
Google’s fires four organizers after hiring union-busting firm - callil
https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/googles-next-moonshot-union-busting-7bd2784dc690
======
throwawaylolx
This article is ranked 16th on HN first page right now, and it has 80 points,
was posted 4 hours ago, and has 16 comments. A different article [1] is ranked
8th on HN right now, and it has 31 points, was also posted 4 hours ago and it
has 18 comments. They were both posted about the same time, they have the same
number of comments, but the article that has significantly more points is
ranked significantly lower.

If I understand the HN ranking algorithm, this means this submission is
heavily reported. This is not the first time I observe this behavior for anti-
Google submissions. Is there a different explanation for this phenomenon other
than heavy reporting?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21636093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21636093)

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
Well before going full conspiracy, I believe a lot of tech people are anti
union themselves compared to some other fields. I'm not one of them but as
long as there is demand like right now for programmers, the conditions and pay
is good.

~~~
flir
> for programmers, the conditions and pay is good.

Whatever happened with that anti-poaching agreement the big SV companies had?
Because it seems to me the pay and conditions would be a lot better in a truly
free market.

~~~
otras
Do you mean the High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

------
dataduck
There has been quite a lot of noise on HN about this, and many of the other
posts have disappeared, perhaps in an attempt to stop the whole front page
getting swamped by this story.

You can find the other links here:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=fal...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=false&query=Google%20four&sort=byPopularity&type=story)

I wouldn't normally bother, but the medium article is about the least balanced
of the lot. As far as I can tell, the protesters weren't fired for unionizing,
in fact they never attempted to push for better pay or conditions; they were
fired for harassing other employees in order to further private political
agendas. This changes the story somewhat.

~~~
HelloNurse
Private political agendas? Who are they, the oxymoron party?

~~~
koheripbal
That's funny. ...but I believe the notion is that it was a political agenda
not shared by the company or the employee's peers.

------
sunstone
So Google really has hit the nadir of the wall that Microsoft hit when Gates
testified before the Justice department. It's a tough day for all of us Google
fan boys but it's time to look in the mirror and carefully consider the
current reality.

~~~
me_me_me
What always baffles me is the term fanboy, how in this day and age do we still
have people believing/having faith in a company.

They all did something abhorrent or yet to be caught doing it. And yet we have
people who would seemingly jump into fire for a brand (even in face of damning
facts).

Is this a form of ancient tribalism still at play?

~~~
pjmlp
Indeed, I don't get how people can get into "don't be evil" and other kind of
corporate propaganda.

~~~
michaelcampbell
How many years now has that NOT been a thing?

~~~
pjmlp
It was never a thing to begin with.

Anyone that believed it was only deluding themselves.

~~~
me_me_me
Ah, I wouldn't be so cynical.

Most people start with good intention. Then they get power and power corrupts.

~~~
pjmlp
That is the thing, companies aren't people.

They are composed by a group of people, each with their own set of goals and
morals, which isn't the same thing.

------
mc32
You don’t get to organize and sabotage billions of dollars of revenues and get
to keep your job.

Google set up this attitude they fostered that worked in attracting talent and
productivity. It worked for a time to improve internal issues. But as it
creeps and threatens the corporation itself, it cannot continue for
management.

But as history has borne out, you have to know when to regain control. It’s
the struggle of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, PLA and red guards.

------
rocqua
What has made google look at the facts and think this is the right way to
proceed? Do they think this won't blow up? Do they fear unions so much that
this is worth the bad PR?

Or is this just a corporate process that no-one took a big picture view on?
Because from where I am standing, this just seems like a dumb move.

~~~
otalp
People will forget about this in a few weeks

~~~
Fordec
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people
will never forget how you made them feel"

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netcan
Currently, with the way labour organising works... it seems to either go
nowhere, or go into a (belligerent) dichotomy. Professional organizers
themselves often see it as an entirely dichotomous, zero-sum game, an
inevitable conflict between opposite interests.

Overall I'm curious about unions. I haven't had much/any direct experience for
>20 years. Most of the Union examples we have today are either public-ish
sector or some old status quo union inherited from an old generation.

It's just hard for me to picture an old-school unionised version of Google or
(more to the point) Amazon.

What is the end game or success case, for a Google union?

~~~
pas
Labor should try to change regulation/policy to better help people live while
trying to find a new job and/or simply unemployed. Forcing companies to employ
someone they don't want is not a winning strategy on the long term. (Though
worrying about poor poor companies is a bit premature considering how abysmal
worker protections are in the US.)

~~~
netcan
Ultimately unions are representing an interest group, somewhat separate from
the company and itself.

...it arguably make sense to go for job security. Security is valuable... to
their members. If it's also popular with members, why not put it on the table?
Even if it does hurt long term profits/success, profits are the primary
interest of the other party to the negotiation... the
firm/employer/shareholder interest. If the firm value (to take the other
extreme) employment with n demand then they can negotiate for that, and
compromise elsewhere.

The real reason (imo) that infirable employees, unsustainable pensions and
other "union problems" happen is specifically _because_ short term takes
precedent in a negotiation. Looking 15 years ahead is the privelage of someone
who isn't making hard compromises today.

Pension and job security promises are cheap now, expensive later.

~~~
koheripbal
Programmers need job security? That does not seem to correlate with reality.

------
PunchTornado
> One of the workers set up notifications to receive emails detailing the work
> and whereabouts of other employees without their knowledge or consent.

This is shady/creepy. There is no need to know when and where a colleague is
every hour, every day. You shouldn’t be allowed to do this.

I’m glad an employee who does this is getting fired because I wouldn’t feel
safe around them.

My calendar is public, but that doesn’t mean you should be alerted every time
I go somewhere.

~~~
thundergolfer
Where are you quoting that from? I just string searched it in the article and
got nothing.

~~~
cowsandmilk
The Bloomberg article doesn’t have that exact quote, but has the google memo
with the allegations
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/google-
fi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/google-fires-four-
employees-citing-data-security-violations)

~~~
Fiadliel
HN link for that article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21636583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21636583)

------
blankety445566
Xoogler. Several people who were involved in organizing protests have also
quit over the past year or so, after posting stories of the retaliation they
faced, including being reassigned, getting bad performance reviews and such.

I jumped ship for these kinds of reasons, but looking ahead a couple years.
You simply cannot scale culture, especially when culture that prevents it from
going full balls-to-the-wall profit. Google is growing at such a rate that it
surpassed organic trajectory; it's discarding and digesting its own culture as
it swallows up the tech industry and doubles down on surveillance. The
technical capabilities of the panopticon it has already built should be the
subject of (world) government oversight. Sadly, tech giants have outpaced
democracy's ability to recognize and rein in threats to human freedom.

Google's play to be everyone's digital assistant should be recognized for what
it nakedly is: a play to absolutely dominate every single person's life and
sell those lives to the highest bidder.

------
close04
> Around the same time Google redrafted its policies, making it a fireable
> offense to even look at certain documents. And let’s be clear, looking at
> such documents is a big part of Google culture; the company describes it as
> a benefit in recruiting, and even encourages new hires to read docs from
> projects all across the company. Which documents were off limits after this
> policy change? The policy was unclear, even explicitly stating the documents
> didn’t have to be labeled to be off limits.

Is such a policy legally enforceable or is it relying on the fact that Google
can outspend them in a litigation?

~~~
brown9-2
With at-will employment, almost any reason is justifiable.

------
imvetri
Tech - Past - Leaders were science lovers, humanity saviours, Going past
limits of intelligence. Tech - Present - Contaminated with Human management
science, economics and anything that gets touched by money. Science based on
top of money, is it a real science at all?

Nope.

------
mikojan
Expropriate Google.

------
erlag
Seems there is still hope for Google. Few more actions like that and maybe
they will start behaving like a company and not like an ideological echo
chamber.

~~~
dabbernaught420
Did you ever really think that they'd let ideology get in the way of profit?

~~~
erlag
I hoped not, but could based on what I've seen in the past it seemed like they
can somehow utilise the crazies for their benefit. Now it seems things start
to balance out a bit. I hope this will get more intensive in the next months
and Google will be forced to really act.

