Hacker News Reader

Comment by kafkaesq | Hacker News Reader

They are excluded from events because they are working not for Facebook, but a food service company that contracts for Facebook.

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.

View on HN

>Let's please not try to compare the "plight" of contract tech workers

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.

I don't personally see a difference other than the average wage for what I do.

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.

>There's this "respect" part

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?

My experiences as an on site contract worker don't always line up with that.

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.

>You keep getting back to your experience as an on-site highly paid (compared to most folks) tech worker.

Yes, because you implied it came with respect. It doesn't always.

You really seem set on missing kafkaesq's point, take this specific line from the article, and this specific line from you:

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.

No I'm not missing this point I just don't agree with it. Companies contract with other companies for all kinds of services. When I call someone to fix my air conditioner I'm not suddenly responsible for the person fixing the air conditioners wages or social status or class. If Food Service workers are underpaid that's a fair point but it's not something for Facebook to fix.

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?

If Food Service workers are underpaid that's a fair point but it's not something for Facebook to fix.

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.

Both the contractor and Facebook share blame, there's plenty to go around. The contractor obviously doesn't pay their workers enough for the area. Facebook is also the one hiring contracted labor to work in the same building as their employees without all sorts of benefits. AKA Facebook is the one who brought that class divide that already exists into their space so that's obviously on them. Facebook has plenty of power here, they could push FFS to pay FB cafeteria workers more or to allow for take your child to work day but they don't because they don't care, that makes them complicit in perpetuating the divide. I'd say what makes this situation bad enough to get its own article is the proximity. Not that the class divide isn't bad when it's hidden but it's situations like this, with rich right next to poor that bring up all those questions about our current bifurcated society that we don't like to talk about. The class divide in America is a problem and in Silicon Valley it's an even bigger problem. The lunch line at Facebook is just an amazingly salient illustration of 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!

I would say your edit is unfair in how you're portraying me. I didn't say "It's not that bad". I noted I had been there. As in, I was there, felt it, but had a very different idea of what entities should fix it.

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.

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.

I suppose there's some path where they might exert some negative PR and get a temporary win.

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.

I wish it didn't have to be a matter for the legislators and the courts, but it seems like capitalism means that facebook has to not do the right thing for the workers if it's more profitable not to - obligation to the shareholders and all that.

If we only had capitalism and no legislation, the invisible hand would've made slaves of all of us for the few rich.

This is pretty standard, isn't it?

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.

This is pretty standard, isn't it?

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.

I worked for an office cleaning company in 1983. Contracting things like on site food facilities, security, building maintenance, and janitorial isn't new. Maybe the spread of how popular it is vs in house has changed, but it isn't new.

It isn't "new" of course, but it's been greatly, greatly expanded. Back around that time, if you considered, say a school district... it'd be nearly a given that most of those people were employees of the school district. Nowadays? Practically the opposite.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com