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How come you think this union is imbued with "ideological fervor" but not the myriads of investors, executes, and other people who already controls Google?

Perhaps Google already is a tool of the cancel culture (cue the X-files intro music)?

Simple. These other people never made such claims in an article.

Do people who don't publish their views not filled with ideological fervor?

This isn't an argument...

I believe the claim here is that, people should have rights to their own strong ideological opinions, but not the right to enforce their own upon others.

> Do people who don't publish their views not filled with ideological fervor?

I mean, that's pretty much exactly what fervour means? We'd never say "Joe is a fervent supporter of X!" if Joe never talked about X.

"We" would do, and frequently have done, just that if it supports "our" agenda. Hence the rise of the use of such broad brushes as "silence is complicity", etc.

Is "pragmatically want a return on investment" ideological fervor? Words need to mean something at some point.

The idea that a certain pattern of economic behaviors is "pragmatic", "non-ideological" and even "non-political", while others are, is in itself a good example of ideology.

The silent downvotes I'm getting are part of the example.

In the same manner, is me not wanted to get mugged and my wallet stolen "ideological fervor"?

From the official union website's list of values

> Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst off. Neutrality never helps the victim.

For my eyes, that is absolutely dripping with progressive ideology. If I am going a union I want it to be non-political. This seems more like a progressive advocating group than a software workers guild. Count me out.

"Just outcomes" is a huge signal for prioritizing equity over equality. Other than the obvious political ramifications, it probably means high performers and low performers alike will both get the same outcome from a union, leading to mediocrity overall.

Came here to say the same thing. This “union” sounds more like a splinter branch of a far left political party, not an organization dedicated to the collective bargaining rights of its members.

I expect it to fail simply because the ideological tone will turn off most people.

I think you're correct, but I doubt it will be as far left as you say. Any union at Google will be dominated by "workers" with economic interests and social and educational backgrounds virtually identical to management. They're the same educated meritocratic progressive technical/managerial class who dominate the Democratic Party. They don't believe anything different from what most of the country believes; they just take pride in being further ahead because they're smarter and work harder.

I don't understand this "ideological" issue. (but maybe it's just due to language as English is not my mother-tongue) Lots (/most) of what you choose to do (or not) can be see as a result of your own ideological standpoint. (investment, buying, culture, laws, politics, culture, media...) I prefer when the so-called ideological point is explain in an article rather than discovered after fact. This is more honest.

Unions are traditionally there to bargain collectively for their members. Typically that means higher salaries, better work conditions, more benefits, and similar things.

This union seems less focused on that and more on pushing sociopolitical ideas currently in vogue in left-wing political circles.

I'd argue that higher salaries, better work conditions, and so forth is exactly what this union is being formed to address.

The idea is that collective bargaining can equalize the salaries, work conditions, etc. for all members, not just the pale-skinned ones.

Maybe, but if that were their real goal, they’d lose all the activist language and moral judgments.

By "pale-skinned" you mean women ? https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/04/google-found-it-paid-men-l...

You seem to be implying Google plays its white employee pays more because of overt discrimination, and that is impetus for a union. Any evidence for this belief?

I'm not implying that, nor do I believe that. I'm only trying to rationalize the union from their viewpoint.

> Typically that means higher salaries, better work conditions, more benefits, and similar things.

Nominally but it just isn't so. The strongest bargain an employee has is a competitor. What makes G salaries high is that there are other companies competing for the same talent.

The fundamental way unions increase wages is by constricting supply: by being part of the hiring process and blocking people, or by putting conditions that make people that would otherwise be eligible to work. In the end unions end up being very ineffective, and their administration cost ends up not worth it, thus the only way to get any leverage is with the law.

If unions had their way, it would be illegal to drive a lyft. Whoops, that happened. If I were a Union rep in a tech company, the first thing I would do is kick out immigrants. Easiest way to increase wages for (remaining) tech workers.

What's your opinion of trade unions in Norway, which seem to me like they work quite well for everyone?

We don't need to go too far for examples of unions, look at the unions SF has. Health staff, Police, Bart and Teachers. Unabated disasters.

The best a union can achieve is being irrelevant. It will surprise me how obvious it is in the populace that if companies all agree on something it is a terrible monopoly but if all workers agree on something it is liberating. The mechanics of anti-competition are always the same, even if different markets produce different results.

I agree on the first part. But "higher salaries, better work conditions, more benefits, and similar things" are usually part of left-wing political ideology too. So for me there is no surprises and nothing new in unions sharing/pushing "sociopolitical ideas currently in vogue in left-wing political circles".

If i understand correctly your point (and to paraphrase), unions are not setting the correct priorities between work condition and more general sociopolitical ideas. For me this is a good new : It mean works conditions are not that bad and that union want not just to take care of personal interest but of company interests as well. But this is a ideological stand point :)

And some may argue that's not the role of unions. But the role of union is to carry the worker voices. If this is the subjects workers want to talk about, i don't see any issue. If it's not, the union will just not meet enough workers to join them.

Unions have ideologies and goals above increasing pay and holidays. Holding management to account is common.

> ideological fervor

"Don't be evil".

(Of course, that ended up being the opposite of ideological fervor, being both ill-defined and tepid)

It's also quite remarkable that people regard being "cancelled" (complained about on the internet) as more serious than fired, which comes with actual costs.

Yeah right. "Cancel culture" would never, ever, ask for firing people. Or remove them from schools. Or harass them in real life. Everything stays civilized on twitter and the rest is alt-right propaganda.

> "cancelled" (complained about on the internet)

You are completely misrepresenting what being "cancelled" means to a lot of the people it happens to. It can mean the public causing them to be fired from their job, prevented from finding another job, disconnected from both social and other contacts. Cancelling someone isn't just complaining about them; it's commonly putting for effort to ruin their life.

I think this ultimately will doom this type of organization. Workers don't want to be on a crusade they want rights like better pay, better hours, freedom to choose, rights for parents, etc. It's not a social crusade if that's what they're planning on doing, they will tune out 1/2 or more of the other workers there. I think you're a bit harsh on people standing up for their status like preferred gender, sexual orientation, etc. You seem to be dismissing their concerns entirely. I don't think a worker's union is the right place to try and enforce anything other than an equal rights workplace as idealistically most labor unions say that they're for.

In the UK, being a member of a trade union usually includes a contribution to the Labour party.

Trade union membership and ideological politics are intertwined. This is a good thing and by design.

No this is not a good thing. Binding workers right to political views is dangerous and other countries show that unions can work without any party propaganda.

Fighting for "workers rights" is a political position.

Maybe you're making a distinction between party politics (e.g. endorsing specific candidates) and pushing for general policies, but I think it's incoherent to claim that labor unions are apolitical.

The point is that joining a union shouldn't necessitate supporting a certain political party.

It doesn't. You can join a non-affiliated union or even opt-out of political campaigning and contributions.

It's just not all that common.

That's good then.

This is so confusing, "workers rights" is political by definition.

Aligning to a party can be argued, I'd say it's best to break things up into policies more than "teams" but still.

Why is it bad for unions to support political parties, but fine for shareholders?

Not an UK person, but I can't find BALPA in the list of unions here: https://labour.org.uk/people/unions/

BALPA is more comparable to a potential Google union as it's equally representing a tiny group of elite and extremely well compensated individuals. I don't think that a google employee has much in common with traditional populations of leftist party aligned unions like the factory line worker or coal miner.

Unions don't _have_ to affiliate with Labour (or another party) but they often do.

> I don't think that a google employee has much in common with traditional populations of leftist party aligned unions like the factory line worker or coal miner.

Not right now, sure. But the fact that this group felt the need to unionize suggests that something is changing.

I think it’s fine if it starts off ideologically. A union is only as good as the total membership count. Get everyone in with whatever pretense, then you have bargaining power.

That's a very risky proposition. From what I can tell from the outside, many "progressives" throw equality and freedom out of the window when it comes to voting.

By the tone of that article, I would not even be surprised if white males don't get to vote in that union or are excluded from influential positions.

Think of the long game. Getting a union is the hard part. The ideological fervor will change with seasons, but the core issues will remain the same across decades (the stuff workers want to be able to negotiate). Nothing is free, some price must be paid.

Nothing pisses off a company more than workers organizing, so take whatever help you can get.

Why would I want to piss off the company I choose to work for?

Because now you have numbers :p

Check out how the collective bargaining agreement works with the NBA Player’s union and NBA. They get pretty fair terms, led by Chris Paul/LeBron James (who have it the best but they lead the union).

https://cosmic-s3.imgix.net/3c7a0a50-8e11-11e9-875d-3d44e94a...

^^ I can promise you the list of things negotiated in that could never be done well enough by the company itself. Oh, and that’s a union for multi millionaires.

Don't piss them off alone, piss with others and they might treat you better.

You might want to think about the balance of the system. Are you actually choosing to work for them instead of the system making it look like they are the best job? Could it be better with some re-balancing?

Because you can get more money, better working conditions, and guaranteed rights, and that will irritate your bosses' bosses' owners and their investors.

A lot of silly ifs you are throwing out.

Maybe ask them yourself and get involved?

> I would not even be surprised if white males don't get to vote in that union or are excluded from influential positions.

Good point. Traditionally white men are massively underrepresented and we should be making more of an effort to make sure they're represented at every level of tech. /s

Do you not realize that judging based on skin color was the same reason the idea of 'representation' exists? A vote should hold equal weight regardless of who you are or what you look like.

You want to judge people by the content of their character instead of their skin color? That's racist.

/s

Exactly.

Except, that isn't what happens right now. Most people aren't intending to make decisions based on skin colour, yet it happens.

> While a union that represents workers interests is a good thing, I think it would be dangerous to give even a part of google to people with ideological fervor.

On a practical level, a union that concentrates just on its members interests, is not able to concentrate on its members interests. Just as one person can be crushed by a company, a union at one company can be crushed by an industry. The UAW organized GM, then Chrysler then Ford (one of the weapon carrying workers in the GM strike was Larry Page's grandfather). This kind of thing is necessary for the survival of one union. If FedEx is not unionized (it is not), that weakens the union at UPS.

The AI researcher said there were racist aspects of Google AI, IIRC. Whatever the specifics of that case, unions do not prosper over the long run with a racial divide. There are numerous cases of jobs traditionally done by black men replaced by white scabs, or vice versa. It is why Bernie Sanders wants less immigration, despite the disapproval of upper middle class liberals to his right - too many unassimilated Latin American workers can be played against native workers in a divide and rule sense.

Any effective union will need an ideology to rile people up. That's not what's bad about unions.

The first thing they would do if they have any power is kick out immigrants.

Unions are ideological groups...

> Now that leaves me wondering if it is wise to leave this comment here...

Oh how high minded of you.

Unions are political groups not not necessarily ideological.

Splitting hairs over the difference between political thought and ideology is ridiculous in my opinion.

I have some sympathy with you, because national politics has seemingly become more and more ideological lately, but politics does not necessarily imply ideology. The word politics in its general form simply refers to the ways people organise to collectively make decisions.