Google hires firm known for anti-union efforts
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
A contract specifies what that work is and is not. If it's not in the contract and I don't do it, well that sucks, for my employer. Without a contract I could be fired for cause.
This is such an utterly foreign and absurd concept to me. Even if you work for McDonald‘s, even if only temporary, even if only part time, you would always have an employment contract in Germany.
The relationship between employer and employee is a fundamentally uneven one. The ability to organise and cooperate amongst employees to bargain on an even ground is an important right, a right which was hard won by our forefathers.
> Doesn't seem like a particularly controversial, unusual, or unreasonable viewpoint, among people from all backgrounds, workers and leaders alike.
Widespread opposition to unionisation is fairly unique to the USA, a country with both a shockingly low level of unionisation, poor working conditions in regard to its richness and high inequality.
Corporations are made of people. Unions lose fair votes all the time. People who oppose unions are smart, honest, hard-working people who love their children and who just happen to have a difference of opinion with respect to policy. Are all of these people "evil"? Are they all morally unredeemable because they prefer a different kind of employee-employer relationship? It's bonkers how many people think the answer is "yes".
Deciding that anyone who disliked unionization is just evil is unlikely to be persuasive: instead, it'll just create division and bitterness and create conflict where there could have been cooperation.
Accepting the legitimacy of disagreement is a foundational aspect of a healthy,safe, and productive society. When you take that away, you're left with nothing but chaos.
> Corporations are made of people. [...] Deciding that anyone who disliked unionization is just evil
I only said corporations opposing unionisation are evil. I didn't say anything about people opposing unionisation. Corporations are not people. Personally I think people opposing unionisation are mostly deluded and often misinformed. I don't think they are evil however. People by themselves are rarely evil.
Corporations are owned by people and employ people. These two kinds of people have by design fundamentally different power inside the corporation. A corporation is an organisation whose purpose is to serve their owners goals (generally making money). From the point of view of the corporation, workers are merely an accessory to this goal.
Furthermore, the relationship between workers and corporation is a fundamentally asymmetric one. For the corporation, a single worker is pretty much always replaceable while for the worker the corporation is often is main source of income. Thus, without collective representation, a worker will always be at the mercy of its employer. That's why unions are so useful. They give employees a safe way to communicate with, negociate large change with and oppose their employer. Going against that for a corporation seems truly evil to me.
> it'll just create division and bitterness and create conflict where there could have been cooperation
What is workers cooperating together if not a union ? I think that's where the problem lies. From what I have seen Americans tend to have a rather narrow view of unions and remain unaware of the diversity existing in the world.
Apparently Americans tend to equal unions with mandatory membership, reserved jobs and fixed salary which is very far from the idea Europeans have of unions. In Germany for example, you will find unions with vastly different opinions and employees in a company are represented by a plurality of unions. In this context it is not too hard to find one close to what you believe in.
Disagreement is one thing. For example I'm disagreeing with you right now. But I'm not hiring a company that will follow you everywhere at work to try to convince you how wrong you are. And I don't have limitless financial resources to dedicate to proving you wrong and fend off any legal recourse you might attempt.
If I had and did the above I doubt you'd be so relaxed about the whole thing and call it disagreement.
That's non sense. Unions are not for profit organisations making money during conflict.
Most unions are not for profit association representing their members for collective bargaining. Companies can and do have good relationship with unions. It is in everyone interest that the company works. It's just easier to negociate when you have collective power and can have a meaningful impact.
Also companies absolutely are not there to create wealth for their workers. Google especially has an history with non poaching agreements.
But it isn't. Especially not Google, who cut the wealth of their employees at the knees via non-poaching agreements.
Unionization is simply democratization of industry.
Unionization of the workplace ensures that wages, safety, environmental and social concerns are addressed democratically by workers and management, organized collectively against the short term interests of rapacious capital.
So yes, preventing labour from organizing collectively is oppressive, totalitarian, and anti-democratic.
It's evil.
The context is "disagreeing with unions", which wasn't further qualified.
edit: and certainly not restricted to Google. Just re-read chrisseaton's comment -- downvoting me doesn't change what's written here, it just adds the data point of dishonesty and underhanded tactics.
> These examples are hilarious, but also a little insulting to employees who actually need unions.
How so?
"The Result: Despite dedicating millions of dollars to their organizing campaigns, the unions did not gain enough support to hold an NLRB-conducted election and were not able to organize any of the employees."
I'm not sure how preventing the organisation of labour is anything but evil. The employees wanted to unionize and this firm was able to prevent that. Nice job!
> The employees wanted to unionize
Sounds like they didn’t?
Trying to unionise people who don’t want to be unionised, and throwing their money around to do it, sounds not democratic.
What’s wrong with people presenting how they see things and employees getting to decide?
Sure, but I kind of doubt the direction avalanches of money are supposed to be going.
Maybe a system where costs are managed to be equal and parts of funding are handled by the state would allow more employees to get union and non union options presented to them fairly.
The US is headed to a very uneven system and that tends toward a lot of political problems so fixing distribution to workers should be a priority if the US wants to maintain democratic institutions.
Some unions are terrible. It’s in nobody’s interest but the union bosses for a bad union to bully their way in.
More frankly, the original company may have meant "Don't be evil"... but like many idealistic corporate ideas, it's been superseded by the effects of corruption and capitalism in the US.
I really hope these people choose their battles wisely and use their force for good. Not to transform a firm, but rather to disrupt the status quo of an entire industry, without needing association to a name like Google or FB.