Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

This story is about the non-Apple employees that work at the subcontractor Apex.

To generalize, the title can be "What It’s Like to Work Inside Company X's subcontractor."

Similar stories about subcontractors with less benefits & perks were written for Microsoft, Google, Amazon. Subcontractors are always going to be "2nd class citizens" compared to real employees of the client company. The phenomenon is not specific to the tech industry. Even a workers cooperative like Mondgragon outsources work to subcontractors and those non-employees complain about not being able to participate in Mondragon's benefits.

The "subcontractors" that have the same level (or higher level) of prestige and respect as the client company would be consulting companies like McKinsey or Bain.

View on HN

Well written and succinct. I especially like the nod to professional consultants.

I'm not quite sure why these stories keep coming up, given the vast amount of literature available describing why and how contracting, with it's bifurcated pay and benefits systems, can and is mutually beneficial to the organizations.

In fact the #1 thread, as of this writing, is about freelancing and has dozens of comments from freelancers.

One possible explanation for the frequency of the topic, is that it's not the structure of contracting that people are rejecting, but rather the wide disparity between the size, pay and benefits of the contractor vs the contractee. Nobody complains if Bain takes a contract with Apple, as both have good pay and benefits. Similarly nobody complains about the freelancer working for [megacorp] because the freelancer is independent and an owner. However, increase the wealth gap between the companies and now you have a story.

If I had to guess it’s because these companies are straddling the line between socially aware company (to attract this conscientious minded employee) and the realities of doing business (core competencies and flexibility when things go south). Given the above a small percentage of employees feel an obligation to look after the subcontracted workers, etc. and want to bring it up as an issue in the next election cycle.

I doubt you’ll see this attitude at GM (despite unions) or Archer Daniels Midland, etc., because they don’t try to play both sides as much.

Agreed.

If you take a progressive social stance like the tech companies seem to like to do, with LGBT rights for example, then you're opening yourself up to criticism when you behave like a regular corporation in a place where you might not have taken a social stance, with the labor movement for example.

What is the phrase for being penalized for trying to help insufficiently. That resentment it generates in the people who weren't helped.

This image of the protective tent failing to cover everyone is the best representation I've seen:

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/12884861/t...

Is it that they are helping insufficiently, or that they are using this as a strategy for making money and showing their true colors by engaging in it only to the extent they make money? It is easier to support someone whose intentions are to help despite an imperfect execution than it is to support someone whose intention is to fake helpfulness only to the extent it beneficial to them, even when both result in people being helped.

That image comes from an article about how efforts to help people, eg expand healthcare coverage, still generate a backlash. The theory being that people not helped (or fall thru the cracks) become resentful.

Tangentially: Young me was all-or-nothing, and hated compromise. Middle aged me grew to appreciate incrementalism. Older me is rediscovering my inner ultimatist.

Hostage negotiator Chris Voss' prescription for successful negotiations is "Never split the difference." After witnessing the backlash to every progressive reform, I'm VERY open to adopting Voss' worldview.

Basically, I've adopted a "Leave no one behind." worldview.

That's a great image, thanks for linking it.

I'm not aware of a term that means what you describe, perhaps it would be tied-in somehow with arguments about "equity vs equality."

The problem is caused by the IRS and HMRC having secondary effects that make employers do this - whether every subcontractor sound be a subcontractor an employee is a different issue.

There are arguments on both sides eg a Freelance Director of Photography is not going to want to be taxed as an employee.

There's a parallel story concerning the subset of government contractors that essentially exist as staffing agencies, with two differences: - The process for landing a contract is opaque, favoring huge companies.

- The government has no bottom line to maintain, contractor value-add is not easily quantified.

So the big staffing agencies largely just "fill seats," and the individual contractor's growth potential is limited, because they realistically can't fill the seat any better on day 365 than they could on day one-- most "senior" positions are literally basis seniority and only seniority.

This because GS rates cant pay the going rate for cyber skills for example.

Its also to stop the IRS going after the employer and contractor for disguised employment which happened to Microsoft a few years back.

> To generalize, the title can be "What It’s Like to Work Inside Company X's subcontractor."

Not just as a subcontractor. I used to work for a very large company, and it was just as bad as a full-time employee (and even worse for contractors!). Both of these statements applied there:

> One described the workplace as depressing and quiet, with everyone on edge.

> “There were many people who took initiative and made things, increased the efficiency. They weren’t rewarded in any way,” he says. “There were people who had abandoned any hope. They’d come in late, leave early, and just do nothing all day. They were treated the same as everyone else.”

It was absolutely horrible, and I will never let a firm get inside my head like that again.

Does the big tech company bear no responsibility for shifting as much work as it can out to subcontractors in order to cut costs? It seems to me that they're knowingly using the subcontracting mechanism in order to get away with offering Apex's 24 hours of paid leave per year, insufficient bathrooms, and other appalling conditions without tarnishing their sterling reputation. It says right in the article that Apple reviewed the Apex site and thought it was fine.

If big tech companies want to own up to being heartless mercenary capitalists who will wring every drop of sweat out of workers and spit them out as burned-out husks with no savings at the age of 35, hey, that's the system we live in. But something seems off when they want to have their cake and eat it too– that is, they want to seem like inspiring, human-friendly forces for good, but quietly use the glow from that reputation to get away with subcontracting away a huge amount of their labor to people working in miserable conditions. There's a reason that some labels moved away from sweatshop labor: it's bad press. If Apple is going to effectively use sweatshop labor (through a contractor, whatever) they should have to eat the bad press. Don't defend it as just the contractor's fault. It's literally the exact same situation as a clothing sweatshop.

Subcontracting is extremely normal for almost any kind of business and does not need any sort of regulation. Apex or whoever should be the ones bearing the brunt of treating their employees poorly. If the labor market works correctly, companies like Apex will only ever have lower quality workers and high rates of turnover. No different than if their clients treated employees poorly. Apex bid a low price and Apple signed the contract. Their responsibility end there.

I work at tech services company that generally pays much better than the clients we work for and we are treated much better as well. We charge a lot to produce premium work. As a result, we have high-quality employees and are known to produce better work than our clients could do in-house. We have a client that is, let's say, equivalent to Apple and our relationship is great.

Incidentally, my previous employer actually did a lot of work for Apple. It was similar to my current shop. Employees were paid well and treated well. Apple put a lot of secrecy requirements on us as well as security rules (all meeting rooms need opaque doors, we could never publicize our work). Work hours were tough, but overall we were paid very competitive salaries and if Apple or any other client ever pulled the plug, we had other clients to staff workers too. Obviously we sometimes bent over backwards to retain Apple since they have such deep pockets, but it wasn't crazy.

> Apex bid a low price and Apple signed the contract. Their responsibility end there.

I just don't buy this argument. It's no different from Nike accepting bids from factories that they should know are sweatshops or utilize child labor. It's no different from (before the sanctions) employing North Korean laborers whom you know are sending home most of their pay to support the Kim regime. The mere fact that an exchange of money is taking place in a business agreement doesn't somehow magically absolve a company of ethical responsibility.

You know, unless you're VERY careful about your shopping, you're also using sweatshop labor (to manufacture your clothes, electronics etc.).

Also, I don't think that Apple is especially covert about them being a (heartless) business like everybody else. Steve Jobs even said, in response to a question about bringing manufacturing back to USA: "We're in the business of making phones, not in the business of employing people". It was clear that people were mainly just means to an end for him.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as guilty as anyone of ordering everything on Amazon or at Costco and killing local businesses, or whatever.

But I'm not running what must be one of the world's best-funded PR machines telling everyone how great I am. Let's just call a spade a spade, eh? For all the "made in California" / "environmentally friendly materials/packaging" / "100% renewable energy in our facilities" stuff that's supposed to make you feel good about buying their products, the reality is a lot more grim. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-happened-after-the-foxconn...

And anyway the particular point I was replying to is that it's pretty silly to absolve Apple of responsibility just because they put a layer of contractor between them and the bad behavior. They know what's going on. It's no different ethically from Apple doing it.

I think it's better to advocate for improvement without practicing it than it is to not practice it and not advocate.

Better to do one thing right if that's the best you can pull off!

It is not. Advocating online gives you the warm and fuzzy feeling that you did something right, without actually doing anything.

> I think it's better to advocate for improvement without practicing it than it is to not practice it and not advocate.

Isn't that the definition of hypocrisy?

The Apex site is an Apple site. They house FT employees in the same building.

>Does the big tech company bear no responsibility for shifting as much work as it can out to subcontractors in order to cut costs?

> spit them out as burned-out husks with no savings at the age of 35, hey, that's the system we live in.

This sounds really bad until you look at the happy contractors making over 6 figures, and are on track to retire in their 30s.

Everyone likes to complain, everyone wants more money. If you are making 6 figs and can't retire by 40, that was a personal decision.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com