Union busting is as American as apple pie.
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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The first recorded recipe for apple pie was written in 1381 in England.
An import thriving in the US? That is about as American as it gets.
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How can we change this?
By unionization..... The stronger the labour force is, the less they are able to get pushed around like this.
Well yes. My question is how can we change union busting, because that’s what the article is about.
By unionizing.
To afford good lawyers in order to fight back, unions need money, which requires more members to pay union dues.
To keep politicians honest and to credibly threaten their electibility, unions need more members that can be politically mobilized.
It's a feedback loop. The more people unionize, the more powerful unions become and the more powerful unions become, the more they can protect people who unionize.
If all the employees are in a union, you can’t get rid of all the unions without getting rid of all the employees.
Get everyone to do it. Division is the enemy.
Why should I care?
Because it affects your salary, your benefits, your holidays, and your rights.
That is such clear retaliation that I don't know how Google hopes to get away with it.
Well the penalty is a slap on the wrist to a company of googles side.
The cost of doing business
No offense, but it seems like a really dumb idea to unionize in the middle of mass industry layoffs.
Maybe you would do it when things are going good, but if everyone around you is getting laid off and you unionize, it almost seems self-evident who's going to get laid off next.
Is it illegal? Probably. Are they going to get away with it? Probably.
Everyone should remember that big tech companies aren't your friend.
When working conditions are getting worse and people are being fired, that’s when you need a union more than ever.
In the fable of the and and the grasshopper the grasshopper needed food stored up more than ever when the winter came, but the time to be preparing for winter was the spring, summer, and fall when you plant, tend, and harvest. By the time winter comes it's too late.
The best time for someone with a variable rate mortgage to refinance as fixed rate would have been 2020. You didn't need a fixed rate back then because variable rate was in some cases less than 1%, but you need one now because mortgages are around 7%. If you refinance now it won't help.
The time to unionize was when labor had power by being in demand. 2020 would have been a good time, but maybe even the mid 2010s.
There’s a Chinese proverb that goes like this: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
We can’t go back in time to plant the union tree. But we can do it TODAY. Doing it late is better than never doing it at all.
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Layoff protection was listed in the article as one of their reasons for unionizing. Being able to better negotiate severance, the right to be rehired, etc. The auto industry has layoffs, but unionized workers get recalled when jobs pick back up.
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How does a contract union even work? Isn't the whole point of contractors that it's a less binding temporary position that can be terminated if needed?
Most contracts are through contract companies, who then employs (ala W2) the workers.
I could see all tech workers that work for these companies forming a union—that could make a real, honest change in the tech workforce overall.
Surprised this wasn’t talked about in the article or anywhere else in the comments. I feel like it doesn’t make sense for contractors to unionize during a contract job as that would change the terms of the contract.
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Contracting isn't always that cut and dry. Different industries and sectors of employment can use it for indefinite employment, and as such, many people can end up relying and hoping for longest possible work. I.e., USA Federal Contracting. Creating a union to protect workers and fight for financial fairness isn't something that Contractors should be excluded from -- it is still work after all. And in the case above-mentioned the actual workers do not negotiate with the contract issuer, but the middleman, a contract company -- human capital.
That's interesting, my company takes a different approach, if we don't go contract to hire in a year, we choose a new person to fill the role.
I wasn't mentioning it as a preclusion, more as a how the heck would they expect a tech union to work. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is an example of a union for contractors, but that's more nice role as the positions are very difficult to fill for and the roles often can't be reasonably replaced. Tech workers though, that pool is HUGE. If you had a tech union it would need to contain a significant portion of 8% (26,000,000) of the US population. It would seem they would lack the bargaining power as they're easily replicable. Perhaps if you were unionizing inside a single company that provided contractors you could destroy their workforce by all walking at once, but google doesn't need to fire these people, they can just terminate the contract with the company that provides them.
If the contractors were employees, there would be a massive lawsuit incoming (may be anyway) as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects the rights of employees to organize and join unions, but it generally does not cover independent contractors.
California seems to have some at-will variances for unions but it's still listed as employees. Should be interesting to see this play out.
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Every major contract I've worked on has has a union presence.
In my little experience, I assume, now that they’ve formed a union they can collectively bid on contracts as a shop and ask for a prevailing wage to complete it.
How does a contract union even work?
It works because a company far too transparently pretends that "contractors" aren't employees. I also helps to prove to be BS when the "company being contracted to" sets the rules of employment and decides who is a suitable "contractor" and who is not.
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These fucking companies. We need more unions. I wish I was in a union.
Why wish when you can start the process yourself?
Aflcio.org/formaunion
Ya, that's a lawsuitin
I find it hard to believe that the workers didn't see this coming....
They're contractors. They're not permanent employees. They can, generally, be let go at any time for any reason whatsoever - or no reason at all. It's crap, but they're some of the risks of being a contractor. The benefits of higher pay, choose your own hours, choose your own workplace, etc have to be weighed against said risks.
It's a bit misleading. They're not private contractors but employees of a different company instead. The union busting in the US is pretty extreme. I just hope these people can put their talents to work in a company that doesn't have so many issues complying with the rule "don't be evil".
Yeah Google is well known for employing "contractors" which is just really a way for them to avoid any of the annoying regulations you have with actual employees, by having them be employed by a third party but really they're just working for Google full time. Also looks better on the balance sheets.
There have actually been a few cases that have made it through the courts that apply "employee" status based on how the company treats the worker rather than how they're paid.
Especially in cases where the worker is on long-term assignment somewhere like Google.
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