Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts | Hacker News Reader

Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts

reuters.com

91 pointshnuser0000192 comments

An effective strategy to avoid layoffs at European offices is to cause just enough friction to get HR to give up and divert the firing to lower-rights countries (i.e. USA).

I don’t think that’s how it works

There's a short-term effect there that might be positive, but a long-term effect that would be negative.

There's a reason that a lot of companies won't hire in France or other specific locales where the difficulty in getting out of an employment relationship is so high that it makes it undesirable to get into that relationship in the first place.

Yes but you do actually want access to the French market so you will likely need employees in France.

You hire the bare minimum. Also, the French market is within the EU/EEA, so there's always Switzerland right next door (plus CH also supports German and Italian markets so you can merge your DACH, Francophone, and Italian operations in one country).

I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch). This goes for all countries.

Does France not have income taxes? Taxing the income of Google engineers seems fairly attractive to me.

> I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch).

Some jobs are location dependent (e.g. plumber). Some jobs are location independent (e.g. software engineer).

While it's true that globally, a company will hire a minimum number of total jobs, most countries would prefer that as many high paying, location independent jobs be done within their borders.

> so you will likely need employees in France.

A few but not a lot. You would need a corporate entity, a sales team if you do B2B or want to get government contracts and a few employees to deal with the special snowflakes regulations and keep up with what the bureaucrats are making up. But you don't need engineers specifically in France. Even localization can be contracted out, since it's a well defined scope.

Not only that, but France is right next to Switzerland where there's a concentration of French engineering talent. That and, it's relatively straightforward for these guys to just transfer to the Bay Area.

Bingo.

Google wasn’t able to layoff anyone in France. What a great win, right?

Well. Once they decide they need to close off a site, where do you think France will be on that list? Or if things are going good and they want to hire an additional 5K engineers, do you think France is a good candidate?

All of this ultimately leads to fewer jobs and lower wages. Just look at tech wages in France.

When you sabotage doing business in your country, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

> Just look at tech wages in France.

I'm happy to have a wage that lets me live comfortably instead of royally, if that means other people live decently instead of precariously.

In the UK, there is nothing they can do against layoffs.

The only thing is that if the planned layoffs impact more than 20 people (from memory) there must be a consultation. This only makes the process one month longer.

I am also expecting that Google is paying more than the legal minimum to laid off people, which is really the only thing worth trying to negotiate.

That’s why wages are low in UK compared to USA.

It seems an especially bad time to signal to companies that investing and innovating in Europe is more difficult.

That’s why European divisions of major companies exist for two reasons today:

1. An executive’s or senior director’s résumé fodder

2. GDPR compliance

Innovation is attracted to free and efficient markets.

Having been involved finances at a multi-national, i doubt this works.

Each country is it’s own free standing company with it’s own P&L. And combined profit is what rolls up into annual reports.

I highly doubt a company like Google would let a country ride with poor profit dragging down earnings per share.

And on top, they arent going to risk US revenue (likely several multiples of most countries in Europe) by firing people they actually need just to avoid laying people off in another country.

It’s cheaper to just do the bare minimum of whatever the country requires for lay offs and be more careful hiring next time to avoid layoffs in the future.

These people seem out of touch.

> "It has been difficult for those involved. We have a redundancy process for a reason, so that employees can make their voice heard," they said. "But it feels as if our concerns have fallen on deaf ears."

They’re doing layoffs. In what scenario does negative feedback from employees change the minds of management? “Oh shit we didn’t know this negatively impacted you all. My bad.”

>These people seem out of touch.

Earning wages way above average does do that to some people.

In my home country I'd estimate 3/4 tech workers are completely out of touch with the harsh reality most people live in, and because of this, nobody will shed a tear for highly paid tech workers loosing their jobs.

They'll be fine though, they'll find other jobs.

There have been several layers to the criticism. The first is roughly why does a company with many billions in the bank need to lay off anyone. However, assuming that layoffs do need to happen, there has been a lot more criticism of how they were conducted.

In the UK there is, in summary, a right to a fair process – where _roles_ are eliminated, not _people_. That when there aren't enough roles for the people left, they are selected for layoffs in a fair way with transparency on how choices were made. And finally, that when someone is laid off, that they are treated with respect and, for example, allowed legal representation in their meetings with the company.

Unfortunately there have been issues with all of these steps in the UK redundancy process. I don't want to go into detail in public, but there are multiple, very specific points on which employees feel that necessary standards have not been met.

> In the UK there is, in summary, a right to a fair process – where _roles_ are eliminated, not _people_. That when there aren't enough roles for the people left, they are selected for layoffs in a fair way with transparency on how choices were made.

So go to court? I highly doubt Google is susceptible to a walk out or a strike.

Surely companies should be expected to follow the law, rather than just saying "haha sue us, i bet you can't afford it"? Otherwise it's just an abuse of the legal system, not to say that doesn't happen of course.

However as far as i remember, in the UK you can take an employer to an employment tribunal and you receive free legal representation. Although i do remember something about the Tories trying to remove or limit the legal representation, not sure if it happened.

Unfortunately this is where the law falls short, the maximum penalty for this is low. Good for protecting those on minimum wage from exploitation, but not great for holding higher paying employers to account.

>The first is roughly why does a company with many billions in the bank need to lay off anyone.

because it's a for-profit company, not a jobs program.

Then they should be more careful opening offices in foreign jurisdictions

The entitlement is off the charts. People have completely lost perspective on how money is made and where they fit into the money making machine.

Maybe? Or maybe you have lost perspective on what purpose money actually serves and whether a model that hyper prioritizes it over the well being of people might not be the best approach.

Counter-point: The money-making machine exists to serve people, not the other way around.

Yes; but the shareholders - not the employees.

Serve the shareholders. Not employees, and certainly not the government of the UK.

Corporation works to maximize benefit for shareholders at the expense of its employees: "What do you expect, this is capitalism working as intended."

Employee works to maximize benefit for themselves at the expense of their employer: "Ugh, what entitlement."

>The entitlement is off the charts.

People are just sick of corporations causing havoc in our lives.

> People are just sick of corporations causing havoc in our lives.

Corporations have brought most of us ridiculous amounts of prosperity.

That's what they'd like to believe! Corporations didn't build the interstate network, provide stable economic conditions, or create a literate, educated workforce.

They generated the wealth that people paid taxes from to fund those things. You think any of that stuff is free?

Are you under the impression that taxes and came after capitalism?

I'm not sure the distinction here is all that useful. From the point-of-view of the UK government, employing people and paying taxes are important roles companies like Google need to play. It seems to me that the rules around redundancy have been put in place to discourage just the sort of layoffs Google is trying to put in place (i.e., lay off N% of everyone).

Google employees could have volunteered to share their outsized salaries with their laid-off colleagues.

Is that really true? I believe that this is exactly the sort of negotiation in which Google UK decided they wouldn't participate.

You don't need Google UK to give money to people you know. Get together with them, exchange contact details, set up a recurring payment from your account, done.

Can’t I just spend someone else’s money instead?

>From the point-of-view of the UK government, employing people and paying taxes are important roles companies like Google need to play.

That's only true in the vaguest sense, and not something that's inscribed in law. According to a link someone else shared[1], the only real requirement is for google to do a "consultation". There's no requirement or duty to keep people employed.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/consultation

This page outlines the rights of the person being laid off, there are a couple other pages out there that outline the responsibilities of the company[1]. Among other things there is a requirement to notify the UK government if they plan to let go of 20 or more employees. It's clearly stated[2] that this information goes directly to job assistance and training for the unemployed.

It's up for debate but I do think this indicates that the UK government is concerned about companies laying off a large number of people. In my opinion, this and the rules around the fair selection process are designed to make mass layoffs less attractive to companies.

In regards to how the activities of a company like Google appear to any regional government, I do think the two most important functions of that company are to employ people in the region and pay taxes to the regional government. They do not seem vague to me and, in this case, we have laws on both sides: some that deal with taxes and others that deal with employment and layoffs.

[1]: https://nhglobalpartners.com/employee-redundancy-in-the-uk/

[2]: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/redundancy-paymen...

In some countries, corporations are seen to be in service of both their employees and their investors.

E.g. German employee reps on boards

If the company was never going to hire again this might make sense, but laying off 12k people to just re-hire those roles in a year is counter productive.

The absolute cost to not laying them of is a small proportion of the cash in the bank, and the company would have maintained the pretty great culture it had, kept the loyalty that has otherwise been burnt, and saved on future hiring costs.

I agree, and it's worth remembering next time conservatives start calling oligarchs "job creators" or whatever slavish euphemism they come up with next.

Only to pay out severance and rehire the same number of people along with all the expenses associated with rehiring over the next few years. Also, the reputation of Google being one of the most stable companies to work for is sullied, likely never to return to its prior luster. All of these things hurt the long-term profits and reputation of the company as well.

> The first is roughly why does a company with many billions in the bank need to lay off anyone.

This shows an utter misunderstanding of how businesses or finances of any kind work and would completely discredit anyone who tried to use it as an argument.

It's completely reasonable. Google's motives for doing this are no more honorable than they were the last time they were caught setting up a wage fixing cartel:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-...

Can you elaborate on your statement for dummies? (Only if your argument isn't companies exist only to maximize profit, that one I understand and reject).

Does it matter what you accept or reject? The business’s owners determine the goals of the business.

It doesn't matter what you accept of reject. The owners set the priorities not the workers or the general public.

The owners don’t operate in isolation, they live in society with other people.

That’s true, but so far society had supported free markets.

So why are you not the one that has to adopt to society?

Why are you in the comments if you don't even want to discuss anything? Me accepting and rejecting is in the context of an HN thread where people like to discuss things.

Even if they exist for the good of their employees, should they employ everyone until they run out of money, or should they operate competitively? Having billions of dollars, or even being profitable, has no relationship to sustainability of carrying extra employees in a competitive market. I don't expect you actually want to have a discussion though.

> should they employ everyone until they run out of money

I dont know that, but I know they should keep their employees if they made 13 billion in profit last year. I would like to understand if this is anything apart from greed.

The idea that companies only exist to make money for the owners/shareholders is not a law of nature. Heck it’s not even a very old idea but is probably about 50 years old.

The fact that so many commenters here seem to think it’s akin to a law of nature is an absolutely fascinating study in the effectiveness of propaganda.

Propaganda for what?

There must be some maxim like "reality is the best propaganda" that's already out there

Most developers at Google, the rest of FAANG, startups, etc. get a big part of their compensation as stock. They _are_ shareholders and profiting handsomely from it so of course they're firmly aligned with the pro-shareholder, pro-corporate viewpoint.

Yet, somehow, people are failing to understand this and attributing it to propaganda? To tweak the parent poster's words, the fact that so many commenters fail to realize that is an absolutely fascinating study in how common ignorance is of how people's bread is buttered, even their own.

Slavery being bad is also not a law of nature. It's an agreed upon convention in society though. Ideas don't have to be intrinsically true for them to be powerful and acted on.

> Only if your argument isn't companies exist only to maximize profit, that one I understand and reject

The fact that you do not like reality doesn't make it less real.

Companies are created to make money for founders and investors. And if they need to shed load to make those people more money, this is how it is going to be. You can always boycott Google and use/buy any of their products if it makes you feel any better about them firing people.

The whole system is made up, I prefer to make it a different way. That is why I reject it, and vehemently advocate for changing this. Advocacy requires me to point out the cruel and unnecessarily unfair nature of this sytem.

Even if they are entirely employee owned, having thousands of staff working towards goals that you're no longer trying to meet or are unproductive is a bad idea. You need to employ & deploy your people in a productive capacity (however that is defined, it could be pure research, not profit motivated).

Big tech expanded a LOT during the pandemic. Too much.

Google hired 30,300 people in 2022! (and 21k in 2021)

While layoffs are tough for everyone (especially those losing the job), if you expanded too fast, I think that an early reset is probably better than burning through more cash to deal with a bigger problem later, when you then might have to make deeper employee cuts than if you'd acted sooner.

After these layoffs Google will still be a LOT bigger than it was a year ago.

> While layoffs are tough for everyone

That's the thing though, its not tough for everyone. Its only tough for the employee, the employer gets more money. Its not tough for them at all.

Having had to sack 90% of staff that worked for me at one point, I'd disagree and say that it is pretty tough on both sides.

That said, I meant it was tough on all employees, not just those fired, to be going through layoffs.

Paying people to work on stuff that doesn’t doesn’t generate value is also tough on the employer.

Even if layoffs are the correct decision now, the company playing fast and loose with over expansion and thus their employees is absolutely worth criticizing and protesting over.

The company with billions of dollars in the bank will have teams of people assessing risk management. But apparently those assessments didn’t address the human risk of over hiring tens of thousands of people to such a degree that they ‘need’ to dispose of them at the first sign of trouble.

Other sectors of the economy didn’t see such drastic layoffs so they can’t claim it’s a widespread and unforeseeable problem. They made a risky bet that had a real human cost, and people are right to wonder what’s the point of mega corps if they’re not any better at this than a small or medium business.

Just because that's how most large business operate doesn't mean we should blindly except it as "just how it's done". Everyone has a right to complain about how an organisation is run, and entitled to push them to put employees before maximising profit.

Personally I think society could benefit from being a little more people focussed rather than profit driven.

evidently different arguments are allowed in different countries, so if Google wants to have a presence in that country it should follow the standards of the country or it will run into problems of the sort now being experienced.

It really depends though, if you work anywhere for less than two years, they can basically fire you (as a person) for no reason at any time. It's only after two years of continuous employment that you gain more rights.

Google folks are apparently awake and not amused.

Sorry I implied your job isn’t a human right guaranteed for life.

You’re right. This should be a teaching moment for innovative tech companies, to avoid growing a physical presence in most of Europe as much as possible. These employees will rarely be a source of innovation or high performance for the company. And contrary to reason, all the advanced social benefits somehow end up being a vine strangling your ability to compete than the ideal that frees you from worrying about basic needs in pursuit of higher goals.

Everyone else in this thread is stating that a company has no higher goals than profit.

Well, why else would you start a company?

To pay taxes!

Building Tesla or OpenAI or Amazon or Google or Netflix or Moderna or Apple is a higher goal than merely surviving/putting food on your table.

> And contrary to reason, all the advanced social benefits somehow end up being a vine strangling your ability to compete than the ideal that frees you from worrying about basic needs in pursuit of higher goals.

It's like the AI alignment problem, but between corporations and people.

That’s a great analogy. Both of which boil down to the fundamental fact that we are flawed in the sense that we can’t perfectly turn our intentions into action.

(sorry for the off topic reply)

Hi pjmorris! I'm the person from this thread > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34400463

But now I'm throwayayes_2 due to losing lots of my personal data during house flooding last month.

I wonder if you still have any spare laptop for me! Sorry to disturb this thread & thank you!

Hi, throwayayes_2. I still don't have a spare laptop. Even if I did, shipping from the US to Indonesia would be a challenge. I am hoping someone reading here who's closer to you and who has a spare laptop can help you.

Hi pjmorris! No worries & thank you for the reply!

> why does a company with many billions in the bank need to lay off anyone

At big tech, efficiency matters more than people. It has always been the case, but it's more exacerbated lately. Google know they will probably never take Apple's #1 spot, but they want to get as close as possible.

> The first is roughly why does a company with many billions in the bank need to lay off anyone.

I suppose for the same reason as even if you have money in the bank I'm sure that you don't keep subscriptions and running costs that you've determined are no use to you or you think are not worth it.

When I cancel a subscription to Disney+, no one loses their job. I think that's an important distinction.

It's completely irrelevant. And, yes, reducing you spending does lead to job losses.

I strongly disagree; my reduction in spending doesn't lead to job losses at any particular company. Perhaps if said company is providing such little service that many people choose to reduce their spending by all spending less on the same company, job losses would result.

In this case we're talking about a lot of people at a pretty far remove from the employees being laid off. This is very different from what is happening at Google UK. So much so that I don't believe the comparison is at all useful.

> I strongly disagree; my reduction in spending doesn't lead to job losses at any particular company.

It'll lead to fractional joblosses based on the amount you reduce your spending. Are you upset because Google is bigger than you and if you and they do the same relative actions, their absolute numbers will be much bigger?

If you dump your trash in the park, it'll be barely noticeable. If Google does it, it's no longer a park. Yes, but it's still the same thing, you're just a lot smaller than Google.

Its the perfect comparison.

Reduced spending on goods and services reduces revenues, which reduces profits and often leads to lay offs.

Sure your individual decision to cancel Disney+ doesnt mean someone gets fired.

But if you and 500,000 other subscribers cancel, people do get fired and you contributed to it.

If I subscribe to Disney+, chances are I'm not also subscribing to another streaming service. As a result, people get fired and I contributed to it.

Your decision to cancel a subscription is more like the decision to lower a departments budget by an almost immeasurable amount.

But they do. The budget for the next productions will be slightly smaller. Yes, it's small but they add up.

Well, in aggregate and over time they do.

Well there should be rules against this. NYTimes is vital to Democracy and needs your money.

It isn't negative feedback. It is an organized process established in the UK for handling layoffs. The UK workers didn't just say "don't fire us." They offered a ton of different options that, based on actual data, would have produced the same savings as the proposed layoffs. These included things like voluntary layoffs. All of these proposals were rejected.

It sucks to have a corporation say "okay we'll have a discussion and come to a solution that achieves our goals while also maximizing your goals" and then turn around and say "nah, we are just going to do it our way with no changes."

In the US there are little protections so the company just gets to say "you are all fired" but the policies are supposed to be different in some other countries. Since the end result was that Google just picks however they want it feels like crap that the UK folks had to wait 2.5 months to figure out who was going to be fired with no influence at all in the process.

>The UK workers didn't just say "don't fire us." They offered a ton of different options that, based on actual data, would have produced the same savings as the proposed layoffs. These included things like voluntary layoffs. All of these proposals were rejected.

What were the specific list of proposals? The only one you mentioned (voluntary layoffs) is a bad idea because it leads the most talented people to leave.

You know what else leads to the most talented people to leave?

When the company stops listening to the employees.

Keeping deadweights leads to most talented people leaving.

Yeah, there should be a process where people are evaluated by their peers to measure their performance and impact. The input from people who have demonstrated high impact should weigh more heavily.

Oh wait, Google already has that. If that's not working well, that's its own problem. These layoffs were somewhat indiscriminate, with high-performing people getting fired.

The layoffs have not really been for performance. They aren't dropping deadweights.

>the most talented people to leave.

They might leave anyway...?

It may be a worse idea for the company (though I'm not sure - the US layoffs weren't based on performance). But, as far as I can tell, the response has not been "these suggestions are unacceptable for reasons X, Y, and Z, please propose additional suggestions" but instead has been "nah, we are just gonna do what we want."

I am blending the Zurich case with the UK case in my mind, though. There's a lot to keep track of here.

>I am blending the Zurich case

DO you have any information on the Zurich case? I'm not aware of any layoffs there.

Zurich layoffs were like a month ago.

> What were the specific list of proposals? The only one you mentioned (voluntary layoffs) is a bad idea because it leads the most talented people to leave.

Roughly, voluntary redundancies, pay cuts, unpaid sabbaticals, job trades, and various other implementation details.

They also presented a range of options for those at risk of, for example, deportation, including those at risk of deportation to face legal consequences at home or conscription. None of these suggestions were accepted.

Well all of those encourage the best people to leave. Why would Google want to keep everyone at the expense of their top talent?

Voluntary redundancy does not mean that anyone can choose to be laid off, but rather that anyone can apply. The company could reject applications from critical people.

Sabbaticals tend to increase retention, as those with long tenure can take a break without quitting.

And anyway, the company doesn't necessarily only want to cut the "bottom talent", they may want to cut expensive talent.

>The only one you mentioned (voluntary layoffs) is a bad idea because it leads the most talented people to leave

Not necessarily.

Also people who have been sticking around out of inertia and doing the bare minimum. People ready to retire a bit early. Etc. Basically, it's reasonable to think that most people who would volunteer--especially at a very top-tier pay job--might well not be there in a year or so anyway. (There is I guess an argument that the people who are going to leave anyway will leave with or without a package so why pay for the package?)

While you might not want to choose people purely based on volunteers, it's not clear that taking at least some volunteers doesn't benefit both the company and workers.

It makes Google a less competitive employer. It’s better than being laid off, for those that would have been laid off. But worse for the top 94% of people that Google wanted to keep. Why optimize for the bottem 6%?

Why would you assume that people on the edge of leaving Google in exchange for a package are going to stay there anyway--and, especially, put any real effort into it.

I'd be willing to bet that whatever 94% Google ended up deciding to keep would not be the "best" working on the most important/strategic projects and unlikely to leave Google anyway in the next 6-12 months.

If they're both the most talented and also don't want to work for you, what makes you think they'd stay?

And what happens when the company wants to fire a different bunch of people that don't voluntarily want to leave?

> It isn't negative feedback. It is an organized process established in the UK for handling layoffs.

The “it”s you are referencing here are different things. There is a formal process. And employees did give negative feedback.

I was never suggesting the formal process is negative feedback. In fact that seems non-sensical which makes me wonder how you thought that I thought that made sense. It seems like a lazy dismissal, quite frankly. In what way could someone think an overarching policy is negative feedback on a particular event?

There's a specific process: https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/consultation - plenty of opportunities for disputes to arise. We can trust the union will want to make a fuss, and Google will want the opposite, but the article is a bit light on details.

I can't imagine many development staff would be in a union? - though maybe some are. And even if not, some might be sympathetic if Google are being a bit careless about their legal obligations to the people being made redundant.

Instead of 'walking out', how about they get a new job? Thats the ultimate form of protest. Google employees have been told for years that they are the smartest people in the world. The puff pieces on Business Insider and major news outlets saying its harder to get a job at NASA or get accepted into MIT have really inflated these peoples egos. Lots of normal and low ego people at Google, but the place certainly radiates snobbery.

This is a ridiculous thing to say when the market will be saturated since all companies are letting people go.

They are walking out because unlike the US there is a process to this, the company is supposed to listen when it's employees make alternative suggestions to save costs.

The market is far from being saturated, plenty of places are hiring. Just not at crazy wages.

Companies are now correcting the overhiring spree they did in the pandemic boom.

There are 1000s of open jobs. Working at G00g isn't a human right.

The story behind the Google employees’ strike is not so much about whether they will lose their jobs or not, but about their anger at the management that refuses to listen to anything they have to say.

The laws is that there is a consultation period, this is so that the company can listen to other ways of resolving the problem.

Of course, the companies just pay lip service to this.

>Sundar Pichai previously said he takes "full responsibility" for the decisions which lead to mass layoffs, and has now been accused of hiring sprees for "vanity".

The same way CEOs say "I take personal responsibility for this layoff". Thoughts and prayers.

What else do people think taking full responsibility means? It doesn’t mean they can somehow prevent the action they are taking responsibility for, nor does it mean they are going to inflict some symbolic hardship on themselves in response.

It basically just means “I deserve the blame.” To which people puzzlingly reply as if they are trying to escape blame.

Working in the UK you come to realize, these feedback processes and their denial, are both usually expected and part and parcel of the negotiation dance.

> In London

While ultimately hollow, we have far more robust employment laws than US counterparts.

Legally mandated advice, negotiatations, worker councils and voting are all things i've experienced in my short time being de-employed constantly

> These people seem out of touch.

Why? This is basic capitalism, every party cares about their interests. On one side you have companies laying off people to increase profits (some of them have billions in their account), on the other side people walking out to prevent future scenarios for their own interest

> In what scenario does negative feedback from employees change the minds of management? “Oh shit we didn’t know this negatively impacted you all. My bad.”

Imagine a scenario where everyone walks out from that company, would it change the mind of management?

> Imagine a scenario where everyone walks out from that company, would it change the mind of management?

In no scenario this will happen. People have competing interests, and very few actually care what happens job-wise to his/her colleague.

Cares about their interest. Yes.

Expects Google to do things differently… out of touch. For the exact reason you cite - Google will act out its best interest.

In the situation where the workers refuse to work en masse. It's called a strike. They're quite common.

Being in the USA my whole life, I was curious what they meant by "redundancy process", if there were laws in the UK governing layoffs that we might not be used to in free-for-all USA.

But here's all I found, from [1], basically:

> Your employer needs to show they have a redundancy process. They can decide what the process is, but it should always include a meeting with you to talk about:

> * why you’re being made redundant

> * the next steps in their process

> …Your employer’s process has to explain: how they’ll choose people for redundancy; how long the decision will take; what meetings you can go to and when; how you can appeal if you’re chosen for redundancy…

> …You should get invited to at least 1 meeting between you and your employer. Your meeting should happen before your employer has made their final decision about who will be made redundant…

> …You might be able to challenge your redundancy by making a claim for ‘unfair dismissal’ if your employer hasn’t told you these things

That, which is apparently legally required, is definitely not something that is guaranteed to happen in the USA, or really probably ever happens quite like that. (internal appeals process for a layoff? Unheard of in the USA).

I don't know if this law was followed or not by Google; or if this website I found is completely accureate, or if there are additional UK customary practices we should know about. (The OP article was not great, actual reporting would be including something on if Google broke the UK law or not). Perhaps someone from the UK could give us some context? But it doesn't seem like "these people are out of touch", it seems like possibly the commenter is out of touch with law and practice in the UK (and Europe)?

I suppose someone, perhaps the person I'm replying to, could say, who cares about this process, what difference does it make, in the end the employer still gets to lay off who they want, their decision, nothing in that process needs to change their minds, and people still won't be happy.

That may be; I'm still curious for a report from a worker in the UK of how this works out in practice.

I could see that process making people feel like they had a bit more dignity even when getting laid off, which is not nothing.

In general, I agree with the workers that it would be better if the decision of who to layoff is not solely the employers, but the employees actually do have a say in it. The legal process above is not necessarily that. To get that, you usually need a union, and this is one of the things union contracts often cover.

[1] https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/redundancy/check-your...

The article doesn't mention any specific concerns. Anyone have more info?

The union that organized the protest have a press release: https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2023/april/go...

It seems the primary complaint is that Google is having one-on-one meetings and not allowing employees to have a union representative with them, or any support person at all unless they have a doctors note.

There's other complaints as well around how the company is handling reimbursement of legal expenses for laid off employees who want to get legal advice before signing the settlement agreement.

This should be higher up since it has vital context.

Make the management implement sliding average of unbalanced binary tree to proceed with layoffs.

It's strange to see US based workers to bash on Europe based workers who push back for their rights. Even if you don't see any "rights" to fight back, isn't it to your own benefit that someone else is fighting for more rights/better conditions? Why would you sit back and accept to be the scapegoat for conditions that you didn't cause or you didn't have any say over at the first place? The companies are laying of people, because? They are not earning as much as someone says so, while sitting on cash reserves?

I’ve heard it described as “Americans think of themselves as temporary poor future billionaires”. Not all Americans, but this is why you see so many simping for the rich even when its not in their own interests.

>even when its not in their own interests

It is not in our interest to emulate Europe when it comes to tech.

B/c the cold hard truth is that people would rather the 3-4x salaries.

https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/8512191/head-of-cyber-secur...

You have the head of cyber security making almost 1/2 as much as many CS grads right out of college.

People can and will say they want more rights... but if that were _really_ true you would see tons of tech workers breaking down the door to get into Europe. As it stands, the complete opposite is happening.

How is that at all related? US paying more is not mutually exclusive to people in Europe to fight for better conditions/their rights? Do you consider this to cause US to pay less and in turn lost income?

Sorry to break it to you, but it's already happening and not at all related to what happens in Europe, but to US's own incompetency on responsible economics.

>How is that at all related?

It is all related. It is so much harder to do business in Europe than in the US, especially in tech. Almost exclusively due to regulation.

Still? how is that at all applies to workers? Workers should be caring more of how the business is regulated instead of their own rights/conditions? That does not make sense to me at all.

Here Google is a behemoth having thousands of employees and most probably unlimited cash flow all across the world and you are suggesting a few hundred UK workers should be more concerned about this behemoth's responsibilities than their own benefits?

>Still? how is that at all applies to workers? Workers should be caring more of how the business is regulated instead of their own rights/conditions? That does not make sense to me at all.

You can care about whatever you want. Introducing regulation and hoops to jump through for businesses comes with a cost though.

>are suggesting a few hundred UK workers should be more concerned about this behemoth's responsibilities than their own benefits?

It goes beyond Google. I'm saying Europe should be concerned that a lot of their top talent leaves to start businesses or work in other countries.

Yes but that role you link to will open up a lot of doors, revolving doors as they say. Also does the UK have paid speaking engagements like the US does?

And that's a government role. I don't know what a US government head of security role pays, but I suppose it would not be on par with a FAANG role?

No, it wouldn't be on par with FAANG but it would still be 3-4x higher.

An "IT Specialist" at the US Treasury gets paid between $150-180k.

https://www.usajobs.gov/job/716266700

I am not against at all for more wages, and I don't think any UK worker is too. But if less regulation and lower cost of business comes with this kind of news, thank you but no thank you. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/health/ohio-train-derailment-...

What news?

It says the workers studying fell ill but recovered within the same day.

>will open up a lot of doors

This could be said about any job

>Also does the UK have paid speaking engagements like the US does?

No idea

> The cold hard truth is that people would rather the 3-4x salaries.

This sounds like an assumption based firmly in the American value system. This part is often missed:

> 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King’s birthday

Anyway comparing a government job to big tech isn't fair. It is big tech salaries that are unusual, not the other way around.

>Anyway comparing a government job to big tech isn't fair. It is big tech salaries that are unusual, not the other way around.

A similar role in the US would still pay 3-4x that.

>This sounds like an assumption based firmly in the American value system. This part is often missed

This is based on people "voting with their talent" and showing that they will put up with _a lot_ in exchange for $150k+ salaries.

The 5 extra PTO days are not worth halving my salary and then almost halving it again. I may move (back) to Europe when I retire or come close to that age.

Are you paying taxes in your own EU country to pay for the pensions and healthcare? You do know that's how it works, right? The social contract is that in your high earning years you pay into the system then when you are young/old you get to use it.

>This sounds like an assumption based firmly in the American value system. This part is often missed:

>> 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King’s birthday

So best case scenario, you get 20 days more paid leave than in the US (which typically only has 2 weeks or 10 days). That works out to approximately 7.7% higher effective wage.

Even better, government workers in the US get pretty generous PTO too. It works on a bit of a "banking system" but 25 days + holidays isn't even particularly impressive for a Government position of that seniority.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-ad...

You could pretty easily match that amount of PTO for a comparable position.

No, that is not to my benefit. As a US based employee I would generally rather have fewer employment rights. While this might increase my risk of getting laid off, this also makes it easier to find a new job. Employers are more likely to hire me if they know they're not being locked into a long term commitment. And greater labor flexibility increases the average economic growth rate; a rising tide lifts all boats.

The amount of cash reserves is entirely irrelevant. Why would shareholders want to waste that capital on unnecessary employees when it could be invested in growth projects or returned as a dividend?

That is their right, of course. Could this be a sign that it is tough in the SWE job market at the moment?! Usually moving on from Google would have been a non-issue to find a new job.

>Could this be a sign that it is tough in the SWE job market at the moment?!

No. There's plenty of companies hiring everywhere. SWEs will not be unemployed.

It's probably tough only if you expect to still make post-pandemic boom Google TC and perks at Google WLB.

Which is why it's wise to avoid lifestyle inflation. If you ever land a lucrative job during a boom, don't expect it to last forever and start buying Ferraris and max out your loans. Be humble and wise with your spending so you can whither any storm.

What is "TC"?

Total Compensation

Possibly “total compensation”

Thanks. In India, we often refer to it as CTC (cost to company).

Wise words for sure. That sports car is almost never as rewarding as you think it'll be, but not stressing about money surely is.

The cost of a sports/luxury car seems reasonable, esp for a high income earner, maybe 30-50% more than something more modest. But the upkeep is literally insane. A brake job on an Audi can cost 3-4x that of a Honda. Oil changes can be 2-3x.

And it loses value at a pace like nothing else you own. It’s a wealth sink.

A lot of modern sport cars are currently going up in value because new cars are either unavailable in the short term or not satisfying enough to the car enthusiast crowd.

What are some examples that you know of?

In general used car prices/trade-ins were sky high last summer because of lack of new car availability. Not sure what it's like currently. My sense was that supply chain woes had eased somewhat.

Great advice but tough when the real estate market near the Google offices are completely insane.

The goal should always be to make your income and outgoings inversely related. So seek to increase your salary and decrease your outgoings.

Definitely easier said than done in today’s economy, however.

I don't think so. The article says that this about the union being ignored. At this point it seems like a European ethos vs American. The Europeans are standing up for the collective right unions. It think this gets lost on Americans.

Big tech layoffs have yet to bring headcount back to anywhere close to 2019 levels.

And that's how you identify the next round of layoffs

I think this only scratches the surface. China has a social credit system. Who's to say that these major corporations do not have a employee rating system? Speak out about layoffs? Your rating goes down. Agree to come back to the office? Your rating goes up.

How much longer before these types of internal valuations work their way into a database for other companies can see?

Take it one step further: what if you apply for a job, and that job knew that you had walked out in protest at your last job, organized to create a union, or maybe refused to come back to the office because you wanted to work from home.

What impact would that knowledge have on your chances of gainful employment?

Corporations can cancel people too...

Mortgage underwriters could also consider one's activism as a contributor of credit risk and decide not to lend to them. They may be more likely to lose their job, falling into arrears.

the thread below is really peak HN - a beautiful mix of people who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about (having not read the article or union press release or looked into UK employment law) alongside sociopaths suggesting employees should never demand anything or act as a group.

Could not have said it better myself.

Then when the axe comes for them, they want Google to "do no evil".

Well, government regulations do that in the EU and UK... its not up to individual companies.

Of course employees should fight for their interests. But the way they're doing it here just strikes me as naive and without leverage they're unlikely to be successful.

Seems like this would greatly increase the risk of everyone being fired.

That seems like the worst time to apply leverage on your employer.

US workers law meets EU-ish laws

lol good luck US

easy to teel in this thread, so cutthrouat. Like they should be happy just to have a job...

Here you need 3months

Memories of working for Glu London after they got taken over by EA. We had the consultation process, of course it was a foregone conclusion.

As others mentioned, in the UK (for now) you eliminate roles, not people - this means you can't just shift a role to another cheaper country.

I was training someone to do exactly my job in China, but it somehow wasn't the same role.

The team I was in wasn't treated as badly as some of them. I remember when the guy came in, who we later found out was going to cut everyone - got instant business psychopath vibes.

> As others mentioned, in the UK (for now) you eliminate roles, not people - this means you can't just shift a role to another cheaper country.

Of course you can. If you shift a role from the UK office to the Bangalore office you have made that role redundant in the UK and can layoff the employee...

It's not that simple. There are two points to this

1. There's explicit legislation around moving a role to another company (TUPE regulations) 2. Just because the role goes doesn't mean that that employee needs to leave. You may instead want to let a different employee go and shift the one whose role has disappeared over.

Nitpick.

In practice, your employer do away with your role. You're made redundant. It's a simple downsizing.

It's not a nitpick it's a key difference between removing a role and removing a person specifically. I've definitely seen roles go and people move internally while other people go. It's an important legal distinction.

I believe salaries in the UK are pretty much on par with salaries in Bangalore these days?

Edit:- for FAANG

> you eliminate roles, not people

Just to calibrate, this is also the case in the US. Although most of the time an employee can be fired/laid off for any reason or no reason, employers generally want to present layoffs as "the role has gone" for contract and employment law reasons.

>I was training someone to do exactly my job in China, but it somehow wasn't the same role.

lol, yeah, I know such workarounds companies have at their disposal. For example, in my EU country, to hire people outside the EU is very difficult ... in theory. You must first prove you've exhausted the local and EU candidate pool, unless ... you create a new job opening with bullshit requirements that are hugely specific and rule out any local candidates, like the need to speak Hindi/Mandarin, and presto, you got a visa for that candidate.

I am so confused by the state of business and employees today. Why don't people just quit? So many of these employees at places like google, treat their job like it's a marriage. Are the benefits really that good?

"You can't fire me! I quit!"

Engineers not affected, again /s

The realization that the decade long near zero interest rate and quantative easing experiment is now a thing of the past with the market correcting off of that overhiring Covid mania.

The tiniest violin for those walking the plank.

The Google headquarters at King’s Cross, designed by the renowned architects Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Ingels, is a dazzling edifice of glass and steel, a symbol of the company’s prosperity and ambition. But behind its shiny facade, there is a storm of layoffs and discontent, a stark contrast to the image of success and innovation that Google wants to project.

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