
Google contractors in Pittsburgh vote to unionize - Frondo
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwmnv/google-contractors-officially-vote-to-unionize
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davinic
I am a long-time dev contractor (not with Google), and I am sick of staffing
middlemen that keep 40%+ of my hourly rate and hold the money an extra month,
simply because they had access to the client's contractor system. It's
robbery.

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Yhippa
Can you go work for the client and capture that money for yourself?

~~~
scottostler
Yes of course, but companies will prefer to work with middlemen rather than
directly employing individual contractors because it makes legal and
accounting easier. There’s often a lot of hurdles to employ an individual
directly, like requiring the contractor to have a million dollar insurance
policy say

Seems like a lot of money for that, but companies are willing to pay it

~~~
davinic
I'm a corp to corp subcontractor and aside from getting nearly half of my rate
taken, I keep and pay for my own liability and e&o insurance.

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tynpeddler
White collar unions aren't a new phenomenon though they are less known:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Professional_Engine...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Professional_Engineering_Employees_in_Aerospace)

Is there a precedence for contractors unionizing? I'm curious what prevents
Google from simply not renewing their contract since they will presumably be
requesting much higher wages.

~~~
bt848
Considering that they work for a third party I imagine it is the third party's
problem.

~~~
anoncareer0212
Exactly, thank you for being the first comment to point this out instead of
taking a swing at Google/unions

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s3r3nity
I have two questions that are related:

1) Isn't this really a "problem" for HCL, and not necessarily Google? Google
can just not renew the contract, meaning all the benefits they gain from
working "for Google" go away. And if you make the assumption that Google is
hiring firms like this primarily because of cost, then their incentive as a
public company is to keep costs low and switch to another firm.

(Unless this is primarily to reduce the margins for HCL? i.e. costs to Google
stay flat, but workers take home a larger share.)

2) More of a criticism on Unions: why don't these folks just go work for
Google if they want the benefits? Either they have the ability and don't want
to, which is their choice, or they don't pass the hiring bar, which then means
any comparison to what Google employees make is not appropropriate.

~~~
thrower123
Given that it is HCL, can H1B workers unionize? They are in that constellation
of contractors that pulls a lot of people from overseas.

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throw93
As someone without any context, 1\. Why they are unionizing? 2\. Why are they
joining a union from a completely different industry? What would this achieve?

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iscrewyou
The article answers all these questions.

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bt848
It doesn't. Where does the USW come into the picture, if PATP is affiliate of
the DPE, considering that USW is _also_ an affiliate of DPE? I don't get it
and I wished the article explained it.

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msbarnett
> Where does USW come into the picture, if PATP is affiliate of the DPE,
> considering that USW is _also_ an affiliate of DPE?

The PATP is a new chapter of United Steelworker’s union. Why steelworkers?
Because the union isn’t just a steelworker’s union, although it retains that
name in common usage for historical reasons (and also because it’s short
enough to say). The union’s full name is The United Steel, Paper and Forestry,
Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers
International Union. Years of erosion of union strength and membership in the
US has led to a lot of union mergers.

The PATP is _not_ part of the DPE. The DPE is a branch of the AFL-CIO. The
AFL-CIO is a federation of unions — a metaunion, if you will. The DPE helped
the PATP organize, that’s the DPE’s job. But the DPE isn’t a union itself,
it’s an umbrella organization for professional employees represented by the
AFL-CIO’s member unions.

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baud147258
Earlier this year I left an IT & engineering contracting company (Alten, one
of the biggest here in France) and I heard from a friend who was still working
there that it was one of the union that prevented remote working because "it
would prevent them from controlling the workers".

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clavalle
I don't know much about unions.

What are some downsides to joining a union? Are there onerous obligations?

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srs_sput
Labor unions are the reason why we have paid time off and 40 hour work weeks
in the US. Unions in the US have a lot more negative press compared to other
unions in the developed world. Big business has spent decades convincing
Americans that unions are bad because for large corporations, they can make
more money by reducing benefits and pay for their workers.

I would say in general, unions in Europe are viewed in a much more positive
light. Collective bargaining allows for workers from blue collar to white
collar work receive their fair share from the company.

I would try reading more about the labor movement in the US:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States)

Please try and broaden your views. HN is an anti union echo chamber for the
most part.

~~~
isbvhodnvemrwvn
> I would say in general, unions in Europe are viewed in a much more positive
> light.

It depends on the country. When I lived in Poland my father complained a lot
about his union (Solidarność, he worked as an industrial electrician), as the
management was mostly old people who did as little as possible to not lose
their position, and did nothing outside of being in the union (they were
retired). You would have a hard time outvoting them because you'd need to get
a certain number of votes from multiple plants, around a thousand of people in
total - campaigning alone would take most of your time, on top of doing your
work. I haven't heard many positive stories about unions to be honest, and I
lived in upper Silesia, the most industrialized region - where there were lots
of them.

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kangnkodos
I'm running a pool. How long before Google drops HCL? The winner gets my
eternal respect. What's your guess?

~~~
anoncareer0212
Never, unfortunately this also means you won't pay out to me

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jiveturkey
TFA is absolutely worthless.

Better one here: [https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/24/20880727/google-
workers...](https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/24/20880727/google-workers-
unionized-contractors-hcl-tech-activism)

> These 80 employees who work as analysts and trainers for Google’s shopping
> product

To me, this sounds like low skilled labor.

> Most of the employees organizing hold college degrees, get paid as little as
> $40,000 a year, and don’t receive sick days or many of the other perks that
> direct Google employees get.

"perks that direct Google employees get" is irrelevant at best.

The first COL calculator I found (ie, first google hit, let's assume google
didn't suddenly game this result) says pittsburgh is 1/3 the cost of SF. $40k
= $120k. This is not bad at all (?) for such low skilled labor, if the "COL
curve" is linear down to $40k. Also, they say "as little as", so we know
that's the floor, not the median. (Shame on the editor for presenting it that
way.)

The lack of sick days isn't that bad if the employees have health benefits and
are not penalized for sick time off. (Just take away 1-2 weeks of salary --
the typical amount of sick days one would get.) However, if they don't have
sick days, I have doubts about the quality of their health benefits and maybe
they don't even have 401k?

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bluGill
COL is a terrible indicator. 1/3rd COL isn't really 1/3rd. If you have a large
family the requirement of a large house/apartment will make your cost of
living much worse in SF than 3x - while if you sleep in your car and cook on a
camp stove your COL is the nearly the same in both places (car registration
might be slightly more in CA). Both are extreme cases, but they get the point
across.

While I would expect a somewhat lower salary outside of SF, it wouldn't be
1/3.

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jiveturkey
> If you have a large family the requirement of a large house/apartment

Thanks. That's why I qualified that bit by noting that the COL curve may not
be linear. Due to regressive taxes, housing minimum, etc.

But without hearing from folks actually in pittsburgh, it's hard for me,
sitting here in SV, to know how good or bad $40k is.

But the relativity to SF isn't the most important part anyway. If the pay is
below market, shouldn't HCL quickly find themselves without employees?

~~~
cfallin
I lived in Pittsburgh for 8 years. It was eminently livable as a single grad
student on a ~$30k stipend, but I wouldn't want to raise a family on that or
thereabouts. Also, apartments may be cheaper but COL is an average over the
whole metro area, and decent apartments or houses in a neighborhood you'd want
to live in are a bit more. (Say $1000/mo for a nice 1-bed, or $300k for a
decent house.) Keep in mind that cars, electronics, health insurance, and
myriad other consumer goods aren't cheaper just because the city COL is
cheaper. I'd probably want to make $60k or so to actually be comfortable and
put some money away (edit: as a single person, and more than that with a
family). (Fortunately, software engineers in Pittsburgh generally make quite a
bit more than this, from what I've heard.)

