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Comment by kamaal | Hacker News Reader

This is the most under rated comment in this thread.

Don't know what the Google management is thinking at this point in time. But I'm damn sure, unless you are making it rain hundreds of millions in dollars, and you are a part of these pre-unionizing exercises- You are very likely getting marked up as a trouble maker, and may be already a part of purge lists.

This is also a small industry. You don't want your name to smeared as a person who comes with a high trouble/contribution ratio. Nobody wants to hire people to do their jobs, and get employees running their part time political projects with their fellow colleagues in paid office time, on office issues.

There are also a huge range legal landmines you are likely to step over even without active knowledge that you are.

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> This is also a small industry. You don't want your name to smeared as a person who comes with a high trouble/contribution ratio.

What you are suggesting is called "blacklisting." You may be interested to learn that in many states it is illegal behavior itself. See https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-....

> Nobody wants to hire people to do their jobs, and get employees running their part time political projects with their fellow colleagues in paid office time, on office issues.

Union organizing is not a "part time political project," it is a legally protected right. See https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employees/i....

>What you are suggesting is called "blacklisting." You may be interested to learn that in many states it is illegal behavior itself.

If only the fact that it's illegal actually stopped it from happening.

>What you are suggesting is called "blacklisting." You may be interested to learn that in many states it is illegal behavior itself.

Sadly, impossible to prove.

I can choose to not hire for you a plethora of reasons. I can just give you a few bullshit questions that you can't answer correctly and use that as an excuse.

This is the reason protests like this are needed. Free exercise of bias is a feature built right into the current hiring process, and managers openly admit it.

Nobody ever gets interview feedbacks in this industry.

What you are saying is true, but its always impossible to establish intentions. And either way you have to sue. All the best ever getting a job if you are known to do legal fights against prospective employers.

>>Union organizing is not a "part time political project," it is a legally protected right.

One believes in these things only until they become managers themselves. And every one aspires to be one in this industry.

> One believes in these things only until they become managers themselves.

The law isn't Tinker Bell, it doesn't require you to believe in it to exist.

> And every one aspires to be one in this industry.

It's difficult to think of anything sadder than a person who assents to his own exploitation in the hopes that maybe, someday, he will get to exploit someone else.

so all managers are exploiters?

I rest my case, sir.

I also wish you the very best with your activism.

> One believes in these things only until they become managers themselves. And every one aspires to be one in this industry.

Oh god no, not even close to everyone in this industry aspires to be a manager.

Personally, even if I end up becoming a manager I don't think my opinion on unions will change. Ten years ago people told me that my opinion on taxes would change once I made more money too and if anything I support higher taxes even more now.

> And every one aspires to be one in this industry.

This is so far from the truth that I don't know how to make sense of your claim. Either you are living in a bubble or in a place which provides no career path to engineers (thus forcing them to want to be managers) or you are interpreting the data you are faced with incorrectly.

There are so many people in this industry who never want to be a manager that this claim of yours is frankly absurd!

> You are very likely getting marked up as a trouble maker, and may be already a part of purge lists.

This is also extremely illegal in the EU. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36242312

That's ridiculous though. You can't prove that I, having looked at some super-secret "purge list" and proceeded to not hire you, did it because of the "purge list"?

I'll just say you weren't a good fit for the "company culture" and that'll be that.

Having the blacklist at all was deemed to be a violation of data protection law.

And of course it's practised all over. Also in Europe.

You're underestimating how many people are involved in these walkouts. Well over a thousand participated in the NYC office one, for example.

And even if this were true, some things are worth taking risks over.

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