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Comment by charcircuit | Hacker News Reader

Why are they not asking these demands of their contracting agency? Google does not pay these people.

Google employs them though, in the sense of taking most of their time and providing most of their pay, and the contractor is a responsibility-evasion shim in that relationship. We've been round this discussion often enough with things like Uber.

If you’re paying people to provide a service and they’re paying their employees badly, the responsibility is still on you.

Companies are not responsible to pay people well. People are free not to work at companies that do not pay well.

Google is not paying people to provide a service. They are paying a company. I sympathize with the people who are underpaid, but their beef should be with their employers not with Google, even though as another commenter stated: Google is outsourcing non-compliance. On a related note, if people working below the minimum wage are flying to protest at Google headquarters, someone is paying their airfare. Doesn't look like a spontaneous act to me.

We go after Apple when Foxconn mistreats its employees. When you go after the intermediary, they'll go down and another will rise up to take its place -- and thanks to limited liability, it'll often be the same executives running a different company. When you go to the top, you have a chance at improving the situation.

> if people working below the minimum wage are flying to protest at Google headquarters, someone is paying their airfare. Doesn't look like a spontaneous act to me.

The raters who spoke and delivered the petition are members of Alphabet Workers Union.

Ah, yes, everything is suddenly fine when you put a screen like a company in front of it. It's not tax evasion, sir, it's a business relationship with a company in the British Virgin Island.

Also, how dare they organise for better pay? It must be a conspiracy. The riff raff really should know their place.

Let them eat cake.

Going after the fall guy isn’t how you take down the mob.

It's not a fall guy. The contracting company could pay its employees more and give them benefits and reserve less of the money for the rest of the company. If the company needs more funds to do this they can change Google more.

I call it outsourcing non-compliance. The simple act of going with the lowest bidder is existential encouragement for suppliers to cut corners.

No they can’t because Google will instead go with another unethical company that charges less. These guys provide a commodity.

Then people should stop working at these companies where they feel they are not being compensated enough.

This is spoken like someone with plenty of disposable income and the ability to change jobs without incurring hardship.

Changing jobs doesn't incure hardship. You don't have to quit your job to start searching for a new one. These people should always be interviewing to find if someone out there values their labor and skills more instead of just settling for less.

Again, this is said as someone with privilege. I know I for sure I did not have the ability to easily change jobs when I was month to month on making rent at a basic IT job at $10/hr (11 years ago). I would have been out on my ass within the period I could secure another job without asking for money from family.

I had a job lined up at one point, quit, and had that job fall through and it really caused some hardship.

I can do that now. It's amazing how easy things are when you have money and don't have to worry about rent or your next meal.

Or Google can insist on higher wages, as they do for many other roles.

https://support.google.com/corporate-suppliers/answer/102089...

Google sets minimum standards for supplier labor, as they should.

Responsibility cannot be outsourced.

https://support.google.com/corporate-suppliers/answer/102089...

Government should set the minimum standards for supplier labor.

Why not both?

What is a company if not government for its workers and suppliers?

A company is a voluntary association. It is nothing at all like a government.

Notably these do not currently apply to raters

Hence the OP

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