YouTube Music team laid off while workers testified about working conditions | Hacker News Reader

YouTube Music team laid off while workers testified about working conditions

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51 pointshanniabu20 comments

So long as the only real consequence is a (small) fine, killing unions is just going to be a cost of business. See how Starbucks conveniently closes unionized locations not long after they organize due to "market forces".

It seems Starbucks has changed their tune after Schultz’s departure. (Not holding my breath however) But they’ve now said they’ll negotiate with the Starbucks union and pay back pay for all workers that were cut out of the pay hikes and credit card tipping they gave all their non-union workers as an FU to the union.

The Majority Report did a short interview with one of the original Starbucks union organizers in the first store to unionize.

https://www.youtube.com/live/bZ3zrH3aTM4?t=1840

Around here, Starbucks removed the anti-fatigue cushioned floor mats as a "safety and trip hazard"...

... they had a hard time explaining why they were only a hazard in stores that were in the process of unionizing.

they're not employees, they were designed to be disposable from the start. They are "workers" with a "contract" which ended "at the expected time". all very convenient musical chairs for google.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39570657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39569975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39564184

Why would they contract this out to Cognizant? I would have guessed that their music streaming service would have been a priority for them, and something they would want to do in-house with well payed employees?

What am I missing here?

honestly the lack of development love shows. I used to adore how good Google Play Music was and then they forced everyone to transition to YTM, it was a hot mess!

It's a really sad state of affairs when what's supposed to be Google's flagship music offering for their own platform doesn't work as well as Apple Music on the same.

So contract workers attempted to unionize and went on strike during their contract with Google and now are shocked when their contract wasn't renewed. I'm shook.

I like how about the same time some else made a HN post title "Google Gemini’s Woke Catechism". Google destroying YT Music team that tried to unionize, runs completely opposite to the "Woke Catechism" or any leftist ideas.

Pretty standard. Stuff like that isn't even worth enough of our conscious attention for the absurdity or hypocrisy to be noticed.

That's because the catchall definition of "leftism" or "woke" is merely a caricature designed by Republicans.

These organizations will pick and choose whatever labels work for them the best at any point in time. Culture wars are for fools while shareholders make out like bandits at the expense of said fools.

leftism and woke do not share a definition. Leftism is nonsensical, at best, fair enough. Woke is regarding the ethos that words and (lack of) representation can be equated with physical harm. I don't subscribe to that and I'm certainly not a Republican.

So words and representation are simply unimportant in your view or just a little less important? If so that's essentially what I thought being "woke" was, simply being "awake" (aware of) psycho-socio and socio-econonomical (structuralist) factors that affect us all. Waking up from simple prejudices against people. The narrative that it's all gone too far may have some truth to it, but it's also a convenient narrative to discredit, scapegoat and undermine the movement.

> So words and representation are simply unimportant in your view or just a little less important?

Being able to speak and express yourself, whatever you views, is the most important thing for a functional and enduring society. How you are judged beyond that, is secondary to that basic right.

Cruelty of words is a concept suffered by the bourgeois and upper classes, who have little knowledge of starvation and brutality; real suffering, real violence and powerlessness. The beauty of speech, is that you can speak back. Ideas combat each other, instead of stacking bodies.

Right now, the idea is that speech needs to be limited, is winning. I don't agree and that's the beauty of it.

I resonate with the idea of "free speech" in terms of avoiding government oppression, it is a really important and foundational idea. As a catch-all, however, I don't think it works quite so well in the age of social media. Ideas are spreading like wildfire which have no rhyme or reason to them, that cater to psychological maws and not facts, and a bulwark of free speech arms liars with the power to reach millions with a few keystrokes. The power of reason has consistently lost to more blunt instruments. So I think it's, at best, neutral for social media platforms to drop people that aren't woke. As for legal constructs aiming to protect minorities, they don't plausibly set up a slippery slope to dictatorship in my view. I'm of the view that literal absolute free speech that allows any speech no matter how directly harmful or immediately dangerous is itself detrimental to a well-functioning society and public safety.

I often notice transphobic people trying argue that "free speech" is being eroded around bills impacting trans and find this unpersuasive, even childish.

If you can be punished by these overbearing social media platforms - or even by the judicial system - merely for referring to a man as a man, then how is that not an erosion of free speech? It gives others far too much power over what you're allowed to say.

I'm not saying that free speech need be chucked away, but that we should strive to maintain a balance which protects societies from bad actors. Merely misgendering someone isn't necessarily abusive, but a pattern of consistent harassment is. If a privately owned company want to allow the former and not the latter, then I'm okay with it.

Unionism and Wokeism are at logger-heads with each other, so why is this even surprising ?

Wokeism is about identity politics, which is the exact opposite of class struggle, and this is the reason why companies like Google have nothing to fear anymore because no single group is large enough to be a threat

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