Thousands of Google’s cafeteria workers have unionized
vox.com
vox.com
Serious question: How is this kind of a guild different from a union in your view?
(Per downthread, the dividing line is really "if your organisation comes into conflict with the state, does the fight happen in a courtroom or on the street?")
I see a lot of hemming and hawing about "the middle class," but I don't think it has any real meaning. What defines the middle class and how is the working class excluded from it? Are you using "the middle class," as a substitute for a professional/managerial class?
I used to be ambivalent about labor unions but in modern times when corporations act as all powerful gods, hell yes, unionize.
Personally, I'd rather earn an extra $25k and buy a few cups of coffee with it than get "free coffee".
I don't think there are any companies that spend $25k per employee per year on coffee???
When you look at the cost of coffee or soda, providing it free may cost the company in the ballpark of $500 a year per employee (though often less) which is minuscule in the total annual cost of an employee. Taken in a vacuum however, the number looks big. We spent how much on Coffee last quarter! When companies get to the mostly investor owned squeezing for growth stage, it's almost always among the first thing that gets cut. This is then usually followed by other more important quality of life cuts like training, equipment, and bonuses. Many companies hit this stage and start increasing margins by letting inflation eat their employee's high salaries over time for instance.
https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
Paying for perks is a great way to avoid paying a higher salary.
That deal is not on the table, though. For practical purposes, there are few places that someone can work that pay better than Google for a given dev, and those places all probably have free coffee as well.
After a few years nearly everyone will think this is the 'regular' Google and won't know anything about the 'old' Google way.
When I was working there, there was a tool called 'percent' that would tell you what percent of the employees were newer than you were. What astonished me was how rapidly one became an 'old timer' in the sense that > 50% of the employees had arrived after you had[1]. I watched this process in real time as people got fed up and left because they felt that the company had "let them down" or "failed to meet their commitments." It was a lot like university where every 4 or 5 years its an entirely different set of undergraduates. You tell them "how it was" and they believe you because, you are there and they just arrived.
[1] That particular astonishment, combined with the reported employee numbers, led to another investigation which was how Google could replace 50% of the staff without anyone noticing, and discovered that churn was a pretty big thing.
Obviously, the kitchen salaries will be deductible. But none of the food cost and other ongoing expenditures related to providing that food.
Then realize that such a campus could not house all the Google employees in the area. Then realize that such a campus could not house just the Google cafeteria workers in the area.
I was just a bit stunned by the sheer number of people that work in the cafeteria. I make no judgement here about those people, their abilities, working conditions, living conditions, or anything else except their quantity.
Start on page 14.
The problem with this stuff is that the left is extremely sectarian so I might have someone jumping down my throat for recommending something published by Jacobin.
That said, you should be able to find plenty of modern material on class, law and labor.
If all else fails, read some classic sociology.
Here's a quote that jumped out at me.
> According to Buffkin's congressional testimony, it was the [Smithfield Foods'] intent to replace blacks with Latinos with two objectives in mind: to keep the workforce divided through both instigation of racial conflict and overt segregation, and to create an undocumented immigrant workforce that the employer believed they could more easily control.
> [Key to success was] first earning legitimacy with each major constituency in the plant, and then bridging the divisions between them, creating unity and solidarity despite the extraordinary efforts by the boss to systematically pit worker against worker.
[1]: https://janemcalevey.com/book/no-shortcuts-organizing-for-po...
Cafeteria workers need unions. The maids who muck out hotel room toilets need unions. Coal miners who work in horrific conditions for little pay need unions.
You know who doesn't need unions? Millionaire TV anchors. Millionaire movie studio execs and actors. Anyone who makes six figures, which includes a hell of a lot of union members. In those cases the unions need the members, not the other way 'round, and it leads to greed and corruption because all both sides can see is dollar signs.
So, again. I think it's good that the caf workers got some protection. I'm still on the fence about computer programmers, though.
Examples for programmers that come to mind:
- Companies that require workers to enter arbitration and give up their right to sue.
- Companies that force workers to give up IP generated in their free time (not using company resources)
- Companies that require programmers to work 12 hour days, "crunch times", minimal paid leave (game dev industry, VFX industry comes to mind.)
Unions collectively negotiate with employers to reduce or eliminate these abuses. Some unions have poor leadership, which is to be expected. Some companies have poor leadership. Not everyone is good at negotiating, which can create power imbalances on either end of the table. But on the whole, unions are a Good Thing, even for IT folk.
The way I see it's working is the total comp negotiation goes as usual, but the employer isn't allowed to ask how much time the employee indends to work and whether one works for other companies. The salary and other comp is paid bi weekly as usual, but is pro rated to the number of hours or days worked. All the machinery is already in place: big corps have very detailed per minutes compensation for vacations, various on call duties and so on.
This will be strictly better for the IRS, because more competition means more taxes, but much worse for the dividend seeking investors.
Obviously, this will be a decade long legal battle with tens of millions in expenses, and it can't be done without a full time team of motivated and very expensive lawyers. However if 100k engineers spend 1k/year as membership fees, this organization will have a 100m/year budget and can keep courts busy forever.
- Unions that forces its members to only work specific contracts giving up their right to work.
aren't all those jobs ripe for automating? unions feel like an intermediary measure to the end goal: no more humans in shitty jobs.
An most tech workers pay is not "monstrous" compared to our peers in other professions - even more so out side of SV
The CTO of a telco was in my branch before he retired a few years back.
There is a lot of similarity and crossover between teh workers in that area.
Which is why I specified millionaires. Let the actors who are working paycheck to paycheck or earning a middle-class wage, or working second jobs as waiters or whatever join a union. But when an actor is making $10 million for a movie, they don't need a union. They have an accountant and an agent who take care of them.
Don’t you think the paycheck to paycheck actors like to know even the super successful are part of their group? Maybe the strength that emanates from the group and what binds them is the profession and the craft, not the earnings? Is a highly paid actor, a better actor than someone who makes 1 cents less then the threshold?
Seems very arbitrary and not something that creates group cohesion.
The story about these is interesting. Because for every millionaire actor there are hundreds/thousands of wannabe actors. Who may or may not one day become a millionaire actor.
Not to mention all the rest of the TV/movie production chain: writers, directors, cinematographers, gaffers, production assistants, stunts professionals, etc, etc, etc
The "over-unionization" of that sector ensures fair pay and conditions (which sometimes are already grueling) for the professionals involved in this area of business. What happens without unions? Check the VFX companies for an example.
Sounds like this isn't the first time this has happened and won't be the last. Both Compass (the firm that employs these cafeteria workers) and Google both have experience working with unions and are committed to working through this. Happy that these employees are getting the representation they deserve. I hope this means that these people will get better benefits that Google FTEs enjoy and stronger protections.
As a FTE at Verily (an Alphabet subsidiary), the management's priorities are very clearly not focused on challenging the status quo in these areas -- they are focused on running the "core business". I can only guess the sentiment is similar within Google.
I look forward to seeing this issue continue to get light and hope that business priorities evolve to incorporate the more humanistic aspects of running a business instead of simply focusing on the bottom line all the time.
My impression is that Google's experience is mostly in seemingly illegal union-busting (well, preventing) efforts. Then again, my impression is wholly based on reading HN articles on the topic, generally related only to engineers.
But I suppose they'll do what they're legally forced to do, more or less.
I hope they do.
Good riddance.
Who? Google or the employees
“Look forward to seeing the issue continue to get light”
“Business priorities evolve”
You didn’t say anything particularly disagreeable but I wonder if you realize how this kind of language comes across- this is the way people talk to you right before they fire you or take away your healthcare or something. This kind of business speak just screams, I’m someone who cannot be trusted. It’s the language of power. We all cringe and grimace when the boss talks like this. It’s why you’re getting downvoted, I’d guess.
Thanks for keeping me in check. I didn't mean any harm from my comment but I can see where you're coming from, just wanted to give a summary of what the article seems to imply and a bit of perspective from the inside.
To me this whole thing feels like a complex issue with a lot of nuance, varying perspectives and information asymmetry, so downvotes don't surprise me.
Do you really? Because the next step is automating the cafeteria.
When was the last time business priorities evolved to become more expensive?
It's defeatist, and extremely unrealistic, to think we just have to roll over and let the bosses do whatever they want just because that's what we've always done up til now.
There's not some deterministic invisible power that says immiseration via automation is inevitable. It's just a matter of collective will as to whether we accept or reject power's desire to screw us over in that particular way.
However technology is at a point where large enough companies can simply engineer around the human resources problem if they want to.
So bringing a company like Google's feet to the fire will only make them want to cut you out of their supply chain. Your "bargaining power" is short term. Merely until Google can find another way to subvert you with technology.
In the industrial revolution Unions had bargaining power because they offered a valuable service that you couldn't live without. Today there is no problem that technology can't solve with the right amount of funding.
That is, you can say they can do anything with their resources, but it’s a paper tiger because the organization simply does not have the will nor interest to engage in such efforts, not when they have other priorities they’re focused on. So perhaps they’ll simply pay their workers.
Android isn't broken because Google doesn't care. It's broken because the team is fatigued. They reached their max potential. It will take a new team with new ideas for significant iteration. You can't add a junior dev to the android team and expect massive improvements anymore.
That being said, there isn't a lot of low hanging fruit left in android. But the cafeteria, I'm sure, has a long way to go and a lot that could be reduced.
IF the costs continue to rise, that is.
Hm, but I thought that today technology can solve any problem so long as we gave it the right amount of funding? Including human resources problems?
> IF the costs continue to rise, that is.
As pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, a megacorp with Alphabet's net income can surely swallow the cost. They have bigger things to fund.
It’s usually based on seniority.
Who said it was? Classic example of a straw-man argument.
Unions are the logical outcome of lax labor regulations.
Want worker protections ask for that, no need to burden businesses any further.
The minimum wage is a burden for companies. Walmart having to pay their employees in USD and not Walmart credit is a burden. Workers having a lunch break and bathroom breaks are "burdens" as well.
If you're presenting the argument that cheap products of slave labor is a good thing, then... I'll pray for you.
That's not the case. A union is an organization for extracting rents above those the market would ordinarily bear. Rent-seeking activity --- no matter who does it --- makes society as a whole worse off. Bastiat showed that a long time ago.
When corporations organize to extract rents, we call them cartels and apply strict penalties under the law. Why should employees have a right to use these same tactics? The market for thee, but not for me?
The operative word there is "normally", which makes your claim tautalogical. Unions do increase the cost of labor compared to a market without unions, but this is simply relative. You haven't (and I claim that you cannot) provide a reason that the cost of labor without unions is more natural, and isn't simply unnaturally suppressed by an imbalance in market power between job seekers and providers.
I reject the premise of your claim. The market price isn't just one of many prices from which we should choose arbitrarily. The emergent market price is special. It's the privileged result of price discovery via distributed transactions. Every time in history someone tries to conform the market into an unnatural shape using wage and price controls, the result is shortages and other dysfunctions. The burden of proof isn't on me to show that the market price is the natural one: it's on you to show that in the case of labor we shouldn't have a free market.
You need to show that unions are unnatural before you can claim that they aren't the market price.
We can get rid of collective action for workers when we get rid of it for capital. Until then, if anything we need a shift away from enthusiastically encouraging collective capital while barely tolerating collective labor, to something more equitable and beneficial to the individuals whose government suffers those corporations to exist in the first place, whose interests lie overwhelmingly on the side of labor.
No. A union is a group of people saying "pay us more or we'll shut down your business". That's why unions have traditionally had picket lines and why they've historically used violence against "scabs".
* the State, contracts, corporations, right-to-work law, at-will employment law, etc - all good, natural parts of the market.
* employee unions - bad, unnatural, rent-seeking, deviations from the market.
It's untenable.
> It's untenable
It's quite tenable.
Why can't I democratically decide to associate with and democratically negotiate in a group and freely enter a contract with a third party? Isn't that what a free market is all about?
And unions should be free to go to the negotiating table. But it should be just that. A negotiation. They should offer something of value in exchange for more compensation other than "give us X or we shut down the business".
That's a cartel. Imagine if businesses organized themselves into employers unions and refused to hire anyone above a certain wage?
Cartels are bad. They are anti-free market
As we know, there is a price floor and a price ceiling in a market, represented by the buyer and seller.
What we also know is that the price does not fall perfectly in the middle of that floor and ceiling - it benefits the person with more bargaining power.
A corporation has more bargaining power because it is a massive financial entity comprised of sometimes tens of thousands of people. Non unionized workers show up during a salary negotiation against that? One person with a family to feed and enough savings to survive maybe another 2 months without a job? Gee I wonder how imbalanced the bargaining power is there.
We allowed corporations to incorporate because of the advantages of doing so. We should allow the other half of the labor market-transaction to do the same, not only because it's fair, but because the union side reprents humans, while the corporate side reprents companies, which are not humans. It's kinda insane to want to give these non human conglomerates more power but hey vote with your values.
(/s, in case it's not clear)
At the same time, why is it a problem for children to work? I grew up helping my dad out in his job as a handyman. [To be clear, this is legal and not what I'm arguing about.] Not every parent has a job where that makes sense, so working for someone else who does makes sense to me. Sure, there need to be regulations to prevent it from being exploitative and harmful. But right now, the state says that children must be in school x>0 hours a day and working y=0 hours a day. Is that really the right answer for everyone's situation?
Personally, I've decided that the value of x should be smaller and y higher (I'm homeschooling my kids, though admittedly we haven't figured out how to get them meaningful employment.) The idea is not to make them into better pawns of the capitalist state, it's kind of the opposite. I see value in work for making learning more meaningful, for teaching values well beyond what the artificial construct of "allowance" can support, among other things. I haven't actually run up against minimum employment age laws, and don't expect to for a while, but it does seem like a clumsy tool for preventing a variety of harms.
For example, should you have always wanted your children to learn how to build gazebos, all they have to do is be excused from highschool
> FLSA Section 13(c)(7) creates a limited exemption from the youth employment provisions for certain minors 14 through 17 years of age who are excused from compulsory school attendance beyond the eighth grade. This exemption allows eligible youth to be employed inside and outside of businesses that use machinery to process wood products (such as sawmills, furniture manufacturers, garden shed and gazebo manufacturers, cabinet makers and pallet shops) with some restrictions, but does not allow them to operate or assist in the operation of power-driven woodworking machinery.
In addition to the working for parents exception
> The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides for certain exemptions. Minors under age 16 working in a business solely owned or operated by their parents or by persons standing in place of their parents, can work any time of day and for any number of hours. However, parents are prohibited from employing their child in manufacturing or mining or in any of the occupations declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor. Other exemptions to the FLSA are detailed in the links listed below.
There are also many special cases for other traditional occupations of children
> Employment as motion picture, theater, radio, or television actors, working at home in the making of evergreen wreaths, and delivering newspapers are among the jobs exempted from FLSA child labor provisions.
Those do get oddly specific...
> - Youth employed as actors or performers in motion pictures, theatrical, radio, or television productions;
> - Youth engaged in the delivery of newspapers to consumers;
> - Youth working at home in the making of wreaths composed of natural holly, pine, cedar, or other evergreens (including the harvesting of the evergreens).
There are also exceptions to the exceptions...
> Limited exemptions from some of the hazardous occupations rules allow 16- and 17- year-old apprentices and student-learners to perform otherwise prohibited work (hazardous jobs) under certain conditions. The hazardous occupations in which youth may work if the those conditions are met are: HO #5 Power-driven woodworking machines; HO #8 Power-driven metal-forming, punching and shearing machines; ...
> Fourteen and 15-year-olds, however, may be employed in approved school-administered and school-supervised Work Experience and Career Exploration Programs (WECEP) or Work Study Programs (WSP). Such programs allow variations in the rules and permit employment during school hours. WECEP participants may also be employed in otherwise prohibited occupations for which an official exception has been authorized by the Department of Labor.
Four hours a day won't be a problem
> WECEP permits the employment of 14- and 15-year-old youth during school hours and for up to 23 hours per week when school is in session. These rules are more lenient than those permitted by the Fair Labor Standards Act for other similar aged youth not enrolled in WECEP. WECEP also permits variances, on a limited basis, from certain child labor hazardous occupation standards. These variances are approved by the Wage and Hour Administrator on a case by case basis.
(See my sibling comment to yours and the link on that page labelled with the name of this program for citations)
Does it inevitably increase prices, or could its millionaire/billionaire execs just maybe own a few less private jets and McMansions?
Anyway, even if prices were increased, what's wrong with a market in which all participants earned a living wage?
Or are the absolute minimum prices that markets can bear something we should be striving for even if it means those at the bottom can barely survive?
Because if prices increase, what you thought would be a "living wage" is no longer a living wage
Your assessment of antitrust law is also pretty far removed from reality. By that logic, mergers and acquisitions would be illegal in every instance. Or, for that matter, standards bodies. Corporations band together to increase profits all the damn time, and the overwhelming majority of this activity is legal.
Google has become a social parasite - one that propels greater and greater wealth inequality. The parasite profits tremendously from public infrastructure and open source - while giving nothing back.
Chicago has teachers union but filipino teachers on J1 cannot participate in a strike, it works for CTU because there are only a tiny fraction on J1 visa.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/h-1b-visa-row-foreign-workers-make-...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21899843
I don't think this will be any different.
As I said before you wrote this comment, i meant to use sizable here not sizable majority.
For example, if the company retaliates against visa workers, and the other workers strike in protest, the company will probably not continue to try that. This is why solidarity between workers of different dispositions is so important.
You are right, for some reason i thought it was not possible.
But from what I've seen, lot of H1B people are subcontractors.
But, for the sake of argument, can you imagine what the lunch rush hour would look like in downtown mountain view and Sunnyvale if Google didn't have cafeterias at all? It was already pretty bananas when I left the Bay Area three years ago. Google's headcount on the peninsula was much lower then. And they did have cafeterias. Now it would be totally insane.
The opposition I have to unions at companies like Google is that the companies themselves are too politically powerful to have staff who in effect must to behave criminally to be terminated. When you look at the impact of unions in law enforcement and national security, they are almost universally recognized as the main enabler for the social problems bad individuals in these fields cause.
The amount of social harm a malicious Google (twitter, facebook, reddit, pornhub, etc) employee can cause is astronomical and the main thing keeping the worst %10 in check is the likelihood of losing their job. Literally thousands of people who can divert or sabotage the lives of others without accountability.
They already have enough privacy and political problems, but I would predict unionization spreading to their tech workforce would trigger divestment and a general market reduction of risk exposure to their businesses.
These companies are different, and a political artifact of the industrial revolution will have disproportionate unintended consequences.
Unions are a way of balancing executive power. (I don't think they're a panacea though! All I hope for in this case is that it is able to improve the lives and working conditions of Google's cafeteria workers)
You must understand that even a single employee doing this is such a breech of brand trust that Google would deal with it swiftly.
OTOH, it is quite clear to me that Google executives are allowed to make virtually unchecked and wide-reaching decisions that impact many and have negative consequences. A simple, unambiguous example is "the YouTube recommendation algorithm is bad for kids and seems to cause their exploitation" [1]
To be very clear: executives have the power to change the recommendation engine. To demonetize children's YouTube videos. They choose to be wreckless specifically out of greed.
[1] https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...