Google employees formally launch new union after pushback from Alphabet

[pythonmegapixel]

What I've learnt from this thread is that some Americans need to stop pretending they're the best, while other Americans need to stop pretending they're the worst...

[Dutch_Master]

3 minutes ago, comander said:

The US is the richest large nation.

Except for this keyword:

3 minutes ago, comander said:

average

So, can you split the numbers to show how many Americans are millionaires, or richer, and how many live in (near) poverty?

[trag1c]

17 hours ago, thechinchinsong said:

Who's had positive or negative experiences with Unions in their workplaces? I'm a college student so I can't say I'm informed.

I worked at a unionized company for over 3 years. Unions are fucking useless. They will fight tooth and nail for the most useless sack of shit in the workplace preventing them from getting the boot out the door but I've seen countless employee's that were generally fantastic get shown the door. Most people that I know that have worked in unionized workplaces will echo that sentiment. Unions were probably a great thing up until labor laws actually caught up with the times but now that labor laws actually exist I view them as nothing more then an extra limb. They don't do anything for you but chances are they get in your way. I was also paying like $40 a month in dues to those A Holes in the union. 

 

In a world where everyone is walking around digital voice and video recorders its not hard to cover your ass in work place. At the very least by doing so you can make sure that they give you a healthy severance cheque for your troubles. And if you're in the right industry you're back to work the next day but now much richer than you were before.

[CarlBar]

12 minutes ago, comander said:

Ok... 

 

The median American household is richer than the households in all other large nations and is up there with select smaller nations with subsegments of its own populace of comparable size
AND for comparable units of organizational size (e.g. the EU) the US has lower poverty rates when measured in absolute terms. 

 

Is that adequate?

 

You sure about that claim, because google, (inevitably), led me to Wikipedia which has several tables and there's only a handful of European countries that rank worse than the US, and of those only Italy, (worse in some area's better in others), is a country that i'm sure is part of the EU. The rest are in far eastern Europe where Eu membership isn't universal. And they certainly don't account for the bulk of the Eu population so i don't see how they could be skewing the figures. (3 of them had the crap bombed out of them by someone in the last 20 years too).

[divito]

Unions are awful, hopefully this dies horribly.

[PocketNerd]

And they'll all be fired in 3.. 2..

 

Sorry, "mysteriously let go"

[Serin]

Good bloody on em!
America's workers 'rights' are friggen terrifying to look at from this vantage point, in that they pretty much don't exist.
Good luck to them all, every one!

[SansVarnic]

8 hours ago, Nowak said:

You can get fired for actually no reason here, you can be rejected on the basis of disability, be it mental or physical, and that's treated as Good and Normal.

 

 

 

Based on what source or evidence? I have personally hired and fired many employees, and each were hired or fired directly in-line with the US Federal labor and anti-discriminatory laws so please do tell.  

If I don't hire someone because they applied for a position that required them to not have a certain disability, I had to be upfront and explain why. What we did would be a danger to them and their coworkers to hire them with said disability. A person cannot be fired indiscriminately, there are protections in place to protect the employee. Its called wrongful termination.

 

Dont get me wrong im not looking to call you out here, just no sources.

It may because I live in the Midwest US which is normally more conservative in terms of employment compared to either coast, so I dont see this often.

[Nowak]

49 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

Based on what source or evidence? I have personally hired and fired many employees, and each were hired or fired directly in-line with the US Federal labor and anti-discriminatory laws so please do tell.  

If I don't hire someone because they applied for a position that required them to not have a certain disability, I had to be upfront and explain why. What we did would be a danger to them and their coworkers to hire them with said disability. A person cannot be fired indiscriminately, there are protections in place to protect the employee. Its called wrongful termination.

 

Dont get me wrong im not looking to call you out here, just no sources.

It may because I live in the Midwest US which is normally more conservative in terms of employment compared to either coast, so I dont see this often.

Part of it is from my own personal experience as someone who's mentally and physically disabled, but

 

https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-discrimination-in-the-workplace/

https://www.fastcompany.com/90369004/lgbt-employee-protections-by-state-map-shows-where-gay-workers-can-be-fired

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/can-you-get-fired-for-no-reason-2060736

 

As you requested.

[CarlBar]

4 hours ago, Serin said:

Good bloody on em!
America's workers 'rights' are friggen terrifying to look at from this vantage point, in that they pretty much don't exist.
Good luck to them all, every one!

 

Been meaning to give my thoughts on this but been putting it off. This provides a nice springboard and i've got free time so here i go.

 

Whilst i agree with the general sentiment above, some of the things people from the US have been saying in this thread make it clear the US style unions are incredibly flawed too. A lot of the stuff mentioned wouldn't fly in the UK, and i'm sure most of the rest of Europe, Aus, and probably a few other places too. A union cannot force people in a company to pay union dues or be part of it, they can't, (beyond keeping the employee informed of their rights and helping them represent those), keep someone from getting fired and they can't get someone reinstated once they have been fired. They largely boil down to helping you navigate the legal codes, providing representation and support in meetings, and should you need to take legal action, in legal proceedings.

 

Thats not to say they're perfect. I had the one i was part of at my last job leave me with no support when i needed it. I had a rep change midway through my employment and he basically tossed away everything the previous rep had done to give me a safety net which left me with nothing support wise when the company again tried to push me out the door, (they where known for it and had tried it before, we ought them off that time).

[suicidalfranco]

https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-discrimination-in-the-workplace/

anecdotal

 

https://www.fastcompany.com/90369004/lgbt-employee-protections-by-state-map-shows-where-gay-workers-can-be-fired

but

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/supreme-court-rules-discrimination-based-on-sexual-orientation-or-gender-identity-illegal/ar-BB15vzxl

 

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/can-you-get-fired-for-no-reason-2060736

yes but as per the article

Quote

For most states in the U.S., employment at will has become a standard precedent of employment contracts in recent years. At-will employment is an employer-employee agreement in which a worker can be fired or dismissed for any reason, without warning, and without explanation. Check with your state department of labor for regulations in your location.

Most at-will employees are informed and even required to sign waivers indicating their acknowledgment of being hired "at will." As a result, loss claims for being fired under this kind of agreement typically get denied by the court. Similarly, this type of employment also means that an employee has the right to leave their job without any reason or warning, although it is more polite and more socially acceptable to give at least two weeks' notice.

you have to agree to it in the first place when you get hired

[YoBoiAang]

17 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Based on what source or evidence? I have personally hired and fired many employees, and each were hired or fired directly in-line with the US Federal labor and anti-discriminatory laws so please do tell.  

If I don't hire someone because they applied for a position that required them to not have a certain disability, I had to be upfront and explain why. What we did would be a danger to them and their coworkers to hire them with said disability. A person cannot be fired indiscriminately, there are protections in place to protect the employee. Its called wrongful termination.

 

Dont get me wrong im not looking to call you out here, just no sources.

It may because I live in the Midwest US which is normally more conservative in terms of employment compared to either coast, so I dont see this often.

Got a question for you then:

 

Are you legally mandated to pay compensation for years of service when firing contract?

Are you legally mandated to pay compensation for firing someone on the spot?

[divito]

3 hours ago, YoBoiAang said:

Got a question for you then:

 

Are you legally mandated to pay compensation for years of service when firing contract?

Are you legally mandated to pay compensation for firing someone on the spot?

1. Depends on a lot of factors including state or provincial law. Would also depend on any termination clauses in the contract, among others. Typically, contract workers would get less severance than regular employees obviously, but there can be other factors or loopholes.

2. In Ontario, firing someone on the spot for cause, means that employee isn't entitled to severance or advance notice. For firing or letting someone go without cause, employers are required to give reasonable notice, or pay in lieu of notice (severance).

[Mihle]

On 1/4/2021 at 8:39 PM, Taf the Ghost said:

For Silicon Valley, neither the company nor the workers are fixed to the location. Makes a Union both hard to start and basically nonviable for the workers involved. Whenever everyone is a Mercenary, there isn't much desire to collectivize.

How unions are in Norway works. We have unions but there are still IT companies here.

[Taf the Ghost]

26 minutes ago, Mihle said:

How unions are in Norway works. We have unions but there are still IT companies here.

It makes sense in most places. There's the theoretical "Unions", the Communist Revolutionary Trojan Horse approach to "Unions", then there's the "hard strategic realities where a group of employees has an extremely vested interest in forming a group to protect their interests" form of "Unions". The last one is actually the ones that show up naturally and make logical sense why they would happen. It tends to be in sectors where there isn't a huge room for growth that doesn't come at the cost of employee wages while also being tethered to a specific legal environment. 

 

It's why you see Unions for most public transport. The fastest way to cut costs is employees, thus everyone has a massively vested interest in not being on the chopping block every year. Especially when "quality of work" doesn't really do much in the field. It's excessively different in IT, where everyone already understands they're basically doing Project-Based work, even with a salary. All a Union can normally do is drive up worker cost, which means the company has ever reason to just up & leave. IP can be annoying like that.

 

It's also why, for as politically Progressive as Silicon Valley is, they basically have no unions. It isn't in any employee's actual direct interest. A Union in that setting is only in the interest of the organizing Union (money) and the organizers (who clearly view it as a step on another career associated with politics). "Pay us (really me!) money so nothing changes but the employers seeks options elsewhere!". Not a great sales pitch.

[Mihle]

If the salary mentioned here for Google software engineers are true, that is insanely high. No way they need even more than that.

 

But curious, how many hours a week do they usually work? And do Google require them to work as much as they do?

[Spindel]

Americans trying to "discuss" unions 

 

[YoBoiAang]

14 hours ago, divito said:

1. Depends on a lot of factors including state or provincial law. Would also depend on any termination clauses in the contract, among others. Typically, contract workers would get less severance than regular employees obviously, but there can be other factors or loopholes.
 

In most countries, unless you really fucked up (sexual harassment, violence, etc) the fired employee must have a compensation of a month’s wage for each year of service, plus paid vacations (Seriously I can't believe there are no federal laws for paid vacations or paid maternity leave, I know that this is not the case in most white collar jobs but I feel bad for blue collar workers)

 

14 hours ago, divito said:

2. In Ontario, firing someone on the spot for cause, means that employee isn't entitled to severance or advance notice. For firing or letting someone go without cause, employers are required to give reasonable notice, or pay in lieu of notice (severance).

In my country (Chile), again unless you really fucked up, employee must compensate a month of salary for firing without a month of advance notice