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Comment by the_jeremy | Hacker News Reader

Unlike Uber, Google has proactively taken steps to ensure contractors are not able to be considered employees. If Google wants to use contractors, for one reason or another, lawyers have told them they need to take these sort of steps.

This whole article is basically complaining that being a contractor sucks because the law forces Google to follow these sorts of practices, but then blames Google for following these sorts of practices.

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Yep. It's an awkward situation. A lot of the data engineers I work with are CWs, and under the circumstances of normal interaction they're pretty much indistinguishable from FTEs. But there are all sorts of compliance reasons for why you aren't supposed to treat them as real "team members" with all the attendant perks and privileges. Many ICs will not even realize that their colleagues are CWs since it's not the default presumption.

The "solution" of just converting them all to FTEs and effectively giving them massive boosts in total compensation is impractical. So this awkward, hushed reality is likely to continue as a least-bad solution.

>The "solution" of just converting them all to FTEs and effectively giving them massive boosts in total compensation is impractical.

Why is it impractical?

Because companies reasonably try to avoid throwing away money?

I mean, I'm not sure exactly why companies higher CWs as opposed to just lower-paid FTEs. Could be a remedial stopgap to deal with issues in the "normal" hiring pipeline, I'd guess? But the answer to why they don't just throw extra money at people who are already willing to work for you is obvious.

Well, if Google can afford to do it (they can) then it's perfectly practical. They just don't want to, and you're right that the reason is obvious.

I can easily afford to pay my mechanic twice the money. Of course just like google, I don't want to.

Exactly. When others do it, it is just an excuse. When I do it, it is necessity.

So when you go to find a Plumber, Auto Mechanic, Roofer, etc you look at the amount of money you can "afford" than pay exactly that?

so If a plumber says he can fix my sink for $150 but I cna "afford" to pay $500 I should pay $500?

Are you also actively working with other people/companies who might hire those same people to put caps on what they might get paid, or indeed to negotiate hiring them at all? Google/apple/etc have enormous sway in some areas re: hiring/referrals/etc, and engaged in 'antipoaching' stuff that prevented free movement of labor (imo).

The plumber/mechanic analogies fall down when you look at the size and actions of google in the marketplace as a whole, not just with the specific interactions of an individual contractor/employee.

During the time of the anti-poaching agreements, Apple and Google had close to an oligopsony on high-end tech labor. There are too many employers of low-skill labor for collusion to accomplish anything.

>Are you also actively working with other people/companies who might hire those same people to put caps on what they might get paid, or indeed to negotiate hiring them at all? Google/apple/etc have enormous sway in some areas re: hiring/referrals/etc, and engaged in 'antipoaching' stuff that prevented free movement of labor (imo).

If I have the ability/resource to do that and if the total cost is less then of course.

"Impractical" and "not throwing away money" are really interesting choices of words when discussing why one of the world's richest companies gives PTO or health insurance.

I think it's a lot less interesting than people want to pretend it is. A company's willingness to throw away money should be largely invariant to its overall financial health.

I like that you're blunt about it, makes it much easier to reason why more regulation around labor is required.

"BigCorp will avoid as much labor costs as possible. To improve labor conditions and compensation, regulation must require it."

"To ensure that people only have good jobs, we must ensure that people who cannot get good jobs are unemployable."

"How can we justify Big Tech being worth trillions collectively without allowing them to treat their workers as interchangeable widgets at the lowest cost possible."

Which sounds better to an electorate? What are the odds your average citizen is ever going to be an ultra high net worth individual or work at a FAANG? I believe the odds are in regulatory favor.

Google has the resources (with gross profit ~$100 billion for 2020), they simply choose to evade labor law in this case.

>we must ensure that people who cannot get good jobs are unemployable

How are "we" doing that precisely?

Except in this case "throw away money" is a euphemism for "paying workers enough that they don't need welfare to support their families."

How many Google contractors/employees are on welfare?

Why do you have to give them a huge boost in comp? There's no union at Google, they can pay whatever they see fit. They could just hire them at lower salaries but that'd destroy the image that anyone working at a FAANG makes at least $250k/yr.

Yes, that would just compound the grief. Endless media articles on how certain employees are considered second class citizens at Google.

Doesn’t this whole thread make it pretty clear that they are?

And this is when they are not actual employees so there is at least legal cover. If Google made them employee it would be 100 times worse.

Mind you, I am not somehow advocating that Google must not hire them. From a culture/ country other than America, I see people can be treated with respect but not paid lot of money mainly because there is not much money to around. But people receiving also understand not a lot of money can be given for certain tasks.

However modern media culture is worst. If Google were to hire full time, I can see headlines "World Richest company pay pittance for back breaking work". And point about job security , benefits would be forgotten.

One can check coverage of full time Amazon warehouse workers on how it plays out. I have never heard a good story about it. Or how other companies hiring warehouse workers doing compare to Amazon across America or world.

I mean, this is the case at any company really. The highly valued people or people in the management structure are more highly valued and have more say. The very org structure alludes to a class system.

A W-2 employee has to be offered all the same benefits as other employees to pass non discrimination testing to keep all those other benefits tax free. W-2 employees also increase unemployment insurance premiums, as well as be liabilities when it comes time to downsize.

I doubt it has anything to do with image.

Coming from the other direction, the whole point of keeping them as contractors is that it reduces costs. Therefore, converting them by definition means increased costs.

Seems that they're running the same gambit Microsoft did years ago. Microsoft did not win that court case, and that set precedent that other companies are now trying to stay clear of.

That’s cause they were sued and lost.

Google then added trainings to avoid future issues. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/11/google-tv...

The law forces google to choose contractors instead of hiring employees?

Contractors are easy, you just throw money at a contracting firm and they solve your problem. Doing it inhouse means they have to hire managers and all other support personnel needed to hire and keep employees, that is a lot more complicated. The law makes it more complicated to throw money at contracting firms to make them solve your problems, hence why they get fired every 2 years etc.

Except they actually have managers and if they've been there two years it's easy as pie to just hire them.

This is Google cheaping out on medical insurance and PTO.

If Google wanted to be cheap they could just hire them and pay them less, but they don't.

In order to keep benefits tax free, companies have to make them lucrative enough for lower paid employees such that they pass non discrimination testing. It’s not a trivial expense even if the wage is lower, the total compensation cost can be higher.

They’re attempting to make use of technicalities in the rules which are likely to be viewed with skepticism if a lawsuit were to ever arise. The law and regulations aren’t applied algorithmically. The lawsuit might not be won, but it’d be interesting to see.

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