Stuff like this is exactly what unions would accomplish if they became more standard in the industry. The Google union is a couple months old and is already successfully defending their members from violations of labor laws. How many others are there who are working in unsafe conditions and/or illegally fired for "security reasons" and have no one to speak out on their behalf?
1. They got a suspension for talking about unions overturned, but not her later firing over the Facebook post.
2. Google signed a document saying its employees "have the right to discuss wage rates, bonuses, and working conditions," which is just a restatement of U.S. law.
3. Nobody admitted any wrongdoing and there was no monetary compensation.
If that's what winning looks like, I hate to see what losing is.
Where does it say that? The article doesn't mention a firing at all.
> Nobody admitted any wrongdoing and there was no monetary compensation.
There usually is monetary compensation in settlements like this, they just don't disclose it.
I've never been fired before, but I'm pretty sure when they ask you for your badge and laptop and escort you out the door, you're being fired.
They do usually say “settled for an undisclosed sum”.
Collective bargaining can be used to make demands about anything really. It doesn’t have to be working conditions for workers. They can even use their power to pressure Google into supporting particular political candidates, etc if they have enough power.
Seems reasonable to me for unions to be involved in lobbying.
There's nothing overtly nefarious about lobbying.
Lobbying is 'telling government about something specific'. Usually in your own interests, but the interests of the people should interest the government.
The problem is the asymmetry of power and access.
https://alphabetworkersunion.org/people/our-union/
We recognize our power as Alphabet workers—full-time employees, temporary employees, vendors, and contractors—comes from our solidarity with one another.[emphasis mine]
Contractors included.
Sarcasm aside, it's really disturbing to see amazing countries like the USA falling for the same illusions that have kept us poor since forever. What defeats bad bosses is the option for workers to simply walk away, be it because of competitors offering better conditions or because you don't really need the income in the short term.
If your are left wing inclined, I suggest that you lobby UBI instead of unions.
Be better than us.
You should look elsewhere for reasons why Brazil is relatively poor today. I guarantee you unions have very little to do with it.
Just curious, who would that be? I am guessing some Scandinavian countries, maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement_coverage
France, Austria, Belgium, Iceland, and Sweden all have above 90% collective bargaining coverage. Finland, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany are between 50% and 90%.
You have bigger companies vs many smaller companies. Unions and big companies go hand in hand.
Cherry picking can go both ways. National economies are complex, and what works in one country can fail in another. There is zero point in generalizing.
It’s possible that unions are great for average and below employees, but they appear to be a pretty sour deal for everyone used to big tech income in the US.
If you use the same argument then how do they make the world's top luxury cars with "average and below" union workers?
You can fill the blank with the name of literally any country on earth and the sentence will still be correct. Tech salaries in the US are a huge outlier. There is not a single other country on earth where ICs can earn remotely as much as they do in the US tech hubs. Even US top companies don't pay remotely as much in their non-US offices.
A similar analogy is why "no-tipping" restaurants are so rare in the US (or why they go away so quickly when they are tried). While no-tipping may benefit some servers, your good and better servers can easily make more money with tipping, so they don't want it to go away. The same dynamic exists for software developers.
Tipping sucks. The expectation that people work a full time job that does not also carry the expectation of being able to fund them existing and continuing to show up for work sucks too.
You've made the same, "but a few are doing great" argument made above.
Most are not. Minimum wage = struggling overall.
Pointing to a minority making real bank as justification for current policy that leaves a majority struggling does not make sense.
It's incredibly frustrating to hear well-meaning but misinformed progressives argue for policies that would make the lives of people I worked with and respect much harder.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/
What is the average wage:tips ratio for US servers?
Maybe if you held different position your point of view on a subject could be different.
Are this person’s experiences not valid on their own somehow?
The core misunderstanding is unions adjust to the conditions of the workers they represent. Collective bargaining is hated by upper management because it shifts more power to the workforce be that someone making minimum wage or millions. People think great healthcare when they should be thinking more worker friendly stock vesting schedules and other issues that impact highly compensated individuals.
The union is basically irrelevant to them.
The various unions and guilds in film/tv production are there to protect the regular workers who operate in often very irregular and ad-hoc circumstances.
Also - acting is a hugely oversubscribed job, most actors don't do acting full time. There are 10 actors for every role. Even good one's.
Even just 'working actor' - let alone 'millions' - is a very lucky position.
'Famous' actors are not helped by the union, they have agents who manage their deals, much like athletes and their comp. is a function of totally different things.
'Athlete's Unions' are actually advantageous to them, because they can leverage power against owners, but in that case it's 'rich' vs. 'rich' entities fighting over surpluses, and nothing is gained or lost for the rest of us, it's not a helpful basis of comparison for working-class unions.
Another benefit that seems minor to multi millionaires but occasion really makes a huge difference in these people’s lives is a significant pension. It’s unfortunately common for very rich actors to end up broke at some point making the security of knowing you’re never going to be poor even if they don’t stay rich a huge deal. That’s something managers can’t negotiate on a film by film basis and it’s an example where minimizing downsides becomes more valuable than maximizing total compensation.
I’ve worked with big tech companies as a customer for a long time on significant projects. Over time, corporate politics is pretty brutal and without representation good people get into lousy situations, even for high performers. Google is no exception.