This may be technically true, but ultimately it's just window dressing. And for FB (and many other companies that play the same game with its more expendable workers), a convenient dodge in terms of both expenses and liabilities.
If you show up at Facebook's building every morning, work in their cafeteria, mop their floors and scrub their toilets -- then for all practical purposes, you're working for Facebook.
I've done contract programming, on site, for a blue collar heavy business. I didn't get invited to their functions either.
Let's please not try to compare the "plight" of contract tech workers to to the situation that bottom-tier contract service workers are in.
I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do. Companies contract other companies for many things. Janitorial, security guards, software work, etc. They shouldn't be involved in the salary of some other company's workers. If there's a wage issue in this case, it's not Facebook's issue to sort it out.
There's this "respect" part, which is one of the major points of the article. And the fact that you apparently don't even see it as an issue -- while those on the other side of the coin insist that it is, in fact, quite a huge issue -- is a great part of what makes it such a huge issue.
If there's a wage issue in this case, it's not Facebook's issue to sort it out.
Right -- it's a matter for the legislators and the courts.
And if Facebook can't, or won't do the right thing for their workers, on this front -- they'll be made to do it.
My experiences as an on site contract worker don't always line up with that.
I do get your point in cases where companies are misclassifying actual workers as contract help. I think we just disagree that this is the case here. It seems obvious to me that they are employees of the food service company, and should be.
Fwiw, I have been a low paid factory worker in the past. It's not a matter where I don't empathize.
Are there notable companies that staff their in house cafeteria with actual employees?
You keep getting back to your experience as an on-site, and highly paid (compared to most folks) tech worker.
The whole point of the original article is the experience of low-paid, contract service workers is vastly different.
It seems obvious to me that they are employees of the food service company, and should be.
Whether they should or should not be is something one can have various points of view on.
I just don't think that just because they, currently, technically, "are" has any bearing on the "should be" part.
Yes, because you implied it came with respect. It doesn't always.
the distance between the two classes of Facebook workers can feel immense.
>I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do.
As a highly-paid tech contractor it is obvious on which side of that class divide you fall. Even though you were a contractor. So when you say that you were a contractor and were still respected that's not really the point. Of course you were respected, you're on the correct side of the class divide. That is the difference in respect here, not contract work per se, but the experience of being a poorly paid service worker who lives in a garage yet spends every day working at a company employing legions of young and wealthy programmers who live in fancy apartments. That's why she says: “We don’t live the dream. The techies are living the dream. It’s for them.” You're that techie, you're living that dream.
If the idea is just that Facebook employees should be polite and well-mannered two other types of workers in the building that makes sense.
Edit: I just don't get where the line is. If FB uses ChemLawn to fertilize the grounds, are they also responsible for those workers wage rates? What about the HVAC crew, building maintenance (assuming they work for, say, Smith Building Maintenance) ? If ADP does their payroll is FB responsible for those employees wage rate? Security guards? These food service employees work for a company that provides food for more than one company. I just don't get it. Why isn't their actual employer responsible for their wage rate?
Well, we'll see about that.
Being as, you know, it's not like companies such as Facebook have some inalienable right to exist, or anything like that.
EDIT: And I would go even further to say that your comments here are an amazing illustration of the justification that happens by those on the upper end. First through a hackneyed attempt at saying "I've been there. It's not that bad." Then through indifference or this sort of broad appeal to "that's just how the market works" or "it's not Facebooks's responsibility" as if poor people just pop out of the aether and it's not our society which creates and allows for poor people to even exist in the first place!
You're putting words in my mouth I never said. In quotes even. I feel like some kind of stand in Boogeyman for someone else that you are mad at.
I'm not arguing whether it is a problem. I'm arguing that FB isn't the right place to solve it.
But in practical terms -- this is basically saying it will never be solved at all.
But any "victory" with a corporate customer of their employer wouldn't help the guy down the street behind the counter at a BBQ restaurant, making less for similar work.
I would put more energy into the union mentioned in the article. Which could grow to have leverage beyond one situation.
The people who clean my company's office don't attend our town hall meetings, eat lunch with us, or take part in our 401k.
They may be working at Facebook, but they work for their own company.
Actually it's a fairly recent invention. It only seems "standard" if one has no recollection of a time and a place (not so far back) when outsourcing (and the systematic discounting of blue collar workers, generally) wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is today.
They may be working at Facebook, but they work for their own company.
We all acknowledge that that's the way things (technically) are. What's at issue is whether that's the way they ought to be.
And the extent to which, while it may be technically correct that these people are working for different companies... on a deeper, more fundamental level -- it's just a big gimmick.
So I guess what I was trying to say was, while it isn't new, it's become so common that one could say that things have basically "tipped".
And it's the idea that this state of affairs is somehow "standard" -- is what's the invention.