Google illegally refusing to bargain with employee union, says NLRB
theregister.com
theregister.com
> "As we've said before, we have no objection to these Cognizant employees electing to form a union," Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini told The Register. "We simply believe it's only appropriate for Cognizant, as their employer, to engage in collective bargaining."
It details a similar situation with Accenture. Google's position makes sense here: Accenture and Cognizant set their employees pay, benefits, etc. So they should be the ones negotiating with the union. If I'm a forward deployed engineer and I want better pay, I don't negotiate with the customer I'm working with I negotiate with my boss.
Regardless, I don't think the union has much in the way of leverage here besides drumming up negative PR for Google. The Alphabet Workers Union apparently has ~1,400 members: https://www.alphabetworkersunion.org/#:~:text=Our%20union%20....
Google has over 170,000 employees and ~120,000 contractors. Even if it were exclusive to employees, the Alphabet Workers Union accounts for less than 1% of Google's workforce.
The way Googlers are fully accepting of what is clearly a tax dodge built on sacrificing the most pathetic acts of human dignity made me sick.
Company A wants to hire employees to perform Task A. Task A has a lot of legal overhead or paying taxes for employees and Company A would rather not deal with that. So Company A hires Company B as a contractor, meaning Company B is primarily responsible for the legal overhead and tax liability of Task A and Company B's employees. As a contractor relationship, Company A is not able to demand Company B do certain things (such as Company A dictating what Company B pays employees, or setting PTO policies, etc). Usually, they are only able to set standards that Company B must meet to maintain that contract for Task A.
It's possible Company A here (Google) may have overstepped and began instituting requirements or policies on the employees of Company B, which leads to the misclassification of employment.
Google may say "They're not our employees" but if they're overstepping their bounds then they might actually be considered Google employees. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I can say it's a pigeon all day long but everyone knows it's a duck.
"screw it, let's have them be de facto members of the team: do the same work on the same days, and move on once we hit the 'too long to lie' mark" and steadily moved to that arrangement for a significant amount of work for a large portion of job functions.
Correct, that would be abusing contract work. But while there have been people insisting that this happens, I have yet to see someone substantiate these allegations.
Is there more compelling evidence that Google has used contractors in place of FTEs than HN users insisting it's happening with no other evidence?
That Google controlled aspects of their work? Of course, they're contractors hired by Google. If I hire a janitorial contractor is it violating labor law to tell the to change the bags once per day? What if I have them use a specific brand of garbage bags that I think are more reliable? Contractor are hired to fulfill some need that the customer has. So of course rh customer is going to be controlling the work that contractor do. At what point am I directing contractors to such a degree that now I'm their joint employer?
The NRLB's examples of Google controlling the Cognizant employees does indeed revolve around RTO and time off, as well as things like not using your personal phone at work. None of them strike me as particularly out of place, and I'd be unsurprised if the appeal has a different outcome.
“The bargaining unit employees in this matter, individuals with specialized skills who work on the Music Content Operations (“MCO”) team, run virtually all aspects of Google’s YouTube Music platform. They are part of Google’s “extended workforce.” While Cognizant hires the employees, Google applies constant, exacting control over every aspect of their day-to-day work, including work hours and location, manner and means of work, wages, and employee benefits.”
Which is textbook misclassification of FTEs under the guise of contractors. The union provided evidence this was true. Google was unable to refute. The NLRB ruled in the worker’s favor and told Google they have to bargain with the union. This is what I’m saying happened and what the NLRB said happened too.
Everything in your post is some kind of weird gish-gallop, fantasy of your own making.
> screw it, let's have them be de facto members of the team: do the same work on the same days, and move on once we hit the 'too long to lie' mark" and steadily moved to that arrangement for a significant amount of work for a large portion of job functions.
This is not at all what the NRLB filing alleged. Using contractors to fulfill the same work as full time employees is a separate issue entirely.
As far as what the NRLB did write about, it did claim that Google was controlling contractors to an extent that it's now a joint employer. But their justification for this claim is shaky. And yes, it did indeed include return to office and time off. You say I'm making stuff up, but your own except says largely the same things:
> work hours and location, manner and means of work, wages, and employee benefits.”
So if I tell contracted janitors they need to change the garbage bags in my office at 7pm, I'm now a joint employer because I'm controlling their work hours and location? Likewise, if the contractor wants to pay the janitorial staff $80 per hour and I decide that's overpaying I'm now a joint employer because I'm controlling wages?
The things the union is describing as exacting control are pretty bog standard things that a customer of a contractor would ask for. The company is hiring that he contractor to fulfill some need. This is inevitably going to involve controlling things like what work contractors are doing and policies around hours and time off.
Your hypotheticals about janitors and whatever else are a tiresome, pointless, and a distraction. We know what happened, we know how the NLRB ruled, and we know you’re posting here saying, “well, I disagree on the basis of imaginary laws and scenarios that have no relationship to reality”. Which, I guess, fine? Have at it!
You're being really slippery when you reword this to "working contractors like FTEs". What, exactly, did the NLRB filing alleged? That Google asked TVCs to return to the office, set their time off, etc. The NLRB focused most entirely on how Google was controlling the conditions of Cognizant employees' work. That's a very, very different claim than saying Cognizant employees were performing the same task as FTEs.
Nowhere does the NLRB report say "Cognizant employees were tasked with _______ just like FTEs".
"Google is using contractors to perform the same work as full time employees."
"Google is setting contractors' conditions like return to office, time off, wages, etc."
The NLRB is alleging the latter. It is not alleging the former (which is what the grandparent comment wrote, and what I insisted is incorrect). And if you can't comprehend the difference between these two claims, there's no real point in continuing here.
> NLRB focused most entirely on how Google was controlling the conditions of Cognizant employees' work. That's a very, very different claim than saying Cognizant employees were performing the same task as FTEs.
Except its not, because both determine whether someone is a contractor or an employee. You’ve invented this fantasy distinction that separates the two, but this doesn’t exist in law or precedent. What is generally determinative is the importance of the work to the business, in addition to constraints place on how it’s done. Both are alleged in the claim by the union, as I quoted from the filing, and the NLRB said that is what Google is doing. Let me quote it again because you also seem to be arguing from an imagined version of it:
“The bargaining unit employees in this matter, individuals with specialized skills who work on the Music Content Operations (“MCO”) team, run virtually all aspects of Google’s YouTube Music platform. They are part of Google’s “extended workforce.” While Cognizant hires the employees, Google applies constant, exacting control over every aspect of their day-to-day work, including work hours and location, manner and means of work, wages, and employee benefits.”
And I agree there is no real point continuing here because you’ve unequivocally demonstrated you have zero clue what you are talking about.
This does indeed exist, Microsoft got in trouble for this back in 1989: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/microsoft-tr...
This has nothing to do with unions. Microsoft was using contractors to do full time work, misclassifying them. The grandparent comment claimed this is what Google was doing, which is not at all what the NLRB filing alleged.
> individuals with specialized skills who work on the Music Content Operations (“MCO”) team, run virtually all aspects of Google’s YouTube Music platform
And a contractor performs virtually all aspects of our janitorial functions. The fact that the venture Music Content Operation is staffed by contractors sure makes it sound like there's a pretty clear separation between contractors' work and FTEs. If the filing explained how both FTEs and contractors staffed the MCO and they were doing the same functions, that would be supporting your claims. But it doesn't.
If the union claims X+Y factors, and the NLRB only claims Y factors, that matters. If NLRB only backs up half the evidence, the case is weaker. And that seems to be the case, based on your quotes.
What is important to the business is yet another factor, and you gave some evidence for that too, which is useful. But if they outsource an entire service like you quoted, that seems like it might be a weaker case than mixing employees.
https://www.nlrb.gov/case/16-RC-305751
Start with the amended board decision, which clearly delineates why they were employees, and includes all the things I’ve mentioned throughout this thread. The most recent ruling from the NLRB, which is linked in the article, is a follow-up up to this decision because Google subsequently refused to bargain with the union, after they were deemed to be a co-employer. The NLRB asked Google to demonstrate why they don’t have to bargain with the union, Google said they’re not their employees, the NLRB said the regional officer already ruled on this and said you’re their co-employer, Google provided no new evidence to the contrary other than “we say they’re not”, the NLRB said, no, they Regional Director is correct and they are, bargain with the union. Imaginary janitor dude is just having a conversation with himself, independent of the facts of the case.
They did do that! But the specific thing that started this conversation was not a factor NLRB cited. It was "de facto members of the team: do the same work on the same days".
You're focusing so much on the end result that you're ignoring which claim Manuel_D asked for evidence of. Even if he's super wrong on the legal analysis, he asked for evidence of something, and it's something quite relevant, and there has not been a good citation for it. Even if the factors NLRB cited are enough to declare Google a co-employer, it's still valid to want evidence of what was actually claimed upthread.
>SMEs regularly interact with Google employees. They attend weekly video meetings for about 30 to 45 minutes, chat online daily, and may reach out to Google employees for help with any bugs they are unable to fix. It is expected in the course of SMEs’ work that they are in contact with and work with Google employees.
It’s not my fault the dude didn’t read the filings and decided to play Manuel_D Janitor Labor Law RPG with himself on Hacker News instead.
B) That level of interacting is not particularly conclusive for saying they do the same job. For example, in another industry I could imagine artists and programmers interacting that way, while having wildly different jobs.
C) You are getting way too hung up on the janitor example. It's a perfectly good explanation of one end of the spectrum.
B) Irrelevant. Companies have people in all different kinds of roles collaborating with each other. What matters is the nature of that collaboration in terms of classifying them as co-workers (i.e. employed by the same company) or contractor and customer. The NLRB looked at this and said the way Google and the “contractors” worked together made them jointly employed by Google, as I quoted directly from the filing.
C) I’m not hung up on it, I just find it obnoxious that someone chose to a. not read the filings b. pretend to know what they’re talking about while demonstrating a remarkable ignorance of the law and the specifics of the case c. justified doing so with appeals to fictional janitors multiple times. I’m harping on it because how it’s demonstrative of how stupid the whole “argument” was.
You keep focusing on what matters for the case outcome.
Which is good and all, but it's not what started this conversation.
You're hijacking the actual question to answer a different question.
Even though the question you're answering is more important, the original question was also valid, and your NLRB quotes don't answer it.
It's not stupid just because it doesn't tell us who wins the case.
> The person I was responding to was blatantly making things up, refused to engage with what I quoted, and proceeded to only describe fictional scenarios or misrepresentations based on a comment in the article. I doubt this would’ve made a difference.
The comment that started this topic was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38874977
That comment describes a very specific scenario, and Manuel_D wanted to know if that specific scenario had evidence of happening.
To the extent that he didn't "engage with what you quoted", it's because your quotes didn't answer that specific question. They were about the case in general.
You decided the actions in the case were "more or less" the same, but mostly in the sense that they lead to the same legal judgement. Which is a fair attempt at an answer, but once you learned that wasn't what he was actually asking you should have stopped doubling down on trying to say your answer fit his question. Your answer did not fit his question. It doesn't matter how correct your answer is when that happens.
If by original post you mean the comment I linked to: No they did not rule that.
You keep giving evidence for a forest, when he was asking about evidence of a specific species of tree.
NLRB claims a forest. They cite specific trees. None of them are that species.
Your evidence is useful but not what was asked for, and when you keep insisting it answers the question the disconnect is your fault.
Even if he's wrong about the legal situation, you have not given the evidence he was asking for.
I would like to see that evidence too. Even if it doesn't make a difference in the case, I want to know what google was doing in more detail.
>There is nothing at all in the ruling that says these contractor were performing the same work as employees.
Except there was in their ruling - the Google employees and “contractors” both work together to resolve problems and to coordinate training, management, and work assigned to lower level staff.
Why you both refuse to admit this, I have no idea. Him, I guess because he likes imagining janitors, you, I would guess because you also didn’t read the filings, and only realized you were wrong when I cited the first ruling.
Sometimes different teams with very different jobs still share some meetings and ask each other for help.
Honestly, if I had to guess I'd guess the same work same team thing is happening, but I don't think there's clear evidence in any part of the report I've seen.
> coordinate training, management, and work assigned to lower level staff
I don't see anywhere this was brought up until right now? But you'll have to be more specific on "coordinate". I don't think I'm unreasonably stretching when I say you can coordinate management, many types of training, and giving work to people with connected but entirely different jobs. Or have them resolve problems together. Like a plumber and an electrician on the same building under construction, to throw out another example.
It's okay for that single factor not to have much evidence. Don't stretch what is claimed.
It might be true, but it's not directly in the claim.
I'm not inventing any scenarios for Google, I'm just reading what the complaint literally says, no guesswork to read between the lines.
And in particular the ruling just says "Cognizant and Google have codetermined the essential terms and conditions of employment of employees". That's it, zero specifics.
I get that you’ll tirelessly do anything to have the last word, but since you’re now doing the same thing as Mr. Imaginary Janitors, saying things don’t exist that I’ve quoted and linked you to, and, in fact, do exist, I think we can call it a day.
However, while that link lays out an excellent case for Google being in control, I don't see anywhere it mentions direct employees doing the same jobs during the same period.
The evidence is not there. You would have quoted it ten posts ago if it was. Your evidence is for SOMETHING ELSE THAN WHAT WAS ASKED.
Seeya.
Which entities are you referring to , with which google has a relationship that is not arms length?
This isn't a minor problem, it's a massive problem. The scale of which may have escaped you but it certainly didn't escape Google's accountants who are laughing all the way to the bank. The fact that it is Cognizant here makes it a larger problem, not a smaller one and even if they appear not to be an overt fly-by-night operation they certainly perform a useful function for Google in isolating them from their workforce. Or did you think they keep all of these employees at arms length out of the goodness of their hearts?
That is hardly fair; this is business. Nobody is there out of the goodness of their hearts. It isn't like Google is made up of people who have a deep personal belief that the best thing they can be doing on weekdays is working out how to funnel more people into the big advertising network.
The law gives contractors a big financial advantage over FTEs. Google hires contractors over FTEs. They're obviously toeing the line as closely as they can because they'd rather have FTEs at the price of a contractor, and they've overstepped it here, but they're just working under the regulations they're given.
This mania for trying to push situations away from the market equilibrium really needs to settle down. My guess is if pushed much further, it'll get outsourced to a different company in a different country. It is nigh impossible to convince a market to pay substantially more than the market value of something.
There is no market equilibrium when parties like Google engage in illegal behavior.
> Because a big company, especially one the size of Google, has a huge advantage over the employees that it negotiates with.
I've never had a job with the sort of benefits an equivalent role at Google would have. That argument is bunk; if negotiating power were so important the equivalent role would be paid less. Google doesn't have that sort of negotiating power; it has to take the market price same as everyone else does.
In fact, the consistent calculus across a career as a salary earner is how much negotiating power you want vs how much you are willing to trade away in terms of flexibility. Large, boring inflexible companies tend to offer consistently better deals. That is why they are bigger than the average company. People take the deal they offer when the option is there.
It takes an extremely rare set of skills to turn negotiating power into a better bargain. As I'm sure you are well aware.
Hence unions. Now please check the title of TFA.
I'm just saying; there is a really high correlation with thriving wealthy industries - like software - and no union presence. We don't even have guilds. And when we do get wealthy guild-gatekept industries like medicine or law, the working conditions tend to be famously poor.
My money is where my mouth is on this one. I don't think unions will make me better off. My strategy for getting wealthy involves standing as far away from them as I can get. Those things are toxic; the only tool they really have is "we all lose". And that isn't a tool that will get better results than a competitive labour market. It pushes wealth away. I want wealth to head towards me. Others should too. It can always get worse.
If you want to ignore those advantages that's entirely your privilege, but note that that privilege was probably earned by a union in your (collective, not personal) past.
Correlation does not mean causation. Software is high paying because of scalability. It's not like past production or service work where the amount you can produce/serve has physical limitations.
Let's not fool ourselves. It would get worse if employers could figure out how to turn software into a more repeatable process and not have to rely on the craft of the individual. When that day comes the amount paid to software will go down and there won't be anything you as an individual can do to stop it.
/source. Been there done that. Never worked for cognizant but many other setups.
Said like that, isn't it just the corporate equivalent of "three felonies a day"? I think you're getting at something important, but "crime or not" no longer captures it.
(Just to save others a search)
Also, don't give a sock to Dobby.
Before that legal precedent existed, many companies were a lot more free about sharing those kinds of fun perks (social events, apparel, stickers, fun things that don't have a substantial cost) with contractors. I would love to go back to a world in which companies could freely do that and thought nothing of it. And in that world, if some company arbitrarily denied those kinds of perks to contractors I'd agree that that was the company being unpleasant for no good reason.
If you want to complain about companies using contractors in places where you think they should be using employees, by all means do. There are certainly cases where companies use contractors where they should be using employees, and for that matter vice versa. There are also cases where contractors are a better choice (e.g. variable/uncertain needs over time, employees of third-party companies that don't want to be employees).
But if you accept that there are any valid reasons to have contractors and not just employees, the legal requirements that you can't give benefits to contractors are legal requirements imposed on the company, not arbitrary indignities invented by the company.
The directs were happy to be directs, and the contractors were happy to be contractors. I don't know why people have been so eager to upset this reasonable arrangement.
What I don't want to see is contractors who are happy being contractors being forced to become employees, as a side effect of trying to help contractors who do want to be employees. Let's not throw out the entire concept of contracting, please.
State law and unfortunate court rulings mean that the only realistic way to “contract“ is as a w-2 employee of a business to business Job Shops that skim 50% off the top.
I always wanted to be a contractor, but it made me sick to watch my Job Shop make $100 per hour off work for being a legal middle-man
If they were an independent contractor working for you, you would be giving them a 1099.
I know musicians who now have to deal with 100+ W-2s each year for each performance and gig they played because it is illegal for them to be hired as a contractor. If a community symphony wants to hire a violinist for 2 hours, they have to document them as an employee, file employee taxes, track sick pay, ect.
It is brutal on both ends.
Largely, the contractors at Google have worse pay, harder jobs, fewer benefits, and less security for what is _almost_ an ordinary full-time job. They're often angling to become full-time employees. It might be legal, and it _might_ even be ethical, but it looks at best (even to other Google employees in places like memegen) like Google is abusing a legal grey area.
Contractor still generally cost the same or more, but California law has made it nearly impossible for contractors to Work Direct so they have job shops that skim 50% off the top.
Those high profile cases came about because it was a way for those companies to absolutely dodge ancillary TC costs of employees.
To me, a lot of the black and white, "Okay, fine, zero other benefits" was a punitive response to the permatemp lawsuits.
I realize some companies do this. It sounds like Google may be one of them. On the other hand, some companies did and still do regularly convert contractors into regular employees, and conversely many do use short-term contracts for needs that are actually short-term.
> To me, a lot of the black and white, "Okay, fine, zero other benefits" was a punitive response to the permatemp lawsuits.
I think calling it "punitive" is imputing a malign motive that doesn't exist. There's legal precedent that giving contractors any of the same benefits as employees can lead to them being reclassified as employees, so companies stopped giving contractors benefits.
Anyone who thinks they have the chops to get through the interview process and wants to be FTE is free to give it a shot. Then they'll have all the perks (as well as have to go through annual Google perf reviews, OKRs, and all that baggage too).
Safety isn't and shouldn't be just on the worker. Harmful working practices are rightly illegal for the employer; you can't be employed to cut asbestos without protection even if you don't think it will affect you or are ok with the consequences.
I’ve heard this argument repeated a lot, but it doesn’t really make sense. What legal responsibilities is Google avoiding that aren’t handled by the contracting company?
> Also, the workers have the right to negotiate about more then pay and benefits, they can bargain over working conditions which Google controls.
This also doesn’t make sense. Google negotiates the contracts with the contracting agency, but it’s ultimately the contracting agency that decides whether or not to accept the contract.
The contractors can walk out if they don’t like the terms of the contract, but to be clear they’re walking out on the contracting agency, not Google.
They can demand whatever they want, but all of these claims that we need to ignore the existence of the contracting agency don’t make sense. The contracting agency isn’t an invisible, blameless middleman.
Inter alia, collective bargaining, to wit, the thing we are commenting on.
> The contracting agency isn’t an invisible, blameless middleman.
Are you sure? I'm not sure if I should believe you or some other guy I know who says that's sure how they work in practice. That man isn't me.
But that's precisely how it's supposed to work - there are things (legal issues, other things, whatever it may be) that Google doesn't want to deal with. The theory is that Google pays the contracting agency to deal with those issues so that Google doesn't have to be bothered with them.
Fantastic, you agree with the NLRB!
> "Cognizant and Google have codetermined essential terms and conditions of employment and have been joint employers"
Google's legal responsibility is to maximize shareholder profits.
That means they have a responsibility to not overpay for value given. If contractor wages meet the value google needs, they will opt for contractors vs FTEs.
Its not fairto criticize google for doing something that every person does everyday When looking for mechanics, plumbers, and general contractors
The union will win this one and hopefully it goes to court b/c this whole contractor scam needs to be abolished.
In many places in the world you're only an independent contractor if you don't work long term for 1 single client and only if they don't dictate all your working conditions.
Because that would be the description of an employee and the condition is called "hidden employment" and it's illegal in many jurisdictions.
At the cost of complexity, you get freedom.
Is it really news to you? There's also another reason - companies trying to duck various taxes tied to employment.
> At the cost of complexity
There are many more costs than that, including loss of a lot of negotiating leverage, job security, and opportunity for advancement.
surely the contracting company gets to pay that tax, rather than the client.
I expect a basic rule like "Hire an accountant if you don't want to figure out all this stuff." to be contracting 101.
I used to be a contractor for the US government, and worked alongside civilian government employees. They tried to even hire me away from my employer (the contractor), and I refused: there just wasn't a good reason. The problem with being a government employee is that the pay is terrible, and also the retirement system is only good if you're a life-long government employee (there's no 401k). If you just want to stay in that job for the rest of your career, it's a great deal, though the pay isn't great, because the job security is fantastic and the retirement benefits are solid if you put in all those years (basically you get a good portion of your last salary until you die). But the cost is that your current pay is lousy: as a software dev, I made much more money than my coworkers, plus I got to save some in an employer-matched 401k account.
The government can't find that many people who want the safe, low-pay employment option they offer, particularly for software/IT jobs, so they turn to contractors to provide those people and offer them a type of employment (high-pay, not-so-safe) that the government simply can't do on its own.
It's the same with many big companies: hiring and firing is difficult and expensive for them, so they turn to 3rd-party contracting firms. It costs them: each contractor costs quite a bit more than a regular employee, but they don't have to deal with the other problems that come with regular employees. There's drawbacks, however; contractors aren't in it for the long term, so if you find a contractor you really like, you try to get them to join the company directly.
But there are also reasons to be an employee, and to prevent corporations from pretending employment is contracting.
I saw the exact same thing (but from the employee side) when I worked at a huge tech company. Using contractors was a way of getting people in quickly (much faster than normal recruiting), and also being able to get rid of them quickly if they're bad workers: just don't renew their contract after 6 months. Good ones were hired as regular employees because it was cheaper long-term.
Many people work very hard, including unionizing, legal action, etc., to compel companies to treat them as employees.
You can do all those things as a normal employee (perhaps a company lied to you that they couldn't?). Companies offer contractors higher pay and/or better benefits because they want to shirk their legal obligations to employees, there's nothing that would actually prevent them from offering those better terms to employees.
In places where it's implemented it's not JUST about having 1 customer. It's having 1 customer:
- for a long time (years and years)
- having basically the same restrictions as regular employees (same working hours, can't set your own; same work location, their office, can't set your own; usually the exact same IP restrictions as employees, etc)
At that point, you're basically an employee without any legal protections. In places where employees actually have legal protections.
Regardless, I'm still not seeing the rationale for why employees of a contracting corporation are supposed to be negotiating directly with customers. My sister worked at Accenture. If she wanted a raised why would she try and negotiate with who her customer she was working with at the time, given that her bosses at Accenture are the ones that set her salary?
Right now you're not giving any details or other way to confirm your claims besides "I work at Google, trust me bro." There are plenty of people who work at Google that say the opposite, that contractors aren't doing the same work as full time employees.
> What teams are using contract work for the same functions as fill time work?
Are you asking for the organizations, teams, projects, managers to be named? Depending on what you need, that's a lot of exposure and I'm not sure that'll assuage your concerns its "trust me bro". I have seen it in the ******** and ****** organizations.
> What specific work items are being done by both full time and contractors?
Software engineering and design. They're embedded in the teams, there was never a single difference between my TVC/non-TVC ex-coworkers other than their security badge color. They were not brought on for temporary or time-bounded projects.
Before you follow up: I appreciate your skepticism, but it's unclear if it's earnest or a lure. I don't have any legal protection from a trillion dollar company so I can't write a gossip-y essay naming names and giving you case studies, but I'm happy to answer any questions short of that. Like I said yesterday, it's very unclear what specifically what change your mind here
-- especially now that you're claiming "plenty [of Googlers] say it isn't true". There isn't a single comment on this entire article, and it tremendously beggars belief that any Googler would tell you it wasn't true. If I worked at McDonald's, its like a stranger yelling at me that I'm lying because other McDonald's employees said no one has to wear a nametag.
Please consider the emotions you implicitly communicate, it's quite frightening interacting with you given how aggressively you're communicating.
> Google does not directly employ the workers who collect or create the data required for much of its technology, be they the drivers who capture photos for Google Maps’ Street View, the content moderators training YouTube’s filters to catch prohibited material, or the scanners flipping pages to upload the contents of libraries into Google Books.
> Having these two tiers of workers – highly paid full-time Googlers and often low-wage and precarious workers contracted through staffing firms – is “corrosive”, “highly problematic”, and “permissive of exploitation”, the employees said.
While some may be disgusted with the segregation between the two "tiers" of FTEs doing software development and contractors doing manual labor, the fact that the workforce is starkly separated into two different tiers goes to show just how separate these two segments of the workforce really are. Most of the coverage of Google's contracting emphasizes these points: how separate and unequal the contract and full-time workers are.
Now there's an anonymous internet commenter claiming to work at Google insisting that this is not the case - but unwilling to actually specify what team or organization is actually using contract workers for the same functions at FTEs. Is it really "frightening" and "aggressive" that I don't find these anonymous, non-specific allegations more compelling than the writings by people with their real names attached to their claims?
1. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/28/a-white-c...
Yet you can't list even one specific example. If you really are seeing this happen, go contact the NLRB or the media and get your observations out there and into the public discussion. If all you're willing to say is "trust me, it happens, but I can't even list any one example of this happening" is it really surprising that you're being met with skepticism?
I did name em btw. Count the asterix. Also its literally every single team. Every single team has TVCs. There's a smol iOS app (think Arts and Culture, but not) I almost took the lead role for that would have had all the contributors be TVCs and I did code review.
This isn't actually naming anything, you're just insisting it's happening everywhere without actually making a specific allegation.
An example of this would be, "full-time employees were being tasked with running performance regression tests for the Google Drive backend, and in 2019 this started to be done by both FTEs and contractors".
A pattern that really engenders skepticism is when people insist that something is incredibly pervasive and common, yet fail to list even one example of it happening. If contract workers are being used to do the same work as FTEs on all teams, you should have a wealth of examples of "X team used FTEs to do Y, and starting at such and such a time they started using contractors to do Y as well".
The recap, NRLB filing linked in this article is not alleging that Cognizant employees are doing the same work as FTEs at google. It's alleging that by having contractors return to the office, and setting other policies like sick leave Google is now a joint employer. The idea that Google is using FTEs and contractors to fulfill the same functions is not supported by the NRLB finding. It's not even a topic that the NRLB is discussing in this document. The NRLB is trying to claim that setting RTO and PTO policies makes Google a joint employer, despite contractors doing separate work from FTEs.
If you're only willing to say "it happens but I can't give any further details or examples" then just say so and be willing to accept that this doesn't meet many people's epistemic thresholds.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/technology/google-temp-wo...
This is distinct from what the previous comment was about: the practice of using contractors for the same functions as full time employees. That's a totally separate thing than unions. Companies can get in trouble for using contractors for the same jobs as employees even if there's no union involved.
Previously, this only came into effect if companies were using contractors for the same functions as full time employees. And the outcomes in those cases was often to make the company hire on the contractors full time, not dragging a company's customers into it labor disputes. Plenty of people have been alleging this, but none have substantiated allegations that Google is using contractors for the same work as employees.
If their employer would like to offer them changes in working conditions or pay that, in order to be feasible or economical, they would need to change the terms of their Google contract, they can't do that without Google's involvement. It would seem far more efficient to have Google be in the room involved in the negotiations and bound by the arbitration, rather than have the contracting company have to go to Google and suggest something they might like to change, get tacit approval that that might be up for renegotiation, then go to their employees and make an offer based on that assumption, and if the employees accept it, hope that Google honors the tacit agreement they got rather than laughing and telling them how they now have them over a barrel and further tightening their contract.
You could argue that they need to bargain with Cognizant, and Cognizant in turns needs to bargain with Google, but the NLRB has (rightfully) determined that it's ultimately Google setting the working conditions, and therefore the union should be bargaining directly with Google.
From the decision (linked 2 up)
At all material times, Respondents Cognizant and Google have codetermined the essential terms and conditions of employment of employees employed at the E. Parmer Lane facility and have been joint employers.
(2nd to last paragraph of "Findings of Fact > Jurisdiction")
The original article (the register) quotes a union member
Google and Cognizant have proceeded to make unilateral changes to our working conditions such as a forced return to office, removal of sick pay during a global pandemic, and the implementation of a 'Clean Room' policy that bars us from having our phones, paper, or pens in our office, without bargaining with our union.
The line of reasoning seems to be something like:
- There are decisions that Google is making that, if the workers were employees, would need to be negotiated with the union.
- Google is making those decisions with application to the contractors as well as their direct employees
- Consequently, for the purposes of union negotiation, Google is a joint employer (alongside Cognizant) of the contractors because it is making decisions that affect the workers and ought to be negotiated with a union.
If that is the argument, it seems fair to me.
If Google wants to make decisions about the employment conditions of contractors then it needs to accept that it is an "employer" of those workers. Alternatively it can decide not to make decisions about their conditions and leave all of that to Cognizant - but in that case it cannot enforce those policies on the workers until after Cognizant has negotiated with the union and reached an agreement about the the workers conditions. Google would have to make sure that every workplace policy that they wished to have applied to the contractors was handled as a contractual arrangement between Google and Cognizant, not an employment arrangement.
I don't think that particular kind of "separation" is conclusive, just suggestive. Imagine that Acme corporation direct-hires a few hundred workers and then splits them into two groups, with different badges and offices and branding and e-mails.
While clear differences would exist, they wouldn't be the right kind of difference that could alter their legal classification as Acme employees.
I don't have to do corporate training. I don't have to use a corporate laptop with corporate spyware; I use my own laptop. I work on side projects that are none of the company's business. I don't get told how I should work; I get evaluated based on results. Numerous employee policies simply don't apply to me. I work, and I submit invoices, and I get paid for the hours I work.
This may well not be the policy at every company. There are certainly cases where companies use contractors where they should be using employees, and for that matter vice versa. There are cases where companies treat their contractors badly, and for that matter treat their employees badly. There are also cases where contractors are a better choice (e.g. variable/uncertain needs over time, employees of third-party companies that don't want to be employees of the company in question, contractors who prefer being contractors).
Some people prefer to work as contractors. Some people prefer to work as employees. I very much wish that everyone has the option to work in the model they prefer.
You are the one arguing there is no such thing as a true contractor, one that is not "effectively an employee".
The scottsman has just walked up and introduced himself to you.
Vintage Silicon Valley move. Your paycheck says you work for a third-party, then you work for them—-they pay the payroll taxes, insurance, etc. Why would anyone question who is the ‘employer’?
Meanwhile, you’re hired by, you work for and are give directions by The Company (here, google).
Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, it’s a duck.
What’s changed in the past 30 years?
Doesn't seem as "open and shut" as The Register wants readers to believe.
Also, employers refuse to negotiate with employees all the time - how would this be any different? Just because an employee (or group such as one represented by a union) doesn't have their demands met does not seem to automatically be "illegal". The employee's recourse, of course, is to leave/quit. Even if these contractors were classified as Google employees, Google can probably just say "no" to any demand anyway...
> At all material times, Respondents Cognizant and Google have codetermined the essential terms and conditions of employment of employees employed at the E. Parmer Lane facility and have been joint employers.
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/ba...
This also does not mean Google cannot say "no" to any demand, union or not. There is no legal obligation to accept demands from employees, union or not. Good Faith means "honest dealing" in a legal setting, and saying "No" to everything can be honest.
Just because you want something does not mean you are entitled to something... there is no legal protections for not getting what you want - union or not.
This is why strikes happen. Demands are not met.
The unfortunate reality is this super tiny union is not going to scare Google with the threat of a strike.
And... all this hinges on if these are even Google employees, which it really seems to be a stretch to claim they are. NLRB is not an unbiased party - they exists almost exclusively to be pro-union.
The union probably would make better headway by going after their actual employer... Cognizant.
> judicial authority over this matter has ruled that they are
NLRB has no authority to classify contractors as employees. That's why this is still being litigated.
> You're just parroting the Google lawyers' line here.
Stating reality and facts does not make one a "parrot" as you claim.
IANAL
This is a purely a scheme by google to get away from having to hire full time employees but abusing the contractor system that was meant for actual consulting, not employees-for-rent.
Abusing the contractors employment is a very specific claim, employers are not supposed to use contractors for the same work that full-time employees perform. It's not about in the same badges or working in the same offices or working on the same equipment, it's about the work that they are performing.
It's not abusing contracting systems if a company is using contractors for a specific class of work like answering customer service tickets or data ingest. If you've got details on how Google is using contractors for the same work as full-time employees, it'd be really good to share.
C'mon Count Chocula, come back to reality.
But all the examples I've heard were for roles significantly distinct from Google's full time employees. I've read stories of Google contractors answering help center calls, and scanning books. I have not seen examples of Google contractors working on Google Ads in the same function as full time engineers.
Again, I'd be glad to read up on any details of this happening that you're willing to share. But until then, the presumption is that Google isn't abusing contract work
All of these classifications are required for a contracting position to exist. Access control mechanisms existing isn't a good argument. And another commentor[0] actually pointed out that they go to a non-Google facility.
> These employees aren't allowed to seek other customers either.
Presumably they can indeed seek other customers. If Cognizant doesn't let them, I don't see how that's on Google unless Google's agreement with them prohibits shuffling workers (most likely Google requires they give them some advanced notice, but it's still on Cognizant if they just don't allow the contractors to withdraw from said position or threaten the contractor with loss of any work if they try to withdraw from Google).
You're assuming something that's very much in dispute: The NLRB has concluded otherwise that "Cognizant and Google have codetermined the essential terms and conditions of employment [for the YouTube team] and have been joint employers" at all material times.
The NLRB is saying that Cognizant's customers are supposed to negotiate with Cognizant's employee union. How exactly Google is supposed to participate in these negotiations when Cognizant is the one that actually has the ability to give employees raises is remains rather unclear.
Their existing work arrangement is agreeable to Google. If the employees wish to continue with their existing work arrangement, only as a union, and then Google chooses to reject that, then that is sufficiently strong evidence that Google is rejecting their demand purely due to the existence of a union. That is illegal according to current US law.
If they declare that they are not rejecting due to the existence of a union, then there is sufficiently strong evidence that they are not engaged in "honest dealing" as they are being dishonest with their motives. To engage in "honest dealing" with those facts either requires them to honestly disclose they are rejecting due to the existence of a union (which would be illegal), or extremely compelling extenuating circumstances showing why their existing work arrangement is now, coincidentally, untenable.
The NLRA says both parties must negotiate a contract in good faith.
>Just because an employee (or group such as one represented by a union) doesn't have their demands met does not seem to automatically be "illegal".
Google is fine to not meet the demands of the union, they must negotiate a contract in good faith.
>The employee's recourse, of course, is to leave/quit.
They have an additional recourse: file an unfair labor practice with the NLRB and win, as they did here.
The NLRA exists to protect unions. At dispute is if these contractors are even Google employees. This is not "over" just because NLRA says so... in fact, they have very little enforcement abilities it seems.
> Google is fine to not meet the demands of the union, they must negotiate a contract in good faith.
Good Faith is a legalese way of saying "dealing honestly". It would be honest of Google to simply say "No" to every demand. A union is not a magic ticket to getting what you want.
> They have an additional recourse: file an unfair labor practice with the NLRB and win, as they did here.
And nothing is going to happen as a result. It will be appealed, and the litigation will continue possibly for years.
No it isn't and no it wouldn't. Per the NLRB:
The duty to bargain in good faith is an obligation to participate actively in the deliberations so as to indicate a present intention to find a basis for agreement. This implies both an open mind and a sincere desire to reach an agreement as well as a sincere effort to reach a common ground.
Does it sound to you like going into negotiations with the goal of refusing every proposal and not offering any of your own, i.e. saying no to every demand, meets this criteria?
Regardless, "bargaining in good faith" purely means an intention to bargain honestly. If that bargain means "nothing changes" - that satisfies the NLRB according to their own website[1].
Again - there is no legal obligation to accept demands from employees - union or not. A union is not a magic ticket to get whatever you want. Employers are free to reject any demand for any reason. Being an employee does not mean you can force an employer to give you things...
So while the NLRB might be able to ultimately compel Google to come to the table, so to speak, they cannot compel Google to accept demands.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/ba...
Does any reputable legal authority think Google's claims have merit here? They're appealing the court ruling against them, sure, but that looks more like a stalling tactic than something they expect to actually succeed.
> Regardless, "bargaining in good faith" purely means an intention to bargain honestly. If that bargain means "nothing changes" - that satisfies the NLRB according to their own website[1].
Which would be a win for the employees - they're trying to get Google's (unilateral, illegal) changes to their working conditions rolled back.
> A union is not a magic ticket to get whatever you want. Employers are free to reject any demand for any reason. Being an employee does not mean you can force an employer to give you things...
Not true. Employers have obligations, employees have rights, and unionised employees have more rights. Yes, you can't always get everything you want. But you can get some things, such as preventing your employer from unilaterally worsening your working conditions.
Even stranger is the fact that you seem to think such a law would be a good thing if it did exist.
"Google is fine to not meet the demands of the union, they must negotiate a contract in good faith."
Care to find a corresponding quote matching what you say I am claiming, namely that I "think employers are legally required to give in to employee demands"?
Looks pretty open and shut to me. Google employed a contractor to avoid the liability of those employees unionizing. In doing so it misclassified them since it is normally work an employee would do-not a contractor under labor law. They were already caught doing this previously according to the register.
> Also, employers refuse to negotiate with employees all the time - how would this be any different? Just because an employee (or group such as one represented by a union) doesn't have their demands met does not seem to automatically be "illegal".
Once a union is recognized by the NLRB an employer is required by law to make a good faith effort to negotiate. This is what? 80-100 year old American law?
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right...
> The employee's recourse, of course, is to leave/quit. Even if these contractors were classified as Google employees, Google can probably just say "no" to any demand anyway...
That is part of why collective bargaining improves the economic situation of most Americans. Google says no, they go on strike, and Google then has to choose to eat the cost replace and retrain most of those people in this market (and hope they don't unionize) or meet the demands.
Compare this to how Costco handled a unionization recently.
https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/costco-employees-vote-unio...
Added: (and hope they don't unionize)
Also disagreed it's not simple open/shut.
> Google employed a contractor to avoid the liability of those employees unionizing. In doing so it misclassified them since it is normally work an employee would do-not a contractor under labor law. They were already caught doing this previously according to the register.
Everything hinges on this concept. That contractor work == employee work.
The article states that one of the central arguments was around contractors who were training Bard. That those contractors should have been determined as employees even though they were hired through Accenture. Admittedly, I would stand with Google/Alphabet on this one. Data entry work, once initial training completed the vast majority will not be kept on. If there was a plan to convert a few contractors to FTE to remain on Bard then that would signal even more so (pure speculation).
Currently, the argument is for Cognizant contractors but there's no details on the article that can help me understand what they're doing for Youtube that would show contractor-work == employee-work.
Of course, google is smart, they'll fight these core points before even beginning to worry/engage with labor unions. There's really no point in worrying about the downstream stuff if the upstream hasn't been determined.
[EDIT]
I got some insight by glancing at the ruling by the NLRB[0]
> All full-time and regular part-time Senior Process Executive-Data/Music Generalist (SPEs) and Project/Process Specialists/Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) employees employed by the Employers in YouTube Music Content Operations who are employed to work from the Employer’s (Cognizant Technology Solutions U.S. Corporation) facility at 717 E. Parmer Lane in Austin, Texas.
They're all housed at a non-google facility, but those roles seem central to Youtube Music operations even if they are data-entry jobs. I can largely side with NRLB in this ruling. We'll have to see how google fights this one.
A side note, Youtube HATES Youtube Music. I hate it. I use it because it's packaged with my Youtube premium and it's not worth holding Spotify + Youtube memberships. But WOW, Youtube Music's such an afterthought. Everything about the UX is terrible.
https://www.nlrb.gov/case/16-CA-326027
What Google is doing now is appealing the ruling in federal court as an attempt to delay recognition of the union. Companies rarely win these appeals, but they use them as a stalling tactic in an attempt to demoralize and break up the union.
Me and my family have no real problems with it. What's wrong with it? It does my manually-created playlists well, the different supermixes with different artists are accurate 99% of the time, and the "speed dial" on mobile is very useful.
- Desktop app can't download/offline
- The list of songs that you're looking at isn't the true play list. There's a "hidden" list when you click on the empty space on the bottom bar.
- Shuffle isn't a true shuffle simply reorders the "secondary/hidden list". So you can't turn shuffle on/off only "exit/reenter" to go from order to non-ordered.
- Can't sort list on name/artist
- Billboard doesn't seem to have an official list? It's like a bunch of weird lists or sometimes one whole "song" that contains the top billboard. I follow a random dude who maintains a close-enough list to a billboard one i care about.
Things I miss from Spotify:
- Seamless control of the "other player". i.e. my phone can control the one that's running on the TV and taps into the main sound system.
- Radios are a lot stronger. They have a chance to introduce me to new music.
- opposite of everything above?
Not sure about speed dial. it's not on my desktop version, but i can't tell if that's a device or a/b or rollout difference.
Do you mean the prompt on the browser to install the PWA? That's technically not Electron, but I get what you mean.
Edit: To clarify, I’m wondering about workers who contribute to Google’s own core competency of creating software, not bus drivers, janitors, etc. for which Google’s benefits would be a larger fraction of their pay.
The Tech Equity Collaborative has a report giving some reasons (https://techequitycollaborative.org/download-the-contract-wo...), but they seem to boil down to big companies are so inefficient at hiring (e.g. “adding full-time, direct employees requires multiple levels of sign-off, budgetary allocations, and often numerous reviews and approvals”) that they are leaving money on the table (“tech companies often pay contracting agencies enough for the agencies to offer family-supporting wages”). I’m not sure I buy that.
They basically don't. In fact if the company fails fairness testing on the 401k plan, executive contributions to 401k can be clawed back (actually the bar is much lower - "highly compensated employee" above like $130k. So if Google directly employed all of its contractors, it would likely fail fairness testing on the 415 contributions to after-tax 401k, and all the Software Engineers pushing $70k or whatever a year into their 401k would have half of that disallowed by the government).
It’s very common at large companies with different tiers of employees (corporate, warehouse, headquarters) to have different benefits contributions
Unless California has a different state law, I don’t think this has anything to do with contracting. Even at Google’s scale, they could create a separate subsidiary company to hire the employees on different plans if they wanted.
For example, I have a corporation and have explored 401k plan. I can not set up a 401k plan that includes myself, but not other employees, and there are a plethora of requirements around the allowable differences once everyone is in a plan. If I want to give plans to myself and half my employees, the only way to do so is to fire half and bring them back as contractors.
My understanding is it is basically the same for most other benefits (e.g. healthcare)
It does not.
Quick Google search will show pages and pages of results explaining that it is not illegal to give different health care benefits to different employees.
So, you sub out the work to another company that has more focus on sourcing employees and keeping enough hired/productive so you can focus on developing the algorithms instead of those managerial tasks. This model is extremely common in all industries that aren't 100% vertically integrated. The only difference is that in the physical world it's easier to point to products being sold than in this knowledge work where the deliverables aren't as concrete.
In the end, these moves by a small group of people just ends up ruining the perks for the rest of the contractors. The current argument of "We work in the same office, drink the same coffee, eat the same food, and work on the same projects" has one very obvious remedy, which is to take away those perks.
Seriously? "Google had the expertise to design and develop Bard, but they lacked the expertise to train Bard, so they had to go to outside contracters"?
Do you mean: what prevents Google hiring short-term workers directly? (instead of via Cognizant, etc)
Or do you mean: why doesn't Google hire permanent workers with lower-benefits*?
Or do you simply mean: why does Google hire contracts at all?
- you want to get a readily available trained workforce
- you want a temporary workforce
- you want to be able to swap vendors
- you want to maintain agility in the rest of the org, I.e. not depending on this workforce existing
Classic example is events (you don’t want to hire ushers, you want them present fully capable; you aren’t keeping them on forever; you’ll change your events people if you’re unhappy)
https://www.nlrb.gov/reports/nlrb-case-activity-reports/repr...
https://www.epi.org/publication/union-first-contract-fact-sh...
I see the core issue is the boilerplate clause on joint employment
For lawyers: who has jurisdiction to determine that joint employment has happened? Can the NLRB really weight in?
Shouldn't that be determined by a state employment agency? And what if both parties agree there is no joint employment?
That’s a good one
I think even if your point is valid, people over at Google are smart and understand that the future is long but precedent is eternal.
And even then, there are in fact these annoying, antiquated laws around labor in the US. They kinda have to at least respond..
The remainder of AWU is people who have put their name on a spreadsheet but have not voted in a union via an NLRB election. The only way to have the legal right to force an employer to bargain with you is to have an NLRB election (or the employer voluntarily recognizes the union).
Google has a legal duty to negotiate in good faith with the 41 Cognizant employees now that the NLRB has found them to be a joint employer. That's true regardless of how small the bargaining unit is. The NLRB found that Google controls essential features of these workers' jobs, which means Google needs to appear at the bargaining table. However, Google is allowed to appeal that finding before it takes effect, which will likely take at least a year in the Federal courts.
You can join a workers union and not have it be recognized by the company. You have fewer legal powers if you go that route, but you can still be a union.
AWU has, iirc, 1500-2000 people. Of those, some small number have voted to force Google to legally recognize the union. The concepts are separate, but related.