
Silicon Valley’s two-tiered system for white-collar workers is under pressure - kevinconaway
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/09/tech-contractors-coronavirus/
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I've seen this "tiered" system at multiple Fortune 1k companies - did it come
from SV or something? Or is this because of Google?

I think it's just a consequence of scale - once you are a single tenant to a
building and control access, you'll need to grant your worker's access and
recurring access to outsiders who don't have the same communication channels
or management chain.

My experience as a $NOT_EMPLOYEEE badge worker at a different company was that
all communication like mentioned would be sent to my company and my manager
would be responsible for getting it to me. It happened a couple times, mostly
on different holiday schedules or maintenance.

I've also seen systems where contractors are granted temporary company
credentials and given a soft onboarding, and that seems to work but can cause
points of friction elsewhere.

I think the question we should be asking is where the dividing line is between
hiring an employee directly and subcontracting. I think the role of
journalists should not be to rag on Google for situations like this, but to
focus on companies whose subcontractors work for their own subsidiaries.

