell me I want a union contract, tell me what the terms of the contract will be and I'll decide for myself. I'm probably on board, but every time someone glosses over the details you push me further and further away.

thesuitonym 5 years ago | | |

>tell me what the terms of the contract will be and I'll decide for myself.

Nobody can tell you what the contract will be because the contract won't be drawn up until the union exists and has enough members to bargain.

What you DO know is the current contract you have. 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. You DO know that as a member of the union, you will have a vote in what employment contracts look like. You DO know that if you have an issue, you have someone outside the company that you can talk to about it--that is, you wont' get fired for bringing it up.

tmpz22 5 years ago | | |

What do you think the software industry will be like 20 years from now? Do you think the cushy salaries and relative lack of gate keeping will stay around? I sure as hell don't.

Unionize now, even if you earn a little less, while you have the most bargaining power, so that later you don't have to fight through pinkerton detectives just to get a seat at the table.

There's a reason companies like Google suppress initiatives to form unions, and build strong zeitgeists within their employee base that unionization is bad. If unionization is so bad why do companies spend so much money breaking it up? For the good of the workers? Bahahaha.

ddingus 5 years ago | | |

The better organizers will have a priority discussion.

What terms improve things for everyone? How should work be?

From there, they build solidarity around those terms.

When the vision maps to 80 / 90 percent of labor at that enterprise, the effort to unionize can win.

AshWolfy 5 years ago | | |

Nobody can tell you what a contract will look like because unions are democratic, all of us decide what we want, then send negotiators to get what we want, then we approve the result

Thats like saying if democracy is so good, why wont anyone tell me what the result of the election will be

calvano915 5 years ago | | |

When the company has numerous legal or illegal but usually unpunished methods to suppress the discussion, it can be very difficult to conduct the negotiations between employees necessary for the concise plan/contract you request.

Voting in a union is actually voting first that you opt in to a collective bargaining agreement, then negotiating the terms of the agreement among members. Later, negotiations are had with the company.

Your POV is common to many that will accept much less with certainty rather than working through a decent amount of uncertainty for the prospect of a whole lot more.

jodrellblank 5 years ago | | |

> "everyone talking about unionization refuses to get into the nitty gritty of what I might gain, what I might lose,"

Do you support dictatorships or monarchies on the grounds that democracy enthusiasts cannot tell you exactly what the populace will vote for?

To use your phrasing, where in the fuck is the actual case study about the structure of the status quo's constraints, influences and incentives?

Apart from the lobbying, the quiet silencing of health and safety and maybe ethics violations, the de-facto expected longer hours and 24x7 on-call, the decades of open-secret poor working conditions in the gaming industry, the constant complaints of tech worker burnout, tech often being considered a cost center and reporting to MBAs and CFOs and not getting a board level representation that reflects the value tech creates, the use of stack ranking that doesn't get applied to sales / management teams, the standard advice that the only way to get a significant salary increase is to change jobs, the often poor or misaligned or unreachable incentives and targets, the situation where a company paying more in perks instead of money is considered good, and etc.

You didn't demand a study before agreeing the current approach is good, did you?

> "Don't tell me I want a union contract, tell me what the terms of the contract will be"

Exactly what people negotiate for will be a representation of what isn't being taken seriously in any specific workplace. "Divide and conquer" - one employer with tens of millions of dollars and a team of lawyers united on one side and every individual employee divided with a fraction of a lawyer and a small amount of money on the other side. How can this ever result in great things for the employee side?

Unless you're the 1% with your pick of FAANG jobs and high 6-figure salaries, in which case you're the exception everyone else should ignore because we aren't you and a system where only the 1% can get desirable working conditions for most of their life, and everyone else deserves to suffer for not being good enough, is a bad system.

friendlybus 5 years ago | | |

Unions depend on making a black and white argument. The whole idea can't work with a nuanced argument. Either the company bows to the union or strikes start up. Either the employee joins the union or he/she gets kicked out of the company.

It's socialism for the majority. If you want a nuanced argument, meet your union leader at the church he goes to on sunday and see how fervently committed he is to his goals. You're more likely to get a nuanced argument in the face of God, rather than these big dick, black and white union arguments people endlessly wave in our collective face.

The union structure is not free from religious, political and justice problems. Some of the largest unions in the US spend union funds on politically charged topics that easily divide it's own membership.

You won't get a satisfying answer because it has little to do with rational answers and more to do with sexual security. Union members secure and promote their progeny.

ineedasername 5 years ago | |

I hear a lot of misconceptions, seemingly based in stereotypes about what unions are for and who they serve

Unfortunately, through my own experience being in one & observing other unions, they often end up serving the organization of the union itself. They may still work for the workers, but also end up making decisions that are better for the union than for the workers.

Right now, my kids are learning remotely. However, the school district has encouraged teachers themselves to still report to their classroom to teach from there because seeing that environment lends at least a little bit more normalcy to the experience. You might agree or disagree, but the teachers have the choice. However, teachers are being told & subtly bullied by the union into not doing this for some vague justification that it weakens the union. At least one member I know of has said they're teaching like this, but they hope the union doesn't find out because they would "get in trouble".

I think unions can be a good & important tool in equalizing the power imbalance between an individual worker and their larger employers. Unfortunately, those who seek & rise to position of authority within the union structure are often those who end up seeing the union are a "good" unto itself rather than serving the members & their wishes.

JediWing 5 years ago | | |

This isn't a power trip by union leadership/ "the organization of the union itself" though?

It's a real concern about the safety and working conditions, and how a lack of a unified front can lead to fissures when negotiating that could actually hurt a majority of union members.

The unions members probably mostly prefer work from home due to safety concerns. Should the school district wish to demand all teachers report to the building, the negotiation position of the union is significantly weakened if the administration can say "well 25% of your membership is already in the building" as a justification for denying hazard pay, further health and safety precautions, etc.

byecomputer 5 years ago | | |

Having teachers drive to work to talk in front of a webcam is an obviously unnecessary move and a waste of time. They don't need a vague justification, it's pretty evident why this is a non-starter.

racl101 5 years ago | | |

worker to the union: "it was said you would destroy the oppressors, not join them!"

bjourne 5 years ago | | |

Labor laws and collective bargaining are two very complicated topics. Perhaps the union gave the teacher you talked to a perfectly rational explanation but it came out as "vague justification" to them because they didn't understand it? I think that is more plausible than the union demanding teachers to work-from-home for no good reason.

ransom1538 5 years ago | |

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 it be full time? A slack group? They dish out favors to win elections?

3. Who gets into the union? Base is on the newest woke culture? Base it on need? Salary? Scan their social media? Popularity contests? Seems like a great way to start discrimination.

4. Will being in this union freak out future employers? If your union spends most of it's time suing - will they want you around? EG. I don't see Tesla wanting a high ranking union person from google.

5. My wife worked at a union. Unions tend to not fire - so (non blue collar) you end up with hundreds of drained, demotivated, incompetent - due payers. This is the direction people at google want to go? Who will actually do the work? Non-union Sub-contractors?

6. Will they become political? Will you have to join this political party? What if you disagree on a few things? You still pay dues right - to the Fat Cat?

7. Will they corner off work? EG. You can't be a designer level III without being in the union.

One thing that wont happen: better working conditions.

minimuffins 5 years ago | | |

These are all real problems, especially in a lot of today's older unions that have been completely hollowed out and have become a kind of do-nothing "labor aristocracy."

They don't function as democratic institutions serving laborers' interests anymore, only their own narrow, elite, institutional needs--often institutional self-preservation at the expense of their members' interests. They're decrepit, corrupt dinosaurs, just like the Right says. But they got that way by losing the fight in the 20th century. Now they're kind of useless vestiges just waiting around to slough off eventually.

So the old unions are no model to emulate here. But just noting that and giving up of course leaves the problem of my lack of power in the workplace completely unsolved.

> One thing that wont happen: better working conditions.

I still want better working conditions though, for me and for everybody. What do you suggest?

pnw_hazor 5 years ago | | |

When I did employee-side employment discrimination law, the stories from the union employees who worked at a giant US airplane manufacture were the saddest. Often with local union leadership being involved in the discrimination.

Eventually I learned to pass on cases that involved unionized employees because having a union involved made it much more difficult to prosecute cases.

slumpt_ 5 years ago | | |

Please read a history book. This is horrendously ill-informed based on the history of what collective action has accomplished in the US.

whimsicalism 5 years ago | | |

1. They'll probably spend it on lawyers & negotiation teams.

2. How are those consequences?

> Base is on the newest woke culture? ... Scan their social media?

What? If they are voted in, Google will be required to provide the employee manifest.

5. First, there are unions in numerous industries with lots of firings/seasonal firings. Second, firing is also not as common in big tech anyways.

6. You have a vote? On what to negotiate on?

AshWolfy 5 years ago | | |

> 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

8note 5 years ago | | |

8. Will the union be providing housing?

microtherion 5 years ago | |

Apple used to have easter eggs in its software, crediting individual engineers. Steve Jobs banned them, saying it would be unfair to give credit to individuals instead of the whole company, would make it easier for competitors to poach key engineers, etc.

At the time, Jobs was also running Pixar, which never seemed to have problems in its movies to credit everybody down to the hairstylist of the second unit's caterer by name. Hmm… could it be that… they were unionized and we were not?

kenhwang 5 years ago | | |

Credit everyone by name or credit no one by name. It is inherently unfair to only credit key talent.

Jach 5 years ago | | |

Video game studios routinely credit everyone, too. Though there's some politics involved (just like in movies) I won't get into.

Could it be... that crediting is part of the industry norms in one case, and not the other? Absolutely nothing to do with unions.

sriku 5 years ago | | |

We've done a /humans.txt for this in a now dead project.

http://humanstxt.org

anoncake 5 years ago | | |

> The CEO banned them, saying it would be unfair to give credit to individuals instead of the whole company,

It sounds a lot less hypocritical this way.

TigeriusKirk 5 years ago | | |

To my knowledge, Pixar is non-union.

ignoramous 5 years ago | |

> 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.

Yeah, a bizarre line of reasoning. Footballers first unionized in 1907 and haven't looked back since. Today, your average footballer (plying their trade in the upper tiers of English football) makes more in a month than most tech engineers make in a year (granted careers are short and there are many more elite engineers than there are elite football players, but still, I don't think unionization had any effect on their salaries).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Footballers%27_As...

MagnumOpus 5 years ago | | |

> Footballers first unionized in 1907 and haven't looked back since

Incorrect, the first footballer's union was from 1898 [1].

> I don't think unionization had any effect on their salaries

Despite the existence of the union, clubs could impose a salary cap on players well into the 1960s, and could trade them like slaves under the "retain-and-transfer" system [2] until the EU forbade that practice in the 1990s [3].

All in all, football is a very bad example for the success of unions. Unions helped jack shit to get players out of an exploitative situation - every improvement was hard-won in courts by individual footballers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_Footballers%27_Uni...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retain_and_transfer_system

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling

sjg007 5 years ago | | |

In America, baseball unionization was what drove higher salaries.

lawnchair_larry 5 years ago | | |

It’s silly to compare tech unions to sports teams. There is usually only one major league in a country, and the team that signs you owns you like property. You do what the coach says or you sit on the bench until your contract expires and then don’t get re-signed. It’s not like tech, where if your Google manager so much as gives you a dirty look you can just walk over to facebook and have a new job by Monday. This alone is far more powerful than anything a union can provide.

dionidium 5 years ago | | |

For what it’s worth, Major League Baseball also has a union and one of its primary effects is to fuck over “new hires” by artificially transferring wages to older players based on seniority-based “service time” provisions.

lr4444lr 5 years ago | |

There is plenty of evidence that I've seen firsthand in municipal government of unions protecting and promoting incompetent IT talent. It doesn't all fall to @#$& solely because government tech is often very slow to change, so mediocre workers can train on very specific applications and not need much continuing ed. I scarcely ever met one that would get hired at either a FAANG or a tech startup. I will qualify this by saying it's U.S. only. Maybe other countries handle this all much better, but we're dealing with Google U.S. in this story.

pydry 5 years ago | | |

Given the amount of incompetent talent I've seen promoted without a union because they cozy up to management I have a really hard time believing the picture would be any worse with them.

Meritocracy is orthogonal to unionization, I think, though I doubt there's an employer in the world that doesn't believe that their decisions are entirely meritocratic.

The argument "[institution]* tends to towards corruption therefore we shouldn't have [institution]" is a logical fallacy in all cases, since all human institutions tend towards corruption but we still need them.

* replace [institution] with government, government department, police, corporations, unions, etc. and the fallacy remains the same.

whimsicalism 5 years ago | | |

I agree that government tech is usually pretty not great, but I am not sure if that has to do with unions per se or perhaps the government's antiquated pay scales/lack of civil service exam.

flr03 5 years ago | | |

Where is the evidence?

PragmaticPulp 5 years ago | |

> 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.

This statement holds true regardless of which side of the argument you’re on.

The modern discourse around unions seems to revolve around a lot of stereotypes that aren’t entirely accurate.

Yes, unions can be effective for changing working conditions. However, it’s important to remember who those unions serve.

The most common misconception is that unions serve the general public in pushing back against the corporation. Not true. The unions serve existing employees of those companies, usually as prioritized by seniority.

This is a great situation if you are already a senior member of that company, but it’s not as beneficial if you’re a young person trying to break into that industry or move up within a company.

The screen actors guild is a flawed analogy because film productions are very time limited operations. This would be like Google creating a new company for every project and picking which workers to “hire” into the new company. This conveniently skirts all of the issues around seniority that unions tend to bring to a company, because people are only involved in productions at whatever level they’ve been hired into. It’s also not as easy to break into the SAG as you might think. Ask young actors about the hoops they have to jump through and fees they have to pay to get into the SAG at the beginning of their careers.

For examples of how unions don’t always benefit employees, especially younger employees, listen to This American Life’s podcast about how bad teachers can’t be fired due to union rules in some districts, so they’re kept on the payroll and placed into an empty room to avoid running afoul of the union. Now imagine how much better off we’d all be (kids, aspiring teachers who could take those jobs, taxpayers) if the unions allowed the school district to simply fire the bad teachers and hire good teachers without fighting the union.

antisoeu 5 years ago | |

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.

PragmaticPulp 5 years ago | | |

This is the detail that most people miss:

Unions don’t protect the general public against a company. They protect the ranking members of a company.

That means the union also protects members of the company from the general public who might be looking to take their job by offering to work harder or better or cheaper.

If you’re a young person getting started in this industry it might be fun to imagine working in a unionized environment, but remember that the union would be working to protect its members from you breaking into the company and entering the senior ranks.

pydry 5 years ago | | |

Divide and conquer - pitting one group against another - is a pretty standard union busting tactic.

Since unionization is essentially a fight for power with management and fights are, well, confrontational, its kind of a given that there will be casualties and fallout.

Whether that's worse than yielding all collective power to management depends on many variables, including how confrontational and revenge oriented management tends to be.

Udo_Schmitz 5 years ago | | |

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...

8note 5 years ago | | |

Do younger employees pay less in Union dues as a result?

throwaway2245 5 years ago | | |

Boomers often have a major advantage in democratised situations, simply because there are more of them.

As such, it's still in your own interest to join a union and be represented. And, with Boomers retiring, this power imbalance in unions can be lessened or reversed.

anoncake 5 years ago | | |

> 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.

That's the law actually, IIRC. It also protects people with children.

subsubzero 5 years ago | |

> 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

Agree, things that a union can address:

- Pay transparency, Have detailed info about pay bands, and ensure some new hire from a hot company doing the same job as you is not making 2-3x your salary.

- Broken promotion process, at my company promotion is completely broken with really talented engineers leaving all the time as they are not getting promoted(alot of politics at play etc), a union can ensure promotions are granted in an even process.

- Age discrimination, This one will affect everyone as we all will get older. Alot of companies abuse this one under the guise of "culture fit". A union will ensure that talented older engineers are not discriminated against either while working and being fired for being too old or at the interview process under culture fit nonsense.

- Interviews, I think most people can agree that tech interviews are pretty broken. They are designed to be extremely hard to encourage people to stay in their position and it usually takes months of practice to be able to pass one. Unions could fix this broken process.

- Working with bad actors, When google started work on a secret search engine with the chinese govt. googlers were outraged, a union could ensure its members do not work in any way with a govt that does not support common human rights.

delaynomore 5 years ago | | |

I worked in a unionized IT shop for 6 years (now in SV) and here's my take:

Pay transparency: union mandated pay band helps - no 2x/3x pay for the same position that's for sure. Though I do think this problem could be solved without a union. It's really about opening up compensation information.

Broken promotion process/age discrimination/interviews:

First of all, broken processes are not going to get better with a union. They will still be broken, just in different ways.

Union favors/protects seniority therefore the promotion process will still push out high performing employees because they need to "wait for their turn". In fact the running joke we had about promotion was that you could only get promoted if someone: 1. Dies 2. Retires 3. Quits

Age discrimination happens less than in SV tech companies but not by design. In general the workforce in a union shop is older but you also have a lot of low performing lifers counting their days to retirement. On the other hand, interview is far less rigorous since the key factor is "likability" (aka culture fit). Many interviews took place just to satisfy a policy when a pre-determined candidate was already chosen.

Will I ever work for a unionized IT shop again? Not a chance.

Shish2k 5 years ago | | |

> Unions could fix [tech interviews]

Is the problem really “we know how to fix tech interviews, but the upper management don’t like it”?

Going by HN discussion I thought that the problem was “There are tens of totally different interview methods, everybody thinks one method is obviously the best and all the others suck, but nobody can agree on which one method that is”, and I’m not sure how a union would fix that :P

ThrowawayR2 5 years ago | | |

> "...ensure some new hire from a hot company doing the same job as you is not making 2-3x your salary"

Given the number of young people in software and entering software, seniority based pay and losing the ability to job hop for increased salary is pretty much the last thing on earth they would want. It would also kill the company's ability to hire top talent by being able to offer more money.

quotemstr 5 years ago | |

> Screen Actors Guild,

The SAG isn't a typical union. The SAG constitution [1] contains a special provision requiring a supermajority to ask for a pay cap or to call a strike. Acting, like tech, is largely meritocratic with a huge talent dispersion. A prohibition on pay caps is necessary.

I somehow doubt the Google tech activists will be copying the SAG's meritocratic philosophy. Every single thing I've seen from Google activists and their ilk is about prioritizing technical excellence way behind having the correct ideology. The people behind the Google unionization effort are not genuinely concerned about working conditions. They really want two things:

- to be gatekeepers that keep their ideological opponents out of big tech companies (even moreso than now), and

- to gain power to pressure big tech companies into punishing their ideological opponents (for example, banning advertising from certain websites, refusing cloud services to oil and gas industries, censorship intensification, and large donations to their favored organizations).

If you'd been at Google and watched all this unfold over the past few years, it'd be obvious to you what these people are really about.

[1] https://www.sagaftra.org/files/sa_documents/2019%20Constitut...

jonas21 5 years ago | |

Are you really holding up the film industry as a model that tech should emulate?

Because the median annual wage for SAG-AFTRA members is about $7500 [1]. And that doesn't even include members who failed to find any work during the year. 85% of members don't make enough to get health benefits through the union, which kick in if you make over $18K/year [2]. These are poverty-level wages.

[1] https://www.smdp.com/noteworthy-your-union-has-screwed-you/1...

[2] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-actors-insurance-2014...

astura 5 years ago | | |

Um, that seems like a consequence of the nature of acting, which is short term gigs with lots of competition rather than a consequence of unionization.

The only actor I personally know just does it on the side for some extra cash rather than it being her day job.

karl11 5 years ago |

Don't think we've ever seen Hollywood in the modern era without unions, so not sure how you can claim it's "undeniable" the industry is better off. We basically have no clue if it's better off or not.

Unions are intended for industries where a worker doesn't have a marketplace of options as there is a single or just a few employers (e.g. Hollywood, teachers, coal mining towns, hospital staff, etc.). Unionizing at Google makes no sense, as there are thousands of tech companies hiring engineers in the valley -- engineers can "collectively bargain" with Google by simply leaving and working somewhere "better".

The reality is that Google is an easy place to work relative to how much people get paid. People don't want to leave a cushy job for one where they would have to work harder for their money, so instead, they are trying other means to have their cake and eat it too.

rdgthree 5 years ago |

It seems incredibly significant that only 230 people are officially involved with these plans to unionize. As of 2019, Google had nearly 120,000 employees.[0] That seems quite small, relatively speaking.

Legally (I think, just learning about this now), to form a union, a majority of workers must show their willingness to form a union. Alternatively, to choose an existing union to join, an election with 30% of the workers support is required.[1]

So with that said, am I reading this right? Does this group of 230 people need to find at least ~40,000 more people for this to be a valid effort to form/join a legal union?

[0]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/google-employee-growth-2001-...

[1]https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/how-to-form-a...

halflings 5 years ago |

On this group's homepage [1]: "We are BIPOC workers who fight against totalitarianism."

I am not sure what this has to do with unionizing Google workers. Using obscure acronyms to arbitrarily focus on race and ethnicity (something frowned upon here in Europe at least) + the hyperbole of "fighting totalitarianism" doesn't give me great confidence that this is representing workers, as much as it is pushing the ideology of a vocal minority.

If they truly believe they represent the majority of Google employees, then they are free to widely share this call internally and see how many people actually agree with them and want to join their group. So far, it's ~0.2K out of ~260K employees.

[1] https://alphabetworkersunion.org/

apexalpha 5 years ago |

Good for them. I work for a large company and am a member of the union. While they're not perfect they're very constructive and provide a lot of benefits to all employees, and also to the company itself.

Compensation has become very complex over the years. While most people understand their pay the rest is usually where employers cheap out, things like insurance, sick pay, long-term provider care, pension contribution, tend to be worse for my friends who also work in IT but in non-unionized workforce.

I understand that in the US unions are often seen as a burden, rather than a constructive partner, so I hope this one will help to improve the image of all unions as well as improve live of Googlers.

viraptor 5 years ago | |

> I understand that in the US unions are often seen as a burden

Some are, some the opposite. Often people discuss unions like something very homogenous. They're like companies - there will be both loan sharks and non-profit activists (and lots in between).

I hope it all turns out well for googlers.

koheripbal 5 years ago | | |

Unions have also been centers of corruption and organized crime. This is what gave them such a bad name in the 1980s and is why it's so easy to "tie" anyone in construction to the mob, such as one famous person in charge these days.

sz4kerto 5 years ago |

One difficulty I see with the mission statement (https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statemen...) is that it is very broad, and contains a lot of progressive values that are likely not as widely shared as the authors might expect. One might or might not agree with these values, but it is going to be significantly harder to start steering the company's product direction and social responsibility efforts than 'just' representing the employees during e.g. benefits and compensation negotiations.

mondoshawan 5 years ago |

Googler here, these articles are literally the first I've heard of it. No internal emails, rabblerousing, or any kind of comms about it, and it seems as though the union discussed doesn't actually exist yet. Seems a bit odd (and bad reporting), but we'll see where it goes.

After watching how a mechanics union did absolutely nothing while CEOs ripped apart my Dad's pension and put him through hell, I have a bit of a dim view on this sort of thing to begin with.

appleflaxen 5 years ago |

The recurring theme in the comments against unions can be captured by a simple truth: Unions don't protect your interests; they protect their interests.

Which is fundamentally true, and cannot be changed.

So if your employment situation is so bad that you need a second, massively powerful, self-interested entity to negotiate with the massively powerful, self-interested entity in the hopes that your interests may happen to align then a union is the right choice.

But if not, you are adding an order of magnitude of complexity to your political work environment (yuck) and will come to regret it.

And if it comes to pass, it is absolutely critical to structure the union in such a way that the interests are aligned with the employee members.

Siira 5 years ago | |

Unions also fuck non-union members, which in turn creates a lot of economic deadweight and inefficiency.

matsemann 5 years ago | | |

No, that's just normal anti-union-FUD. A union doesn't have to imply that it controls everything, or that everyone has to be part of the union to work somewhere.

A union could also just be a large entity that collectively bargain on behalf of the workers, and can do so better than they could separately. Often that involves stuff like better safety, pay, getting rid of bad stuff like non-competes etc. And where I'm from those new things are enforced company wide, not just for the union. So every worker profits from the union, even non-union members.

If anything, the non-union members are the deadweight where I live. They get the benefits, without paying any membership fee.

Bresenham 5 years ago | |

> massively powerful, self-interested entity

The difference is the union at some level ultimately has to answer to the workers who comprise the union, whereas the corporation is ultimately responsible to the majority stockholders who are expropriating surplus labor time from those working at corporations.

nice_byte 5 years ago | | |

> the union at some level ultimately has to answer to the workers who comprise the union

yes, and a democratic government has to "answer" to its people ostensibly. ask russians how it's going for them.

unions are just another power structure adding on to the infinite pile of things that are constantly trying to fuck me over as an individual human being. no thanks.

avolcano 5 years ago |

Wapo has more details about the structure of the union, which is apparently nontraditional and won't go through NLRB ratification: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/04/google-...

However, while that article says they will not be able to be a collective bargaining unit under US law with that structure, the announcement oped in the NY Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/opinion/google-union.html) implies they will be pursuing becoming one, so not sure if that nontraditional structure is temporary or if the Post got some details wrong.

gcr 5 years ago | |

You don't necessarily need an NLRB contract to get wins for employees, though the legal protection certainly helps.

I understand AWU is currently following the CWA "Solidarity Union" model: not currently seeking recognition but may choose to do so in the future.

(Disclosure: I am a member of AWU)

Ericson2314 5 years ago | | |

There is a great line of research that part of labor's downfall in the postwar era was due to becoming to legalized/instituionalized, creating a hysteresis trap were the unions official power (laws and norms) lagged behind the underlying conditions that give it real power (labor scarcity + worker radicalization). Workers got complacent and depoliticized starting with the red scare, and edges along by shitty union leadership, and the whole Regan era turnabout was less a right-wing conspiracy and more the hysteresis delay coming to an an end.

Members-only unions and whatnot that forgo the NRLB are "riskier" in some sense, but that vary precarity / forgoing of intertia can avoid the lag and help keep the union vigilant.

See a popular exposition in https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/uaw-academic-workers-coll..., which is a better piece than much Jacobin stuff I might add.

crisdux 5 years ago |

After reading the NYT article and browsing their website - they seem to be mainly concerned with getting the company to bend to various social justice causes and getting the company to adopt politically motivated strategy changes. So I'm a bit confused. This doesn't seem like the purpose of a labor union in the traditional sense. What am I missing here?

BitwiseFool 5 years ago | |

Nothing really, it just looks like a way to create a formal progressive institution within Google using existing legal frameworks.

ahelwer 5 years ago |

On a corp-cultural level it's interesting this is originating at Google, as opposed to say Amazon which is generally considered a more burnout-causing/crushing place to work on the engineering side in some teams. The Google employees I've talked to all seemed remarkably uncynical about their jobs, and still took a certain amount of pride in working at their company. I can contrast this with Amazon, Microsoft, and (to a lesser degree) Facebook employees who sort of hold their jobs at arm's length from themselves; not much of their identity is wrapped up in it. For union organization at higher payscales, maybe peoples' desire to better their workplace will only be effective if they care about their workplace to begin with.

ocdtrekkie 5 years ago | |

Essentially the different is that Google is so incredibly culty that people refuse to leave even when they're grossly mistreated and the company does incredibly unethical things. Everyone in big tech has job mobility, so for someone to care to unionize, they have to not want to leave.

So where in other tech companies, unhappy employees leave, at Google they try to "fix" it, which has led to these unionization type efforts, with wider goals around making the company behave.

I absolutely think that the fact that many Googlers' primary social identity is that they're a Googler is why this is starting there and not another FAANG.

SamoyedFurFluff 5 years ago | | |

> Everyone in big tech has job mobility,

Except for immigrants pending green card/citizenship...

appleflaxen 5 years ago | |

This is a great point / comparitor

xibalba 5 years ago |

I think we should all pause and consider how it is that at a 120k person company, an announcement by 230 people to unionize makes headline news.

Could it be yet another instance of a "journalist" acting as advocate?

geodel 5 years ago | |

Correct. Just another day and another views as news item.

amelius 5 years ago |

Perhaps App store publishers can unionize too. For example, instead of having small companies publishing apps themselves, they can have an organization do it for them, so it's big organization versus BigCorp, instead of little guy versus BigCorp. Also, it could provide some more transparency of the App Store sales.

knuckleheads 5 years ago |

Sending my heartfelt and sincere congratulations to the workers at Google who have unionized. There's power in a union and I'm extremely heartened to see them get together and organize.

spicyramen 5 years ago |

Downvote me if you want, but as a SWE I find my job very highly rewarded both economically and technically. I'm happy where I am and in my team. I'm a minority and I have study all my life to be competitive, I have been treated fairly because of my skills. Free food, gym, coffee, stocks, high salaries, mobility, not sure I can ask for more

vitus 5 years ago |

The prevailing fixation seems to be on how unionization would help the highly-compensated engineers, when the people who need and would benefit most from unionization are the TVCs, who aren't considered Alphabet employees, don't get benefits, are regularly excluded (from all-hands, mailing lists, even affiliating with Google on LinkedIn).

Suppose a barista's phone dies. Employees are not permitted by policy to chip in to buy a new one, per existing guidance, even if there are 100 people at the office all willing to chip in $10 as gratitude for years of expertly-poured coffees.

Don't get me wrong -- there's absolutely value in using a staffing agency to scale hiring of support staff to fit the needs of rapidly growing sites. But if you've been employing the same worker for 1, 2, even 5 years, why not convert them to employees?

xyzelement 5 years ago |

I made this point on HN before but I think it applies here.

The world breaks out into two types of employers: those who try to hire outstanding people and go above and beyond for them, with the expectation that one of the attributes of these outstanding employees is that they likewise go above and beyond for the company. The alternative is employees who treat their employees like cattle and the employees treat the employer as a slaughterhouse.

The first path is much preferable for everyone. The ideal situation (think marriage) is where either partner willingly goes above and beyond for the other.

I am not sure the impact of this particular action, but it's movement in the direction of employees asserting they don't want to participate in such a relationship, instead resorting to the more common power struggle rather than a partnership.

That's OK but taken to the extreme, there's no reason for them to expect the extraordinary treatment google has given them to continue, either.

raiyu 5 years ago |

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 look at police unions in the US you can see how detrimental unions can be as well. They are focused on protecting their workers even when those same workers are the issue which leads to a very challenging environment around firing "poor" performers.

Often times what is better is intelligent government regulation. Though that in and of itself is an oxymoron.

Things like mandated health insurance, overtime pay, work hours, minimum wage, these are all protections that we need encoded in law, less so in unions.

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.

At the same time, if you think of the largest union, it is all of the workers of a country. What if they joined together, to really lobby the government for massive change. Something that goes into law.

Like minimum wage increases, and the like.

The reality though is that any economic system is complex where pushing on one area creates an often unexpected result elsewhere.

You would also need heavier investment in government agencies that are meant to police the enforcement of such policies and to ensure that they are truly operating separately from the industries they are supposed to be policing. The opposite of that is what happened with the FAA and Boeing recently.

dogprez 5 years ago | |

> 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.

raiyu 5 years ago | | |

Proves my point.

piker 5 years ago |

Honest question: are there good examples of unionized companies that continue to innovate post unionization? Unionization seems at the surface like the end stage of disruptor where stakeholders begin jockeying for slices of a pie that now grows linearly.

sanxiyn 5 years ago | |

Naver (the dominant search engine in South Korea) seems innovative to me. They successfully launched e-commerce project in 2018, which became #1 in 2019 beating the incumbent (which is owned by eBay). It's as if Google launched Amazon competitor and won within a year.

ekimekim 5 years ago | |

Remember that correlation does not imply causation - even if it's true that innovative companies tend to not have unions, it might be (for example) because younger, smaller industries tend to be innovating faster and also haven't developed to the point of unionization yet.

piker 5 years ago | | |

It was actually a question somewhat about correlation. I.e., unionization is a symptom that signals the end stage, not something that causes it.

gnopgnip 5 years ago | |

The entire economy of Germany

KODeKarnage 5 years ago | | |

Compare that to the economy Germany could have had.

tsjq 5 years ago | |

Is this the beginning of the end of Google?

SiempreViernes 5 years ago | | |

Haven't we been hearing about the beginning to the end for years now?

visarga 5 years ago | | |

What, they run out of money?

giantg2 5 years ago | |

I would also like to know.

zthrowaway 5 years ago |

Some of the most highly paid, privileged and marketable individuals in our industry, easily in the top 5% of income in the economy... what’s the point of this? Google employees are a far cry from the romanticized proletariat fighting against the bourgeoisie.

giantg2 5 years ago | |

I somewhat agree. Most tech workers are above the median salary in the US ($35k). I don't make nearly as much as a Google employee, but I would like a union for a couple reasons (they could mostly fix this through legislation and avoid the unions) like removing forced arbitration, or having an actual contract rather than a one pager that says they make the rules and can change them anytime without notice.

And speaking of income. It seems like 1% of that group's income is a high number for supporting the union.

londons_explore 5 years ago | | |

With their current membership of just 230 people, the ~$500k annual memberships probably won't get anywhere near to paying for the protracted legal battle they're surely about to enter...

andobando 5 years ago | |

1. It includes all workers, including janitors. 2. The unions goal more so here seems to be to democratize the company process over concerns that the corporate structure puts money over people.

>Everyone at Alphabet — from bus drivers to programmers, from salespeople to janitors — plays a critical part in developing our technology. But right now, a few wealthy executives define what the company produces and how its workers are treated. This isn’t the company we want to work for. We care deeply about what we build and what it’s used for. We are responsible for the technology we bring into the world. And we recognize that its implications reach far beyond the walls of Alphabet.

John23832 5 years ago | |

If you read the article, you would see content about contract workers.

giantg2 5 years ago | | |

I saw that it was mostly that the contract workers don't get the same benefits. But how is this different than other places? In some cases, benefits need to restricted or you risk them becoming shadow employees (ie hands are tied by law).

ancorevard 5 years ago |

The company is slowly dying internally from ideologically possessed people.

Not that that is a bad thing, the great people there will leave for better things.

docdeek 5 years ago |

> If the union effort at Google is successful, members say they will commit one percent of their annual compensation to the union.

Is that a standard rate for union dues? I’ve never joined a union myself in the past and have no reference point for a 1% figure.

DonnyV 5 years ago |

I think a lot of the back and forth in this thread is dancing around the edges of a couple questions. Who really owns a company? I know legally who owns it. But a company is nothing without the people that work in it and who generate the ideas who keep it going. Shouldn't the majority of people in that company benefit and have a say how its run? Why should a handful of people who don't run the day to day operation or generate the majority of ideas, big and small get to own everyone else's ideas and benefit from them in perpetuity?

zer0faith 5 years ago |

The reason for these folks unionizing is not for the traditional reasons (higher wages, better benefits, work life balance, keeping the company from running you over, ect...) This is more along the lines of being able to protest work that is consider unethical (IE the AI noted in the article, working with other gov'ts ect...) and not be penalized or fired for it. Unfortunately, I don't believe that a union is the answer for their problem because so long as there is money to fund a project there will be people lined up to work.

mkohlmyr 5 years ago |

230 Google workers announce plans to unionize, ftfy

throwawaysea 5 years ago | |

This seems like a common tactic with many of these employee activist campaigns. They partner with a sympathetic news media outlet that will amplify their story (examples: Vox, Geekwire, etc.) but leave out details and perspectives that undermine their push - like how few employees are behind it. If you look at past activist campaigns (for example people trying to stop AWS from working with the US government), it's the same story of trying to paint a picture of widespread support where there isn't any.

qrbLPHiKpiux 5 years ago | |

230 ex google employees tried to form a union

horsemans 5 years ago | | |

Where do you see in the article that they aren't current Google employees?

notRobot 5 years ago |

Many people don't realise this but unions don't just negotiate salaries. They assure rights aren't being violated, promote ethical, safe and healthy workplaces, prevent and fight against discrimination and unfair treatment, fight wrongful dismissal, etc.

yvdriess 5 years ago | |

Indeed. HR has incentives to side with the employer, where a union rep has incentives to side with the employee.

In Belgium, every company of a certain size is required to have a union rep. They provide a lot of services you would expect HR to provide: being the point of contact for complains, clarify certain rights and obligations, etc. Even when a national holiday falls on a weekend, the company has to agree with the union rep how that will be recuperated. Unions in Belgium typically do not negotiate salaries, except for cases where there's statutes involved (e.g. gov workers like teachers).

sanxiyn 5 years ago |

Good luck! From a fellow unionized digital worker. I work at Kakao, a South Korean firm known for KakaoTalk (the dominant messenger application in South Korea).

joeblau 5 years ago | |

How would you describe your experience being a unionized digital worker?

sanxiyn 5 years ago | | |

It's pretty good. For example, initially the company was reluctant to transition to remote work for COVID-19 pandemic, but workers' concern was well represented.

My impression is that among South Korean digital companies, unionized companies transitioned to remote work earlier.

kepler1 5 years ago |

Unions are about locking in a minimum standard of work on something that doesn't change, stifling innovation, covering for underperforming colleagues, rewarding people based on how long they've been around, making things cost more than they should be, and worse.

Why would I ever want to support such a system, in an industry that has brought innovative technology and material improvement in living standards and knowledge to billions of people?

dukeyukey 5 years ago | |

Unions are just a way to have some kind of collective voice; what the union does and how it achieves it's goals are up to the members. There are many, many models you can follow, from union-shops to more insurance/mutual aid society models.

Forge36 5 years ago |

https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/google-workers-demanding...

Union's official announcement

underseacables 5 years ago |

Unions at Google strike me as rich people complaining about not enough assigned parking. For an industry of free lunch, massages, and unbelievable perks and benefits, talk of unionizing is just tone-deaf.

RivieraKid 5 years ago |

What leverage do unions have over salaries? Google is a very profitable company, redirecting half of the profit from shareholders to employees would result in a very significant salary increase.

(Just curious, I'm not stating any opinion on this.)

gcr 5 years ago | |

AWU includes temps, vendors, and contractors (TVCs), who are not at all paid the way full-time employees are. I'm sure there's a lot of gains to make to ensure everyone has equitable pay.

That said, a lot of work that AWU is doing focuses on values organizing and employee ethics. Structures like this union help balance the power between workers and executives at Alphabet.

chasd00 5 years ago | | |

that's ominous, so if you don't tow the union line on the social issue of the day then they can prevent you from being a member which will be required for employment?

ATsch 5 years ago | |

That depends on a number of things. Theoretically the leverage is infinite, as companies can not get anything done without workers. However in practice, strike funds won't last forever, people won't be willing to strike forever, it's in your interest to keep a relatively good relationship with the company, etc.

saalweachter 5 years ago | | |

Granted, it will vary person to person for a lot of good reasons, but it seems to me like the average white-collar tech worker out have a lot more personal savings than the average blue-collar factory worker.

losvedir 5 years ago | |

What do you mean by profit going to shareholders? Alphabet doesn't have a dividend.

RivieraKid 5 years ago | | |

It's either reinvested or saved in the bank so it stays in the ownership of shareholders.

In general, reinvestment is preferred over dividends (or stock buybacks which is similar to dividends) when it's expected that the reinvestment will generate a good return in the future and this return would be given to shareholders.

clickness 5 years ago |

The union's official website: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/

RickJWagner 5 years ago |

I've never been in a union, but I have 2 strong impressions of them from friends.

One friend was an electrician, he enjoyed working for a union because it gave him extra freedoms in his work.

The second friends father worked in management for a mine that used union labor. They went through an ugly labor strike where their windows were shot out of their house and their lives felt threatened.

I'm of mixed opinion, but the second scenario weighs heavily.

Jweb_Guru 5 years ago | |

Mine workers are very frequently abused by management. Do you happen to have any links to stories covering that situation?

wccrawford 5 years ago | |

That certainly sucks, and I'm absolutely against violence in strikes. Of any kind.

But have you considered that perhaps without the union, that strike would have been even worse? Those workers likely decided to do those things on their own, not with union involvement. If they'd been striking without a union to rein them in, things might have been worse.

Of course, it's possible there would have been other problems, especially for the non-union workers.

I'm fairly anti-union, but there are definitely times when I see them as a necessity. My working conditions are not such that I think a union is necessary or even desirable, but mine workers are one situation where I think that unions do their jobs.

mchusma 5 years ago |

I thought the most interesting part of this was the fact that it is not a "traditional union" or "required union", its "members only union".

Linked from the article: https://tcf.org/content/report/members-only-unions-can-they-...

I think traditional unions have a lot of issues, but these "members only unions" seem like something that avoids those issues. If someone wants to voluntarily pay a group to help represent their interests, great! If the union no longer represents their interests, they can leave.

marknutter 5 years ago |

> Everyone deserves a welcoming environment, free from harassment, bigotry, discrimination, and retaliation regardless of age, caste, class, country of origin, disability, gender race, religion, or sexual orientation.

Until and unless they demonstrate that they intend to protect conservative employees, there's not a chance I would trust them to actually uphold this value.

secondcoming 5 years ago |

> Google contractors have long complained about their unequal treatment compared to full-time staff. While they make up the majority of Google’s workforce, they often lack the benefits of salaried employees

I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK contractors benefit from tax advantages compared to salaried employees, although HMRC is actively trying to kill the contractor market by tightening IR35 rules. That said, if contractors end up getting the same benefits as salaried employees then their contractor status is on dodgy legal ground. This may be a phyrric victory for them.

roamerz 5 years ago |

This is like buying a house that is built close to an airport and then suing to have it shut down because you don’t like the noise of planes taking off. Google did not have a union when you asked them to hire you - which you happily accepted. Now your plan is to collectively mutiny against your employer to extort additional control or compensation. I’ve always believed that you treat your employer with the respect they garner by supporting you and your family. If you are not satisfied with you income or relationship with your employer go seek other avenues. Just my 2 cents.

vgeek 5 years ago |

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-offer-415-million-to-...

How soon everyone forgets. Google was caught red handed colluding with other companies to suppress employee wages in the past. This was still during their "Don't be evil." days, too.

baud147258 5 years ago |

Where I live, unions just seem to protect un-productive employees (if they are union members of course) and slow down process by adding another layer of bureaucracy. But maybe it's different in the land of the free?

throwaway7281 5 years ago |

Good for them. I find it strange that we have this org setup at all. A union illustrates the clear divide between capital owners and workers. It sounds so 19th century, but it's just as valid today, unfortunately.

maxehmookau 5 years ago |

Before US-based workers jump on this and start talking about how unions are a bad thing in general, remember to look to Europe.

Trade unions are a huge part of the workforce culture here and are mostly a force for good.

1123581321 5 years ago | |

I’m sure Europe would be happy to see US tech salaries and company growth stagnate a bit so they can catch up and stop losing good workers.

chrisseaton 5 years ago | |

In the UK we hear horror stories about French unions going so far as to literally kidnap management and hold them hostage, and in one case strip them naked and assault them with bed pans (?!).

maxehmookau 5 years ago | | |

Yeah sure. But you can win any debate by picking the most insane examples of why something is bad.

ur-whale 5 years ago | |

>Trade unions are ... a force for good.

As witnessed by how much Europe innovates in tech.

lol.

maxehmookau 5 years ago | | |

I could provide a list of European tech innovations over the last decade, but I sense you're not looking to engage in good faith.

rmah 5 years ago | |

This isn't a trade union. It barely qualifies as a union at all.

LatteLazy 5 years ago |

I've asked before and no one seems to know: what is unionising meant to achieve for these workers? Are they under compensated? Are they getting fired for unfair reasons? I thought big tech had the opposite problem: everyone gets 6 figures, no one gets fired you just get moved to a do nothing team...

logicchains 5 years ago | |

Google hired a toxic political activist, then later fired them for being too toxic. In this case, from reading the union goals it looks like they're aiming to make it harder to fire toxic political activists in future.

LatteLazy 5 years ago | | |

I hate the political bs side of these things. A bit turn off for me here in the UK is when unions spend capital (political or cash) on issues that don't help or even hurt their members. Teachers unions here supported more work and less money for them because "think of the children". Asking people to collectively bargain is very different to asking them to collectively sign up and forgo their wages over some weird political point of principle. The a two should be separate.

credit_guy 5 years ago |

Would it be possible to create a union that opposes this union? If this union lobbies against contracts with the US military and US law enforcement, my union to let the management know that we are actually ok with these contracts? Something like a union to speak for the "silent majority"?

timvisee 5 years ago |

What a shitshow at al these large companies these days.

jinkyu 5 years ago |

people need to realize they're paid what they're worth (and come on... google pays VERY well). unionizing so you don't work in environments bad for your health is a thing. unionizing so you can extort money from your employer, however, is a slippery slope that leads to a few people at the top of the heap causing lots of trouble for the company, probably its members (dues... or else!) and those union leaders get nice houses on ski slopes. best of luck google!

6gvONxR4sf7o 5 years ago |

Everybody here seems to agree that unions have the potential to do good or bad. The next logical step to me is that there needs to be a selection mechanism in place.

For companies, it's competition. If someone else does better, the consumer or worker can choose someone else. And we have anti-monopoly laws to make sure that someone else exists, to foster that competition and choice.

Is there such a mechanism for unions? My ideal scenario wouldn't be me on my own as it is today. I'd want a handful of unions to pick from to represent me, not too differently from my choice of medical insurer. Five unions to represent 120,000 employees would still average 24,000 members each, so it's a huge step forward in collective bargaining. And then people can change unions if one of them ends up how folks are worried about in this and every other union thread.

It seems like it would get at all sides of the issue. We'd get collective representation and a safeguard against the potential pitfalls.

How could this scenario come about? Could it be something like medical insurance with an open enrollment season? There would need to be something akin to anti-competitive behavior built in, so you couldn't end up with an agreement saying you can only hire from our union. What else would it take?

ur-whale 5 years ago |

I'm hearing that since the COVID, many Google workers are being deprived of their 3 free meals a day and access to the gym.

Clearly unacceptable, time to unionize.

Animats 5 years ago |

This isn't a real union. It's more a lobbying association, like the IEEE. They're not trying to get a contract with Google.

beholder952 5 years ago |

My overall perspective on this whole discourse is that we spend a lot of time attaching a particular union, amongst a particular group of well-paid workers; to titanic struggles amongst Class and Culture.

My personal opinion is that yes, inequality is a huge problem! Solutions which come to mind are Medicare for All, UBI, free public college, and an end to Homelessness; all paid for by higher income taxes on the top 10% (we can start with ending the absurd FICA cap, and then raise rates).

It's not at all obvious to me how coders at an Ad company putting an intermediary between themselves and an employer changes... anything. I get that Unions were THE answer in the past - The Jungle and all that. But it's a different world and I just... don't get it!

(Just to add - some of the "pro capital" comments are just as silly. I don't think Unions will ruin the world, I think they're just sort of 'fine' and super tangential to more important policy topics)

bane 5 years ago |

Most of the unions that we have here are public service/trades/transportation related and if I'm honest, the results have been very mixed. We used to have more manufacturing related unions, but with the direction manufacturing jobs have gone in the U.S. they're mostly just gone.

The public service unions (e.g. firefighters, police etc.) seem to do a good job to protect their workers on one hand and keep them fairly paid and serviced, but on the other hand provide a powerful force to keep abusive police employed and fight things like police cameras and other actions that protect the population.

The public transportation unions are widely seen as abject failures, providing protection for overpaid, highly underperforming, employees. There's been numerous investigations about failures in things like our local municipal rail systems and why they're such an abomination of service, and outside of funding issues, the fingers usually get pointed in the direction of essentially unfireable and frankly lazy employees.

The trade unions seem to do a good job. Plumbers, electricians, etc. generally seem to be competent, and paid well, and have good relations between employers, customers, and workers.

There's also a large number of public sector unions here. At one end the usual postal workers, teachers etc. and everything seems to run pretty well there. On the other end are the infuriating government maintenance/labor unions who won't let you move a waste bin to the other side of your desk without causing a problem.

Despite all this, unions are not a major factor of life for most of the people in my area. I actually only know one or two people who're union members personally. Despite this, I live in one of the highest average income areas in the country. But I also recognize that for many people this environment prices them out of livable housing and food, and unions can help bolster their pay to make living in this area reasonable for them.

I'm somewhat at a loss as to what better work conditions Google employees are looking for. They're among the most highly paid employees on the planet with absolutely incredible work conditions. If I had to wager, in exchange for whatever protections these employees are seeking, the tradeoff will be the erosion and removal of most of the perks that make Google a desirable place to work for. On the other hand, with Google leadership's behavior the last few years, they've kind of brought this on themselves so, small violins all around.

j45 5 years ago |

If unions are about collective and not selective workers rights, what types of workers rights are missing not only at Google, but FAANG?

We hear lots about unions... or lack of them stifling access to opportunity or innovation, I’m curious to learn more about:

- What a modernized or reimagined practice of a union could look like where it wasn’t anchored in the world changing slowly, instead of quickly?

- How might a reimagined union focused on today’s issues with today’s approaches in the 21st century look and start much differently than one incarnated a few hundred years ago? Is there a step change possible or already occurred in some cases?

- How can unions overcome the issues that other bureaucracies (enterprise, Govt, education, health, etc) experience, including in some cases inhibiting change at the goal of self preservation?

theravengod 5 years ago |

WTH? Most people here don't know recent US history anymore ? Just look at what unions did to the people of Detroit ?

Sure, on paper it seems like a good idea to fight the rich company to give employees a bigger share of the profit, but do remember: it's not the employee that decides how much profit is enough for the company to have. If the investors/CEO/boss doesn't feel the profit is enough, they/he/she can close the company. Unions always will protect the weaker worker (regardless of the domain) and subtract value form the better workers.

If some employees don't like what Google is doing, they can protest (as they did). Also they can leave. Twisting the arm of the boss to give you more, when has that worked in the long run ?

dogprez 5 years ago | |

Bay Area SWE from Flint, MI here.

> on paper it seems like a good idea to fight the rich company to give employees a bigger share of the profit

That is explicitly a non-goal of this union.

> Just look at what unions did to the people of Detroit

Let's say for argument's sake that the UAW wasn't formed, the Great Sitdown Strike just lead to policy changes (hard to imagine after how they were treated). Do you think the auto companies would have been as successful without the quality of life the UAW afforded its members? Anecdotally, my uneducated grandfather immigrated to the states for one of those jobs. Do you think that the auto companies still wouldn't have moved production overseas to maximize their profits? Even without the UAW, a job in Mexico still paid a fraction of an American job in the 70s.

> Also they can leave

If your gripe is that your work is now being used in a context you find ethically wrong (like Project Maven), moving companies doesn't solve the problem. Voting with your feet doesn't make any positive change, it just leaves you at the least problematic workplace.

> Twisting the arm of the boss to give you more, when has that worked in the long run ?

I don't know. I guess when it resulted in political action like the 40hr 5dy workweek? Honestly, I don't know though.

firefoxd 5 years ago |

230 out 100k+ want to unionize? It would be nice for sure, but unions are not coming back[1].

The campaign to disrupt unions was successful and they are easily dismantled without breaking the law. Yet the employees still need protection. Unions have been sorta replaced by HR. Employees almost always go to HR to resolve issues but they forget that this entity is for the company, by the company.

If we want to make any impact I think HR is where we start. We turn it into a public and legal entity, required by law if the company reaches a certain size. And it reports to the state government.

[1]: https://idiallo.com/blog/unions-are-not-coming-back

throwmamatrain 5 years ago |

As the most spoiled class of workers to ever exist, it seems strange to want to unionize. I would think it sounds like inviting the vampire in (legal, HR, etc) without board representation of workers / codetermination similar to the German system. In America's way of doing things, I'm not sure if it's good. Would not look forward to "You have appropriate amount of non-union experience but you are 10th in line so we'll be calling you in 12 months, if we do." A theoretical for tech, not so for film unions which are being excitedly pointed to as good. It can take a very long time to get work under these schemes, which seems incompatible with how tech has worked.

nailer 5 years ago |

Direct link: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/press/releases/2021-01-04-c...

pnw_hazor 5 years ago |

Apparently this is a Members-only union. They are different than classic teamster/boilermaker/machinist unions most people think of.

Unless the law or NLRB has recently changed its position, employers do not have to bargain with members-only unions. Though they can if they want.

https://prospect.org/justice/labor-crossroads-defense-member...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members-only_unionism

Dig1t 5 years ago |

I’m not at all against unions, I think the idea is good for some industries. I truly hate the idea of being FORCED to join one though. I’ve worked union jobs in the past in California, and the idea that I HAD to join an organization and pay them a portion of my minimum wage hourly pay drove me absolutely bonkers. This was on top of the fact that the union never gave me any benefits, the reps were impossible to get ahold of and didn’t care at all even if you did get ahold of them. To me, it was a giant useless bureaucracy that I was forced to pay into.

I hope software unions look and feel different than the experience that I had.

davidfekke 5 years ago |

I am not sure what good it will do to join a Union if you can't collectively bargain. You would essentially be paying dues out of your salary, and not getting anything in return. If you don't like Google, then quit.

bborud 5 years ago |

As a Norwegian I am often confused by unions in the US.

https://www.nho.no/en/english/articles/collective-bargaining... https://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Rela...

SoSoRoCoCo 5 years ago |

I'm excited about this, but also dismayed at the huge amount of pushback from the tech community. Exploitation in tech is built into the culture: people worship the guy who never spends time with his family and works 100 hrs per week. Screaming managers are tolerated, even revered. Retaliation is commonplace and keeps people in line, and is justified as "s/he was just lazy" or "not a team player". This needs to end. Unions are a great first step.

jskell725 5 years ago | |

Perspective from one pushing-back tech worker:

-Never seen a manager scream. Note that anyone who does so is bad at their job; and won't last long unless if anyone else wants it.

-Workers commonly take multi-month parental leave breaks; block off afternoons for a kid's event, etc.

-I don't know anyone who works 100 hours a week; and if I did I would think them a fool. And also help them; as this is unsafe and they need some more sleep!

I understand that other gigs, especially perhaps in Gaming, are different! And workers of course have the right to freely associate, and so collectively bargain, if they choose to.

gipp 5 years ago | |

Neither of those things apply to Google.

frongpik 5 years ago |

Looks like a continuation of the Gebru show: the SJW leaders are threatening to unionize. If they really cared about the workers, they'd talk about non compete agreements.

snidane 5 years ago |

Coincidentally I was just watching these Yale lectures which touch on economical history of unions in the 20th century. Might be of interest to HN readers.

https://youtu.be/q53DF6ySOZg - The Resurgent Right in the West

https://youtu.be/T3-VlQu3iRM - Reorienting the Left: New Democrats, New Labour and Europe's Social Democrats

foxhop 5 years ago |

Could the Google workers help build a Union for all of tech?

gcr 5 years ago | |

At AWU, we've been working with CWA to do just that; see https://www.code-cwa.org

zeckalpha 5 years ago |

> It was the first time white-collar employees in the tech industry had unionized.

What? CWA, mentioned in the article, isn’t a new thing, and that’s just one example.

gtsop 5 years ago |

I see many valid concerns in this thread regarding the structure and purpose of unions.

What I can't unsee is the lack of will to make something that work. If "union" was a category of software we would be having a couple leading FOSS projects pioneering good practices and we would argue about which is better and do RFCs. Now all we do is complain how nothing works instead of trying to work this out.

sl1ck731 5 years ago |

I was investigating unions over the holidays and saw that these types of things are specific to companies which didn't make sense to me. I'm not familiar with unions in general, but the ones I hear about most in the trades seem to be exterior to any specific company.

Making unions specific to a company rather than a profession seems less useful...or are trade unions specific to their companies as well?

prodtorok 5 years ago |

IMO this entire thread is missing a likely trajectory/implication here. This isn't a union formed in the industrial revolution.

around_here 5 years ago |

One of the most common things I see among tech workers is that they think companies are “anti-union”, which is a total lie. They love unions, just not when workers make them. They call them “associations”, “councils”, “chambers of commerce”, etc. They serve on each other’s boards, they form cabals to limit employee pay, and they lobby the government to make it easier to get rid of you whenever they please.

Corporations and the rich love socialism. They need it. It’s socialism for them, brutal capitalism and rugged individualism for everyone else. The fools of tech listen to their words and ignore their actions.

ineedasername 5 years ago |

"to opposing Project Maven, to protesting the egregious, multi-million dollar payouts that have been given to executives who’ve committed sexual harassment

I don't see how a union will help these issues. They may demonstrate the power of collective action, but not the utility of a union for these particular types of issues.

andyjohnson0 5 years ago |

A little off topic: as a developer living in the UK and considering joining a union, which one(s) should I consider?

ProofByAccident 5 years ago |

So many in this thread talking about a contract, rigidity, voting, etc. This is not a card-signing campaign, nobody will be voting on a CBA. AWU is running a minority unionism campaign which means that it's closer to a lobbying group or non-profit than eg. your standard public teachers' union.

tom-_- 5 years ago |

What percentage of Alphabet employees work on profitable products? Since AWU has no contract with Alphabet, their only leverage is work stoppage but if those protesting aren't adding monetary value to the business, then wouldn't work stoppage be net-neutral or positive for Alphabet?

tomohawk 5 years ago |

It's sad that they're using card checks instead of secret ballots for the effort. Card checks are a tried and true method organizers use to intimidate people.

Source: several family members worked in union shops. In many cases, they were forced to be part of the union to have a job.

frongpik 5 years ago | |

What are the card checks?

borishn 5 years ago |

Old tech companies had heavy machinery and workers were relatively easy to train and replace. The high-tech companies are nothing without their workers. I think in the future the high tech employees unions will be able to steer a larger share of profits towards themselves.

oriettaxx 5 years ago |

> Google workers announce plans to unionise

uh, are they still not unionised? weird.

what to say: I hope it is not just an announce.

dubcanada 5 years ago |

It seems that Hacker News is rather anti union. I am not sure I fully understand what peoples opposition towards a union is.

I've honestly never heard of a negative thing about unions beyond silly unproven things like "unions don't innovate" or other nonsense.

matz1 5 years ago | |

Simply, union interest is not the same as company interest. Its maybe good for the employee but not good for the company.

One example of negative things of an union: It makes harder for company to fire people.

Look at teachers union right now, they are fighting by all means to refuse to come back teaching in person. Teaching online benefit the teacher but really sucks for the kids and parents.

Pfhreak 5 years ago | | |

That's both reductive and false. The employees benefit when the company does well. A union just fights to have the employees share more in that success.

JoshTko 5 years ago |

While I generally support unions, I think this is a pretty bearish signal for Google. I think it totally makes sense for the contractors but less so for the rank and file Googlers as they consistently are at the upper end in the industry benefits and pay.

xiaq 5 years ago |

A tangential point, but I find it weird and somewhat amusing that an article on US Google employees should use a photo of Google's London engineering office. Maybe they don't have a good shot of a lot of people standing in front of some US office?

davidfekke 5 years ago |

sneak 5 years ago |

I don't disagree with this effort, but I'm a little surprised it wasn't one of the slightly more abusive/hardline of the FAANGM (that is, specifically Apple or Amazon, or perhaps Microsoft) staff first.

ceejayoz 5 years ago | |

Part of that abusiveness likely extends to union busting efforts.

booleandilemma 5 years ago | | |

Amazon anti-union video: https://youtu.be/AQeGBHxIyHw

pydry 5 years ago | |

Their hands are somewhat tied in terms of how much they can retaliate legally.

They likely won't take this sitting down, though.

fnord77 5 years ago |

checks and balances against corporate power.

sidibe 5 years ago |

I think on the whole Google leadership is pretty representative of what Google employees want and the ones who want this union will be disappointed with what the union wants if they get enough people on board.

jp_sc 5 years ago |

The Verge is down, but the post can be read here: https://archive.is/PWbbw

carabiner 5 years ago |

Amazing, the first page of these comments only has a single top level comment, with 550 replies. What is the typical distribution of comments on an HN post?

andobando 5 years ago |

This is quoted form a different article, but am I the only one who sympathizes with this?

fnovd 5 years ago | |

The "few wealthy executives" are the ones ensuring that the work of the bus drivers, programmers, salespeople, and janitors is rewarded with cold, hard cash instead of empty promises and platitudes. How many $250k+ TC employees can be sustained by a company that refuses to do the "dirty work" of the DoD, that takes an ethical stance against the very anti-privacy technology that drives the profitability behind their inflated salaries?

"Having your cake and eating it, too" barely fits here, it's more like showing up to a fancy steakhouse and demanding that their best cut stop coming from poor innocent cows. If you want to be a vegan, you're free to go do that; yelling at the evil chefs, butchers, and farmers to stop hurting cows while they prepare the sirloin you're paying them for is just absurd.

If you want to work in a mission-focused environment, you can join the rest of us who took a pay cut to work on projects that let us go to sleep at night with that warm and fuzzy feeling. If you're not willing to give up the blood money, then it goes without saying that There Will Be Blood

bozhark 5 years ago |

Do they need a lobbist? It would be such a wonderful turn of events to be able to lobby for google employees rather than just the entity.

_gohp 5 years ago |

I suppose why not. Google employs some of the smartest minds walking earth, subseque tly , this is a reflection of their thoughts. I do not think this is a group of extreme left wingers who have infiltrated google to bring change. I think this is a reaction to the some actions they have observed and decided it is time for an intervention. I do not understand the people who are against this, especially the ones not even working there. Nobody is forced to join the union. Maybe the unions are different in the US. But in Europe they have proven to be a good anti exploitation tool and are the foundation of a happy middle class

rmk 5 years ago |

This union appears to have formed primarily as a means for political activism. This is just the worst type of union, because members are implicitly assumed to agree with the union’s political ideals (can you imagine conservatives joining this union in large numbers?) and also because if it grows large enough, it may make moves to become certified. That will put paid to Googles chances of doing business as it sees fit without any regard to the politics of what they do. How would collective bargaining work at Google? What would be the demands of such a bargaining group, aside from purely political items?

mancerayder 5 years ago |

Two thoughts as I wake up to this:

1) "Arranged as a members-only union, the new organization won’t seek collective bargaining rights to negotiate a new contract with the company"

What use will that be, if they don't collectively bargain, as a, em, collective of employees? The next step would be to pressure everyone to join, or the whole thing won't be very effective.

2) If the thing were to work, then I'd expect the very next HN article to read:

Alphabet Company Announces Move to __, TX.

capableweb 5 years ago | |

Contract bargaining for the members is not the only thing a union usually does. There are loads more to it, great starting point to learn more about unions would be to read through the Wikipedia page before dismissing the idea, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union

If it wasn't clear to people working at Google before, if the company moves somewhere in order to lessen the power of their employees, I sure hope the employees start waking up to how their company treats them. My guess is that Google doesn't want to actually show that face though, so unlikely to happen.

mancerayder 5 years ago | | |

> There are loads more to it, great starting point to learn more about unions

A great starting point to sound condescending, as well.

etxm 5 years ago |

Are there any industries that have unions that don’t require a credential, certification, degree, or license?

aaomidi 5 years ago |

What is HN doing about serious attempts from the likes of Pinkertons to create FUD in these threads?

We know for a fact that tech companies are their customer, and we know they're ruthless in online disinfo. Is HN doing any monitoring to the discourse to make sure the comments are coming from actual individuals rather than a company buying up a bunch of HN accounts with history and creating disfino and FUD?

madamelic 5 years ago | |

It shouldn't be shocking that a site full of tech nerds is going to be rallying for meritocracy when these unions want 1% of salaries.

I don't see how a union would make my life better. When I hate my job, I leave my job and find a new one within a week. If I am swapping into a new role or looking for something specific, a month.

I just see this as creating an additional bureaucratic layer that steals my money and gives me the same rights I currently do.

What more could someone want? Foot massages? Even at a non-FAANG company, life as an SE is very comfortable.

m3kw9 5 years ago |

I wonder how long before the union demand google to change certain practices, company directions or else.

confidantlake 5 years ago |

We just had a thread about the abusive conditions at apple. A union could help address that behavior.

baggy_trough 5 years ago |

Good thing I'm using Google less and less, because unions turn everything they touch to shit.

runawaybottle 5 years ago |

Well if the rest of the tech industry can copy faang Leetcode interviews, at the very least also start copying this union initiative. For once I’d like to see copy-cat culture not completely suck.

No more of the silly fridge full of beers and ping pong tables, copy the real stuff please - salary, 20% time, union, and we’ll study for your Leetcode, no problemo.

mindrunner 5 years ago |

I don't think H1Bs will unionize, there's too much too lose if they get fired.

glitchc 5 years ago |

Sounds like the tech industry needs a union rather than just Google employees.

bfrog 5 years ago |

Step 1,replace the board with morally inclined individuals. No more Sundar.

rzz3 5 years ago |

If I didn’t want to join the union, would I face consequences?

madamelic 5 years ago | |

Yes.

You can't be employed by a unionized company if you aren't part of the union.

Pfhreak 5 years ago | | |

That's not true? Depends on the union and the company and the location.

theodric 5 years ago |

Somebody's about to get At-Will-State'd

tomerbd 5 years ago |

Vacation days compensation for being on call

seedless-sensat 5 years ago | |

This already exists at Google

Ardur 5 years ago |

It is a bad idea to affiliate with CWA. If CWA was the origin, it is a terrible idea. Tech should be wary and look at what the automobile unions amounted to.

musicale 5 years ago |

I wish them luck in their new jobs.

TedShiller 5 years ago |

I know who’s not getting promoted

AzzieElbab 5 years ago |

the article makes it sound like this union will not be about collective bargaining

XOXO1 5 years ago |

if you do your magic everywhere , then you will need unions, to save your arse.

ausbah 5 years ago |

what do they need to be "successful"? a certain % of employees?

tsjq 5 years ago | |

30%

gverrilla 5 years ago |

very good news

eplanit 5 years ago |

I wish Google well on whatever it (legally) pursues to fight this. I see them as a company that has gone from great to now becoming mediocre, and whose employees are destroying it from within.

Maybe those clever interview quizzes should be updated to identify and filter out political zealots.

apta_ 5 years ago | |

I know at least one person who left Google because it became too political, and this was several years ago. It's sad to see what's become of the company.

eznzt 5 years ago |

Google wanted a leftist culture, there you have a cultist culture. May this serve as a word of warning to fangless executives all around the country.

thundergolfer 5 years ago | |

Who is the “Google” that you say wanted the leftist culture?

Is it the shareholders? The majority of shareholder ownership in Google is held by wealthy non-employees, who probably didn’t want a leftist culture.

Is it the executives? Seeing as unionisation probably reduces their power and their pay, they probably didn’t want it.

Is it the rank-and-file engineers? These people tend to be left of centre, and the younger ones are likely quite socially progressive, but anti-capitalist? Not many. Seems wrong to generalise that they want a leftist culture.

alacombe 5 years ago | | |

"Leftist culture" is the only way to make any kind of money right now in the US, so of course Google want a "leftist culture" there. Is the rest of the world, it might be different, of course (eg. China).

known 5 years ago |

Sounds rational till GOOGLE treats all its employees as PARTNERS

falcor84 5 years ago |

Nitpick: I was surprised to see them say "Earlier this year" regarding the union in Kickstarter - that was of course in 2020 which is now last year :)

gotoeleven 5 years ago |

I can't wait to see how combining unionism with social justice politics improves google's products. Very excited.

cft 5 years ago |

This could be the beginning of tech stock market crash. If that effort succeeds that is

objclxt 5 years ago | |

Why? Many successful companies are fully unionised. How many people creating content at Disney do you think are card carrying members of a union (the answer: nearly all of them).

throwoutttt 5 years ago | | |

That must be why Disney needs to buy Star Wars and Marvel, because they're so great at innovating their own content

spodek 5 years ago | |

Less profits would go to shareholders, which could lower its stock price, but that doesn't mean the company would produce less. More share of profits going to employees could increase productivity and social good to the world. I'm not calling that result inevitable, but possible and up to the company leadership.

bregma 5 years ago |

Shouldn't the headline read "former Google workers" by now?

seibelj 5 years ago |

I know some Googlers who make over $500k annual and in truth are fairly unskilled. Not sure they could survive at any other company. Don’t really see why they need a union to “protect” them from being fantastically wealthy?

klaudius 5 years ago |

I don't understand unions. If they don't like certain behaviors that are legal like selling to government or paying high salaries, why are they working there in the first place? Just quit. Different people like different things, so go work somewhere that suits you.

WitCanStain 5 years ago | |

The point of unions is that individual workers can be easily screwed over with no repercussions for the company because of the power differential between companies and their workers. Unions seek to level the field a little bit by giving the workers collective bargaining power which allows them to secure better pay/benefits/influence the direction the company is going. When they work it is a very rational arrangement for the workers, so companies tend to not like them as it decreases their power over their workers.

mrweasel 5 years ago | | |

Precisely, you can end up having people working for a company under terms that are technically legal, but still exploiting the weakest. The strongest people easily move on to better positions, but some, single parents, less skilled, psychologically weaker individuals and so on are more easily pressed into working conditions they may not like, because they fear losing the job they do have.

In the US the minimum wage haven't moved in decades, at least not significantly. Denmark doesn't even have a minimum wage, yet people are better paid, that's due the Danish unions. Interestingly the Danish unions are actually oppose a minimum wage, because they believe it makes it easier to legally pay people less.

andai 5 years ago | |

The way I see it, if unions did nothing, Google and Amazon wouldn't be working so hard to prevent them from forming.

zthrowaway 5 years ago | | |

Oh they do something, they help destroy a company’s ability to compete. Take a look at unionization of the auto industry in Detroit back in the 70s and 80s which basically killed our lead in the industry and gave it to Japan and Korean companies on a platter.

oh_sigh 5 years ago | | |

I think they think unions would drag down productivity and cost money. I don't know if anyone actually believes unions do nothing at all, neither good nor bad

maxdo 5 years ago |

I called ConEd and union workers were slacking by my house the entire working day. At the end of the day they went out , checked my cord, said nothing wrong and finished the day. I heard many other similar stories like this. If google will face this situation they’ll just move their workforce elsewhere except some numbers of really great talents , and those will be motivated.

realshadow 5 years ago |

I never liked google and googlers.

Google is nothing but a monster which shares private info with goverments and companies. Use their platforms to rev up their products at the expensive of small business.

so i do not care what happens to google/googlers.