
Workers Leaving the Googleplex - maverhick
http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/portfolios/70411-workers-leaving-the-googleplex
======
jxcole
Interesting.

My Dad once sued microsoft because they had many "temporary" workers who did
not get the full benefit of full time workers. These workers were labelled as
contract workers however, he was able to win his case because at the end of
the day, they were working full time for Microsoft. Not only that, they were
often employed by microsoft for many years, even though the claim was
generally that these employees were fulfilling a short term need.

He was able to get them damages for all sorts of things, including the fact
that they were not entitled to store discounts while other employees were.

Even though he won, many companies including Microsoft still do the exact same
thing with their employees. The only difference is they are trying to keep it
under wraps so they don't get sued again.

Very likely, Google is trying to cover it's tracks in the same manner. They
are probably less worried about racism than they are about this sort of
permatemp law suit.

Let's face it, if they were doing something legal they wouldn't care if they
were getting videotaped.

From my dad's firm's website: <http://www.bs-s.com/cases/c-microsoft-
vizcaino.html>

~~~
joshes
> Let's face it, if they were doing something legal they wouldn't care if they
> were getting videotaped.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt once said, "If you have something that you
don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first
place." It was a preposterous statement assuming that the only value of
privacy is to protect one's self when they do something morally, ethically or
legally wrong. It was remarkably incorrect and offensive and everyone
(rightly) lambasted him for it.

Your statement is eerily similar. I'm not commenting on what Google has done
here. But to say that they wouldn't care about being video taped if they were
not doing something illegal does not make complete sense.

~~~
joelangeway
I agree that people ought to be entitled to keep secrets. But Google is not a
person, it is a publicly traded corporation which wields economic power on the
same scale as state governments. I don't argue that they aren't entitled to
secrets, but if they are, it is for different reasons and the comparison of
those rights is misleading.

~~~
joshes
I would agree. I do think that corporations should not be treated in precisely
the same way that individual persons are treated. Corporations have (arguably)
far too much power as is.

But I think that the level of privacy that allows one to request to not be
videotaped against their will extends to corporations in some circumstances.
Unless there is something truly fishy happening here, and there is not much
evidence that there is, I believe that Google is within their liberties to be
upset over this.

------
kylec
There's nothing surprising about a company having different classes of
employees. If that was all that the article was about, it would be a minor
curiosity. However, Google's extreme overreaction to someone trying to get
some very basic information about the other set of employees is what's
concerning. It's difficult to know how much of this story is speculation vs
fact - whether or not the yellow badged employees are really data entry,
whether there are really instructions on the back of the badge with a number
to call if someone starts asking questions. If true, though, it's highly
concerning coming from a company that flaunts the openness of their products,
and whose corporate motto is "don't be evil".

~~~
pstack
I don't think it's highly concerning that a badge has a number for employees
to call if someone starts asking questions.

The last three companies I've worked for are very big heavy hitting technology
industry names and every single one had a policy that employees are not to
give interviews and that if anyone asks you questions, you should refer them
to the PR department or other relevant division within the company. This is to
avoid situations where some random employee says something unintentionally
stupid and it gets promoted to the top of all the sites as official company
line. Or to prevent things like, you know, everyone claiming that "Wozniak
wants to return to Apple, if they ask him!" when he never said any such thing.

Additionally, you're supposed to report anyone suspicious on the campus,
whether they're trying to coat-tail into the building after you badge-in or
whether they're snooping around outside and asking questions.

Imagine you hire a big pool of people who punch in a bunch of 10 key or flip
pages on a book and press "SCAN" on the machine all day and someone comes
snooping around to ask questions about a project (the digitizing of books)
that is currently in litigation and some random jackass employee mouths off
about something they haven't the slightest clue about and now it's headline
news on all the tech industry rags?

Anyway, it's not peculiar or unusual practice. Its' very common. And from what
I've seen, this is _all_ speculation. And not even by an employee (or
journalist). It's all speculation by a guy who was hired by a company who was
hired by Google to get some footage who didn't like the racial makeup of the
people he saw walking out of the building for a few days and then started to
ask questions of employees who don't know him from any other random guy on the
campus filming stuff and asking strange questions.

The way the accusation is made and the whole "expose" is presented is just
absurd. Almost surreal, it's so silly. I can't help but think of it in the
same light as the internet meme from a couple years ago, where some guys used
Glenn Beck's techniques against him by starting up the website
"glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com" and then posted the following:

 _"This site exists to try and help examine the vicious rumor that Glenn Beck
raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. Why won't Glenn Beck deny these
allegations?"_

Except, in this case, it's _"This video exists to try and help examine the
vicious rumor that Google is classist and racist and abuses its employees. Why
won't Google deny these allegations?"_

~~~
tlrobinson
_"Almost surreal, it's so silly."_

The ominous monotone voiceover in the video reminded me of 9/11 conspiracy
theory videos.

~~~
pstack
The only reason I kept watching the video, was because I expected him to drop
some huge bomb. It definitely had the _"surveilance footage obtained during
one afternoon of filming clearly shows two yellow badgers being violently
sodomized by the white badged employees, behind the building - viewers of a
weaker disposition may want to turn away, now"_ vibe.

------
systems
Hey, first I am from Egypt.

Second, I have to admit, I am kind of struct by most of the comments here.
Most of the comment are pro google and think andrew here got it for himself.

I believe this have to do a lot with cultural differences here. Most people in
Egypt, would stand with the employee against the corporation. Most egyptians
would definitely be pro andrew. I believe the reason here is that most
Egyptians are either employees or owners of very small businesses, and would
not perceive themselves as even potentially large business owners. Egypt being
a poorer country and all. This is why most Egyptian would never try to put
themselves in google's foot and try to see things from their perspective.

I guess the opposite is true from most of the ppl commenting here, they must
think if I was google, I would have done the same, and it's probably because
they don't see it as too far fetched. Either that or the western population is
becomming alarmingly submissive to authority and unwilling to question their
action.

Google are clearly being unfair, this should not be acceptable.

~~~
trotsky
You have to understand that in the US there has been a significant anti-labor
campaign, both in the media and in politics for at least the last 40 or 50
years. It's been reasonably effective, and took serious hold in the 1980's -
many of the posters here have grown up in a world where labor issues are
mostly only discussed in a context of how worker demands are holding back
corporations. It's difficult to not have your attitudes effectively co-opted
if you're only exposed to one side of the argument for most of your life.

~~~
marshray
Oh, so people who view the world differently than you do so because they've
been brainwashed by the media and politics their whole life, whereas you are
able to see through all of that and clearly perceive the unbiased truth. That
must be a heavy burden for you to bear.

But it's good to know you're around. I'll be sure to seek you out for my re-
education next time I start to suspect I might have been co-opted.

~~~
trotsky
We are asked to have opinions on far more things than we can possibly digest
and reasonably evaluate ourselves. For this reason, we outsource most of our
opinions to others we trust - our family, our teachers, our friends, the
media, the state etc. This is the basis for propaganda, advertising, public
relations and the like.

The fact that repeated messaging on one side of an issue will shift public
opinion in aggregate towards that side is well accepted. This does not
contradict the idea that some people will reach that same position
independently.

It does suggest, however, that when comparing two populations the one subject
to just one side of a subject since birth will be more likely to agree with
that side on average than the population subject to no messaging or messaging
from the other side. This fact does not actually suggest anything about
correctness.

As an aside, I understand this is a heated issue for many, but I'm not sure
your tone improves the discussion.

~~~
marshray
You generalized my generation and "many of the posters here on HN" as being
"co-opted" and basically not thinking for ourselves.

This is the wrong board to go making that kind of assertion dude.

------
pstack
Was the voiceover being done in a closet in a Google lobby or is there another
reason for the depressed monotone? I mean, I understand we're trying to be
moody and ominous here, but the voiceover could have been retelling the story
of the Human Centipede and I'd have probably fallen asleep (or wanted to shoot
myself).

I'm not defending Google, here, because I don't know anything about them
beyond what everyone else knows from the outside. However, what do you expect
the reaction to be when you are an employ for a company contracted to provide
services to a client who grants you certain access and privileges which you
then abuse to pursue your own interests and investigations outside of the
scope of what you were employed to do?

Hell, at the end of this video, I'm still unclear what point is trying to be
conveyed. Is it just "the racial balance of the employees that I saw exiting
the building for two days didn't meet some proper balance I had in my head, so
I decided to start doing a socio-economic documentary on my employer's dime
and after everything went to shit, because of how I was conducting myself, I
put together a ten minute video to explain myself to future employers"?

I saw a lot of smiling faces exiting the building and getting into nice cars.
I don't see what the big deal is that people who are temporary or part of
menial data-entry labor are not part of the greater events and benefits and
festivities of the company. I'm sure it's that way at most companies. I'm on
the development side of things and I don't get to go to the big sales-team
getaways in Cancun or wherever else they go. And I doubt that the janitorial
staff and security staff are sharing in the staff-bonus compensation that _I_
am. And none of us are getting the several million dollar company loans to buy
our mansion that CEOs have gotten.

Perhaps this will be an unpopular sentiment, but I just got a strong vibe of
"this is my chance to be a documentary film-maker".

~~~
gradstudent
You missed the point: the guy was fired for recording conversations with other
employees. After being given permission from his supervisor to do exactly
that. On his lunch break. Wtf is that all about?

~~~
tkahn6
You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and
the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things
explicitly in his letter that Google Legal reviewed.

That is _exactly_ why he was fired. Google did the absolutely correct thing.
They don't want to deal with that shit. There's no conspiracy.

~~~
gradstudent
No accusations were leveled and, as far as I can tell, at best, Google
overreacted. To make an analogy: the guy points out the sky is blue and he's
promptly fired. Wtf?

~~~
JabavuAdams
Mentioning the word "race", "class", or "gender" in a tech setting is a big
no-no. They're huge hot-button words.

It scares people and they counter-attack reflexively, without deeply
considering the arguments. That's been my experience from work, Reddit, and
HN, in any case.

Notice that I'm not saying anything about the correctness of any particular
position on a specific issue. It's that the specifics are barely able to be
discussed because people are already in war mode.

~~~
hieronymusN
I think you bring up a good point, and its also worth exploring _why_ "race",
"class" and "gender" are such hot button issues in tech. These are issues that
many other very large companies (ex: I've worked for large financial corps in
NYC that have vibrant & entrenched diversity programs) have dealt with in much
more constructive ways.

So why do these topics blow up so big amongst the valley crowd?

~~~
dspeyer
For one thing, wrongful firing and wrongful failure-to-hire lawsuits are
common and painful. No one wants to give the employment trolls more
ammunition.

------
neilk
I used to work at Google and the "class system" was something that grated on
me from time to time.

I didn't know any yellow badge folks myself, and was ignorant of their
existence, just as the article mentions.

But red badges (contractors) are ubiquitous. In one case they fired all the QA
contractors and made them reapply for their own jobs -- we're talking about
people who had deep knowledge of certain projects, who'd been on certain teams
for years, who were valued contributors, people who we didn't want to lose.
But because they had a red badge, they were subject to petty whims of
bureaucrats from on high, unlike white badges. At least on my team, almost all
red badge QA contractors were of Indian origin, and often female.

Now that's not very different from how a normal company works. But Google just
made the distinction difficult to ignore since white badges had so many
privileges, including, for engineers, the right to reallocate themselves, or
to exploit the famous 20% time. Google's image is that they are pioneering a
different way of working, with more workplace democracy, but the truth is that
these privileges are limited to as few employees as they can get away with.

And of course, the biggest class division has to do with the people who do
physical labor and sanitation. I tend to work after hours and I also tend to
talk to people even if they're supposed to be "invisible", so I've had
conversations with some of the workers. (Ironically, one conversation
conducted using Google Translate). That person emptying your wastebasket might
be qualified to do nursing back in her home country. Oh, and it might amuse
Yahoo employees to know that their recycling program is a complete sham --
everything is emptied into the same trash containers anyway, and the workers
are forbidden from taking the cans away to cash in themselves.

~~~
yanw
For crying out loud, it's not a "class system" it's company hierarchy.

Contract workers are not employees they are temporary hired hands they get
fired and reallocated on company whim for company purposes, that is the nature
of their jobs, they are easier to fire and hire than full time 401k employees.
Not everyone gets the company car home with them.

What disturbs me is that you keep pointing to the fact that they are mostly
minorities as if Google deliberately chose minority workers for these jobs,
the sad fact is that these low end jobs are typically occupied by minorities.

~~~
sundae79
If its not a class system, whats the need for color coding badges? Don't you
think an electronic badge will prevent and authorize access no matter what
color it is.

~~~
neilk
It's so that security guards and others can enforce area bans just by looking
at your badge. For instance, some gatherings might be open only to white
badges, some to white + green, the shuttle probably isn't available to yellow
badges, etc.

~~~
sundae79
Why do you need security guards to enforce when your badge is
electronic(RFID). You swipe your badge everywhere you enter(including cafes
inside buildings for which you swipe your badge to enter), especially in a
company that is tech oriented. I dont think anyone with a white badge enter
without swiping.

~~~
jlees
there are areas (eg. meetings in cafes) where you don't have to swipe through
a security door to get in. these are policed by physical security.

------
Uhhrrr
Note to young videographers: When a company asks whether you're working on an
expose, the phrase "I’m interested in issues of class, race, and labor" will
not defuse the situation.

~~~
Sapient
When I read that phrase, I was thinking he MUST have known it was going to get
him fired.

~~~
motters
Why would being interested in sociological issues get him fired?

~~~
innes
You can claim 'sociological issues' all you like, but when people see you're a
fantasist with a laughable view of how the world works, and you're dealing in
sly insinuation and race baiting... 'sociological issues' aint gonna cut it.

Well, I say that, but with the naivety on show in this thread perhaps this guy
is onto a winner with 'sociological issues'.

------
quizbiz
Honestly, I'm not sure this is a big deal. They're hiring unskilled labor and
giving them a role at an extraordinary company. A rational management team
wanting to generate profits for risk taking investors and generate new growth,
cuts costs by eliminating benefits when possible.

They could easily get this done in India or China. If they are really doing
book scanning, I'm shocked this isn't being done in the far east. With that
perspective, this isn't far from "don't be evil".

It's not the best practice in the world but this isn't exploitation.

Perhaps it should inspire some investigative journalism. Perhaps Google could
fund a program and give these data entry people the opportunity to innovate,
rewarding them accordingly with a small scale founders' award?

Despite the assumed background of these employees, they're at Google inspiring
their kids. With so few benefits outside of their salary, they can always work
elsewhere. But why would they take fast food or something of the sort over
this?

I imagine the cleaning crew that vacuum at Goldman Sachs at night get treated
way worse.

~~~
g123g
But then how do you explain the overreaction from Google which led to the
firing of this guy. There has to be something which Google was trying
desperately to keep secret.

~~~
pstack
If I hire you to film some promotional company material for me and find that
you're using the access we granted you and the time and resources we're paying
you for to play documentary-film-maker/sociologist, I'll probably fire you,
too.

------
worldvoyageur
Minor point of clarification, as the tone of many comments seems to presume
that google fired the author of this blog. This could be, but seems unlikely
based on the blog.

The author was not employed by Google, but by a contracting firm hired by
Google. The author's actions spooked the owner of the contracting firm, who
did not want to risk his relationship and business with Google.

The author even reports his direct phone conversation with the owner of the
firm. "He told me the issue was very serious because it could jeopardize
Transvideos contract with Google and potentially lead to 60 people losing
their jobs."

That is, if Google ended their relationship with Transvideo, then the sixty
people Transvideo hired to work the Google contract would lose their jobs.

Google security may or may not have asked the firm to fire the author. Most
likely, however, I suspect the firm took the decision on its own as the
simplest, cleanest and quickest way to end an issue before the lower level
google security staff finished drafting a report that may have risked
Transvideo's relationship with Google.

So, as the owner of the firm what would you do? The choices are:

a) support an employee who plans to quit in two months, but before he does
wants to use his job to investigate "issues of class, race, and labor". The
downside is that Google might decide to work with a different firm, thereby
causing you to fire the 60 people you hired to support the contract and
perhaps lose your entire business.

b) Terminate the employee to protect your business and the sixty people who
work to support it.

Not a pleasant decision, to be sure, but the choice seems obvious even if
Google says nothing.

~~~
illumen
c) fix the issue.

~~~
eropple
There is no issue to fix.

------
geuis
What first-world, over privileged bullshit. (Paraphrasing) "The yellow badges
don't get the same fancy meals, backpacks, get to ride the multi-colored
bicycles, or listen to authors talking for an hour". What utter non-sense
bullshit.

"Oh, its a good thing I got fired because I have to go back to grad school."

"I'm going to talk in a post-adolescent semi-deep but monotonous tone for 11
minutes to talk about how Racist Google Is".

I really want to buy this yuppie, preppie child a ticket to anywhere in
America that isn't Google or Haaaaaarvard and let him see what its like to
grow up on food stamps and welfare in the deep south, or better yet just drop
him off anywhere that isn't a modern country.

~~~
AlexC04
Despite the downvotes you've gotten (I know PG removed them, but I can still
tell by color) I really think you've got a good point.

I honestly _felt_ at least some of the same vitrol that comes across in your
post, but suppressed it for the purposes of discussion.

In reading your response, I had quite a cathartic reaction. I actually felt
myself relax. (I hadn't even realized I was holding tension - neat!)

Regardless of any other votes you get, thanks for putting up an honest
reaction.

~~~
geuis
Hey Alex, can't find any contact info for ya. Shoot me an email or find me on
Twitter, geuis.teses@gmail.com or @geuis

------
latch
The divide between people from different backgrounds was really obvious to me
once I moved to Asia. There's an extreme class system at play. There are
certainly places with this is exploited, but this isn't always the case. Often
times they are just paid less, have less benefits, and work harder (at least,
physically)...but they are still free, treated well, and seem generally happy.

From the description given, there seems to be some parallels between yellow
badges and what I've seen in Asia.

I'm not sure that this is a bad thing. We can't all be PhDs earning high 6
figure salaries. There is a need for mundane labor, requiring little
education/creativity. Maybe it's weird because it's google, and the
juxtaposition is great. But what's the difference between doing in in the
Valley and outsourcing it to China/India? If Google did outsource these jobs,
people would just be QQing about that instead.

As for the race angle, it's hardly Google's problem/responsibility. This is a
fundamental cancer within the US that requires serious effort/rethinking
required to even begin to address the situation.

~~~
leon_
> There is a need for mundane labor, requiring little education/creativity.

Well actually there has not been any real need for that for years now. With
automation we could replace all those "dull" work places.

But the problem is: What do we do with the now unemployed masses? If we want
to keep our capitalistic system that is.

~~~
tkahn6
> Well actually there has not been any real need for that for years now.

Really. You think OCR technology is at the point of sophistication or expense
such that it would be economically beneficial for Google to deploy such
technology over hiring humans but they don't do so to maintain our
"capitalistic system"?

You think there's some conspiracy of corporations to waste money on unskilled
labor to maintain capitalism?

~~~
leon_
See, economical benefit. There's the problem. I say it's possible but not with
our current form of society.

> You think there's some conspiracy of corporations to waste money on
> unskilled labor to maintain capitalism?

Think about it and answer this question for yourself.

------
qeorge
I've heard Google accused of having a "caste system" before, always because
contractors aren't allowed X Google perk.

They may not realize that Google walks a fine line with the IRS here. Its
cheaper to pay contractors (write off the fees vs. payroll tax, for instance),
so many companies use contractors like employees. This is illegal, and if the
IRS decides your contractor is really an employee, they will force you to pay
taxes as such.

So Google must be careful to maintain a clear distinction between employees
and contractors. I suspect the badges and tiered privileges are just that.

He did mention "red badge" contractors having more privilidges than "yellow
badge." I can't speak to that, and perhaps Google does need to take a hard
look at its hiring practices. But it seems more likely to me that the OP is
encountering a feature of our tax system, not a deliberate attempt to underpay
minorities.

~~~
jcampbell1
I think your confusing two separate things. Independant contractors that
receive a 1099, and "contractors" where a company pays another company for
services.

The IRS doesn't care if companies contract services from other companies. They
don't like full time employees being treated as 1099 employees because tax
collection is more difficult. 1099 employees, as independent business owners,
can write off many expenses which are hard to audit and result in lower tax
revenue.

------
g123g
Lots of people are commenting that maybe the yellow badges might be working on
something secretive that Google does not want them to share with others. But
this does not make sense for 2 reasons - 1) I am pretty sure there will be
some software engineers in Google who are currently working on something
secretive but they will not be under these draconian restrictions of not to
talk to others or call the security immediately if a fellow Googler approaches
them.

2) These ppl can go home and can talk to their spouses, their friends etc. and
let them know what they are working on. So making sure that they don't talk to
anyone in Google during their office hours is not going to help keep their
projects secretive.

So there has to be some other angle to this story which does not involve
secretiveness of their projects.

------
yesbabyyes
It sounds curious that people with a yellow badge are forbidden to speak to
people with badges of another color.

If that's true, Google has some explaining to do, methinks.

~~~
learc83
Why wouldn't Google want them talking to other employees? Could it be b/c they
are working on a confidential project?

------
kstenerud
Large companies work by inertia. Google is actually more agile for its size,
but it's still a big company and ruled by inertia.

In a large company, the majority of people don't know each other, and don't
communicate on a daily basis. This means that things of interest get passed
from person to person, usually by email, and so the original intent of the
message tends to get lost due to the 3rd or 4th reader having no idea what
kind of person the original writer is, what his writing style is, whether he's
being serious or joking, etc.

As a result, you end up with lots of requests for clarification, especially
where it's an event that falls outside of the normal routine. It takes a lot
to rile up a company, but Andrew did it expertly, pushing all the buttons his
background in sociology and politics gave him a solid understanding of.

Notice how it went through three separate "request for clarification"
requests, each more formal than the last. Each time, he responded in a
passive-aggressive manner that re-pushed those same buttons.

As it pushed its way through the various departments and echelons of the
company, such a message would become more and more threatening as the person
became less and less known. People go into CYA mode (better safe than sorry),
the company momentum changes and things start rolling.

Let's look at the course of events again:

1: Andrew is intercepted by someone who is probably a manager (notice his
description "Agitated Chubby White Male", with the connotations of
bourgeoisie).

2: The manager takes Andrew to explain the situation to security (pointing out
that the security guard is a black man in a menial job, with "sedate" added
for connotations of passively accepting his proletariat fate).

3: Security contacts Transvideo to get clarification from Andrew and find out
his intentions (notice his description "so that the issue can be filtered and
separated neatly into their bracketed accounts", with the connotations of the
soulless bureocratic corporate machine).

At this point, the security department is unsure of Andrew's intentions. Was
it just harmless curiosity? Is he a plant, trying to dig up dirt to embarrass
Google? They can't know for sure, so they ask him to clarify his position.

What Andrew sends back is a passive-aggressive letter covering class, race,
and labor, all hot button topics. His manager asks for even more
clarification. People are getting very nervous at this point.

Andrew's response is political dynamite, once again using passive-aggressive
techniques to all but accuse Google of racist discriminatory labor practices.

That someone with "backgrounds in sociology and political philosophy" wouldn't
understand what panic his second letter would produce is incredibly hard to
believe. In fact, Andrew's entire description is so slanted and colored that
I'm inclined to suspect that he deliberately set about getting himself fired
so that he could trumpet "Google is Evil!" from his blog, Michael Moore style.

~~~
mmaunder
Discrediting the source or his delivery doesn't change what this looks like on
face value:

People of color coming out of a building who have no access to the same perks
as other employees and where the intention is clearly to avoid publicity of
their low cost labor.

~~~
haberman
There are lots of white people who come out of buildings at Google every day
who don't have access to the same perks as the CEOs. Is this news?

The intention is to avoid someone making a big stink over a non-issue, because
empirically people like yourself will latch onto Michael Moore style "exposes"
and make a non-issue into a big problem.

~~~
rdtsc
> The intention is to avoid someone making a big stink over a non-issue

A better way to do that is to ... not raise a big stink over it. That is
exactly what Google didn't do. If they'd just let this guy talk to people and
post his video or photos online, maybe a a couple hundred readers of his blog
would have seen the story and it would have been a real "non-issue" as you
say. By getting the guy (especially a guy they determined likes to film
"exposes") fired they pretty much guaranteed this to become and "issue". This
the basic Streisand effect in action :
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>

~~~
haberman
> If they'd just let this guy talk to people and post his video or photos
> online, maybe a a couple hundred readers of his blog would have seen the
> story and it would have been a real "non-issue" as you say.

Most of the indignant comments on this story are about the faux-
racism/classism, not about his getting fired. Slacktivism on reddit and even
HN loves stories about purported injustice. Those flames have plenty of fuel
whether or not "the man" is involved in shutting down the messenger.

------
n_are_q
So if he handed off all the copies of the video he had to google, where did
the video in the post come from? Is it a totally different video?

~~~
nkassis
He said tapes not copies. They wanted a the tapes from both days they only got
the one day. He didn't say that they asked him to destroy all the copies.

~~~
n_are_q
Well, except for this part of the post:

Burt had a questionnaire to which my answers were :

-I was given permission to use the camera by Carl, a superior. -The tape I used was mine. -I do not have possession of the footage I shot anymore and it does not exist in any other form.

Anyway, i'm not looking for foul play, just curious what it is he posted.

------
g123g
Wow. This sounds like some kind of sweatshop operating within the Google
campus and they are afraid of this getting exposed. Still not able to
reconcile the public image of Google and what is described in this post.

------
ck2
Getting them to write out a confession letter is classic detective-from-tv
stuff.

How naive are people not to realize you are being made to declare everything
that will be used to terminate you (and in court)?

Yellow badge Google sounds very much like a microfilm company I did computer
work for.

------
blackRust
A lot of the discussion here is around what I would like the call the US/EU
(not restricted to the EU but that is what I am more familiar with) divide in
work ethics and what is expected from you.

In the US (apparently from comments) they can terminate your contract for
(almost) any reason. In the EU (and apparently Australia) they have to build a
stronger case for firing you.

Differences are also clear regarding overtime: usually paid in the EU and
expected and unpaid in the US.

There is a more than we realise that separates us (EU) from the US and if this
happened in the EU I (hope) people would be in support of Andrew. I don't know
enough about the US to say whether or not this is acceptable behaviour from
Google.

I would appreciate if you mention where you live/are from in your comments to
enhance perspective to the discussion.

~~~
DrJokepu
What this guy did (interviewing other employees with a camera without
appropriate authorisation, that is, heavily breaching the security standards
of his employer) is Gross Misconduct and that's an acceptable basis for
immediate termination anywhere in Europe. If you don't believe me, give it a
try at work on Monday and see what happens.

~~~
darklajid
Germany (I'm blissfully unaware how that compares to the rest of Europe. It
might be that we're on the more aggressive side of the 'protect the employee'
scale) here:

No way would that get me fired. They could try, but it would be very painful,
I'd make sure that I get a good compensation at least (or sue them to
rehire/keep me). You'd have a hard time fireing anybody for a _single_
offense. Ignoring the question of whether this really is a big deal anyway,
unless I do something very, very stupid (strip in front of my coworkers. Grab
some cash/remove the projector from a conference room and install it at
home/physically threaten/engage someone) you've a hard time to send me home.
For things that aren't valid reasons for immediate termination but still
considered baaaad you'd need to reprimand me first. Maybe you got a case the
second time I do the same thing or something similar.

I understand that this is a different world and as others have pointed out:
This view conflicts with the entrepreneurial 'I want to start a company and
manage my team as I want to'. But it should be an interesting exercise to
understand that this rules exist. And while I'm largely ignorant politically
and cannot judge or compare this situation (I never experienced something
else):

It does seem to work without grinding the local business to a halt after all..

------
learc83
It seems pretty obvious to me that the reason the yellow badge worker's aren't
given those benefits is to keep them separate from the rest of the work force
for security reasons (to keep them from talking about their work)

They allow janitors and food service workers access to these perks, it seems
kind of weirdly targeted if they are just doing it to save money.

They're probably doing work that is so confidential that google doesn't want
to give them the chance to socialize with other workers.

------
g123g
I agree that Google is within its right to deny them lunch, shuttle services
or whatever fancy perks they dish out to their regular employees. But what I
can't understand is the discrimination that Google is perpetrating against
them by denying them the basic human privilege of talking to another human
being.

As employees Vic Gundotra or Marissa Mayer will be knowing more company
secrets than these guys will know in their lifetime. Do they also have a phone
number on the back of their badge to call if somebody unknown approaches them?
Are they also prevented from talking to other employees so that they don't
leak those secrets? Why is Google afraid that only the yellow badges cannot
keep the company secrets? What if their supervisor simply tells them that what
they are working on is a company secret. Like almost any other employees why
Google thinks they can' keep it a secret? Why do they have to impose this
almost draconian measure of human segregation only for them?

------
EToS
Security in large corporations are often very tight fisted.. If you forget
your access card where i work, even if the security personnel know you, they
have to walk you up to your desk like a lost child! until some manager
'claims' you

In this particular case i feel for this guy, but all security are going to see
is a temp contractor who's making videos of google employees, and asking
strange questions to interview them.. Their probably thinking either an
undercover journalist (very likely at a company like google) or somebody who's
just acting weird and would need future monitoring.. neither of which are
really desirable!

not to mention during lunch breaks any normal employee would have one thing on
their mind.. stuffing their face!

------
scotty79
It's a funny thing when secret rules you have never agreed to and are not the
part of the law get you fired despite you complete honesty and openness.

It has very totalitaristic look&feel when you have to be careful all the time
so you always obey unknown rules, breaking of which might lead to severe
consequences.

~~~
jcnnghm
The secret rule that your employer may not want to pay you, allow you on-site,
and provide you access to their resources while you film an exposé on their
labor practices that could potentially open them to outside scrutiny, legal
and otherwise. Especially as you try to paint them as racists when they ask
what you're doing. They would have been justified for firing him for
stupidity.

~~~
scotty79
He was fired for talking to other employees (he secretly not supposed to) and
acquiring gear and permision to film some of them and actually doing it (what
he secretly not supposed to) but mainly about being honest and transparent
about reasons for his curiosity.

You are right. He must have been a retard and as such he wasn't fit to do any
job for Google contractor.

~~~
jcnnghm
I'm pretty sure he was fired because the honest and transparent reasons he had
were totally inappropriate, and he was condescending and argumentative while
positing some rather harsh allegations.

I did not say anything about him being a "retard", I said they should have
fired him for stupidity. There is a difference.

~~~
scotty79
I guess that I'm not that sensitive to racial issues as I was born and raised
in all white country, to see more than just curiosity about what yellow
badgers do why they are mostly people of color and why they don't have perks
and why people generally don't know them.

I also fail to see how him being perceived as argumentative and condescending
makes him unfit for the job.

I used "retard" as a synonym for "having the quality of stupidity" perhaps
incorectly. I apologize.

------
patrickgzill
Aren't a lot of Microsoft'ies also contractors? If you are a contractor and
rock the boat, you get fired; that is pretty much the way it is.

~~~
jdp23
Microsoft's contractors are "orange badges", and their email addresses start
with a- or v- depending on what kind of contractor they are. They're very much
treated as second-class people, ever since the 1990s class action suit
(Vizcaino v. Microsoft, for those keeping score at home).

------
motters
I think someone from Google needs to explain what went on here. Why is what's
going on in the 3.14159 building regarded as top secret? If they're just
OCRing documents surely that's no big deal. People shouldn't be fired simply
because they're interested in sociology.

~~~
Lewisham
OK, I'm an intern at Google, and I'm NDA'd, so I can only tell you what could
be deduced from if you were a visitor at Google and walking through the halls.

It's not that stuff is top secret, it's that information access is regulated
to those who aren't full-time employees. Interns (green IDs) and contractors
(red IDs) are given what they need to perform their job role, and little more
than that. This guy was beginning to look at information he wasn't allowed to,
and that should have been fairly clear to him. It's not that there is
something to "hide", it's that information is limited for temporary employees,
and that's just normal information security practice at any company of real
size.

In regards to the race claim he's fishing for, I think it's rubbish.
Regardless of what the make up of the temporary workers at 3.14 are, I see
lots of contractors who are non-white (and contractors get access to most
perks), lots of full-time employees are Indian and Asian. He's trying to draw
out some conclusion that Google has discriminatory hiring practices based on
the lower-income, lower-skilled jobs being made up of non-white, but that's
just the statistical make-up of that demographic in California.

~~~
sundae79
You would think an electronic badge would still prevent access no matter the
color. But then it would be too difficult to feel special or discriminate.

~~~
eropple
Or, you know, they might have them for stuff like area checking.

------
dataminer
I have worked in two different kind of companies during summers while I was in
highschool, a Japanese auto parts manufacturing company had a very interesting
structure, from the President to the temp assembly line associate, all wore
white uniforms when they arrived at work. Management offices were in middle of
the factory floor completely accessible to any employee. Everyone sat in same
cafeterias and enjoyed similar company perks. There was absolutely no
segregation and the flow of ideas were amazing, problems got reported and were
acted upon fast, it was very agile company. I really enjoyed working there and
so did other employees.

The other company (auto parts manufacturer as well) had similar badge system
as discussed in the article, employees with lowest ranking badge were
considered the "lowest class", no one except their immediate supervisor talked
to them and listened to them. This segregation meant they had no incentive to
work intelligently or report problems. All they wanted to do was to do their
jobs and get the hell out.

It was quite educating to work under the two contrasting management structure.
The first one was a breath of fresh air and the second was very suffocating.

------
geoffw8
Am I the only guy who thinks the guy (Andrew?) was way out of line here. You
put yourself in the firing line for absolutely no reason relevant to you.

~~~
brown9-2
It's not up to us to decide what is relevant or not to this guy as far as a
reason to get fired or to look into something.

------
namank
Theres probably more to it than just that. Given Google's history, I have to
account for other factors - maybe these are temporary employees being hired to
a special program (as in a remedial or 'second chance' program).

Or maybe this is Google's new way of boosting revenue!

Lets not jump to conclusions, this will definitely get picked by major news
outlets and then Google will have to respond

------
sundae79
Thankfully the fortune 500 company that I work for in Bay Area doesn't have
color coded employees. I heard Yahoo does the color coded employees and
actively discriminate as well.

------
rmrm
Seems to me there are two issues:

1.) Yellow badge worker treatment -- most of the comments here seem to accept
his description of their work life (right or wrong) as fact, it is
unsubstantiated to me. I see a video of people getting in their cars and going
home, that is all. Considering he claims to have never spoken to any of them,
except for a brief encounter before security grabbed him, it would seem even
he is admitting he does not have first hand knowledge of anything he said. It
is an entirely less than complete view (and possibly incorrect description) to
which to draw any conclusion.

For that reason most of the discussion seems premature to me. With that said,
no luxury transport, no free meals, etc -- does in fact describe the working
conditions of 99.9% of Americans. A company treating people normally is not
substantially interesting, tho apparently juxtaposition makes it so -- because
what is interesting, and has always been interesting about Google, is that
they treat their employees extraordinarily well.

2.) Was Google "right" for wanting him off the campus? Sure -- they contracted
with his employer to provide some service, not to film an expose about Google
itself,made possible only by being on the Google campus with unfettered access
to the grounds. I realize he says he did not film it with the idea it would be
an expose, but film is shot to be shown, and in his letter he makes it fairly
clear what his interest was in filming, the assumptions and/or understanding
he had while filming -- which gives a fairly clear picture of why he was
filming. And it resulted in just about the kind of film you would expect. That
isn't what he was there for. There is nothing that even remotely rises to a
whistleblower type defense, as there is nothing remotely illegal about what he
claims to be the yellow badge worker treatment. If he had in fact been filming
something illegal (or at least in some way out of the norm in a negative
fashion, even), my opinion would be more substantially in his favor -- in
relation to how egregious the treatment actually was.

~~~
simon_weber
I also fail to find the treatment of the yellow badge employees surprising or
unreasonable. Just like you said, the only reason people find it interesting
is because the yellow badges work next to employees with some of the most well
known perks in the industry.

Why does this juxtaposition come about in the first place? It seems to me that
the amount of effort an employer will want to go through to keep/attract a
certain type of employee is proportional to how much effort they would have to
expend to replace that employee. I would argue it is relatively more difficult
to replace campus workers than ScanOps personnel (since campus workers are
higher skilled and also must become acclimated to the campus on the terms of
the employer, while ScanOps can just sign up and start scanning), Google
doesn't expend the same effort to keep the employee. Nothing nefarious is at
work; a large profitable company is trying to stay that way.

That being said, the reaction Google had does seem a bit over the top, but I
would agree that this is mostly the fault of Andrew's tone.

------
amadvance
Does Google know that pi is 3.14159~ and not 3.1459~ ? :)

------
nutjob123
This story is clearly one sided and the facts are not fully represented. It is
possible that Google managers were very protective over information about
people hired as contractors. This is a tax issue, Google must show that these
contract workers are not "de-facto" employees. Looking at who sets working
hours is part of a logical test used in some cases. Maybe they were scared of
setting off red flags at the IRS. See the microsoft and fedex cases to learn
more about this issue.

[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1153/is_n10_v120/ai_2...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1153/is_n10_v120/ai_20198264/)

(EDIT) they also likely canned the guy for being an idiot and causing trouble

------
bane
I don't think he understands how contractors work (Google didn't hire you you
git, Google contracted your company and your company placed you there to fill
the contract) or hourly labor works (you don't get privileges or benefits), so
he turns it into a ridiculous conspiracy.

 _Breaking news!_

Google has hourly employees! - You don't say?!

Google has contractors! - Really?!

Let's explore the narcissistic exploration of self-hurting section by section:

 _"In September 2007 I was hired jointly by Transvideo Studios and Google"_

No you weren't. You were hired by Transvideo Studios who filled a contractor
slot on their video production contract with Google.

 _"I had access to a personally unprecedented amount of privileges, but was
not entitled to the ski trips, DisneyLand adventures, stock options, and
holiday cash bonuses"_

That's because you weren't a Google employee. You were a Transvideo Studios
employee. Do you expect to receive benefits from another company just because
you happen to be walking around on their campus?

 _"The workers wearing yellow badges are not allowed any of the privileges
that I was allowed – ride the Google bikes, take the Google luxury limo
shuttles home, eat free gourmet Google meals, attend Authors@Google talks and
receive free, signed copies of the author’s books, or set foot anywhere else
on campus except for the building they work in."_

So hourly employees aren't entitled to the benefits package of salaried exempt
employees? And the way Google is setup is to pool employee benefits in and
around their building, ergo the only way for hourly employees to not receive
the benefits package is to work in a different facility?! Stop the presses!
It's a conspiracy!

I almost stopped reading there, hand stuck to my forehead, but then I saw this
as I was closing the page and was hooked to the rest of this like watching a
train wreck happen.

 _"To Whom It May Concern,

Yesterday I was outside the Google Book Search building, which is adjacent to
the building I work in, and had the chance to talk to a few employees while
they were leaving work. Most of them are people of color and are supposedly
involved in the labor of digitizing information. I’m interested in issues of
class, race, and labor, and so out of general curiosity I wanted to ask these
workers about their jobs. I am aware of internal mechanisms for discussing
labor issues with Google, and had no intention of defaming the company. I was
not aware of how secretive the Book Search project is, but now understand how
seriously my curiosity could jeopardize not only my own job and Transvideos’
relationship with Google, but also my legal situation because of the non-
disclosure agreement I signed.

I apologize for bothering you with this innocent mistake and can assure you
that in the future I will be more cautious about respecting confidentiality at
Google.

Sincerely,

Andrew Wilson"_

You're also a liar. Your intention was not to explore your passing interest in
labor, class or race, but to feed your own self-importance by uncovering a
made-up conspiracy of class warfare at Google, where the man is oppressing a
silent minority of underclass poor people from enjoying the rights and
privileges of the ruling overclasses. Did you mention that you were secretly
video taping this?

You wanted to document this in as dishonest a way as possible, "exposing" this
"dark secret" to the world the way PETA exposes animal cruelty in meat
processing plants, with hidden cameras, a blog post loaded with terms-and-
phrases-of-controversy.

 _"But Marco called back in a frenzy, saying that Google security had proof of
me outside, filming yellow-badged workers leaving the 3.1459~ building on two
separate occasions. I told him this was true and he said that Google legal was
now involved, and they needed the video tapes immediately."_

So of course your immediate innocent reaction, which you didn't think was
important to share with anybody, was to secretly videotape people coming and
going from their place of work without their permission.

 _"Burt then presented me with a document that would terminate my employment
on the basis of me using __Google’s video equipment__ during working hours
__(although it was during my lunchbreak)__"_

It's still Google's equipment you nitwit.

 _"I told him I could take the shuttle home, as I’ve gotten on without my
badge numerous times, but he insisted on driving me to the CalTrain station."_

Really? You don't understand why they wanted to escort you personally off
campus? After you were abusing company equipment, violating security, secretly
filming your coworkers and pretending not to find the film, then documenting
your lie by putting the video you couldn't find up on your site, then lying to
your managers about the entire thing? What are you 8? It boggles the mind.

I wonder how many of the yellow badges got fired as a result of this asshole?

Wake me when this guy grows up and starts seeing a psychiatrist. And yes,
please keep this post up so other companies know not to hire you either.

~~~
prosa
Wow. Is this what HN is getting reduced to, that the top-ranking comment is
filled with ad hominem attacks?

Whether you agree or disagree with the author's motivations, at least be
civil. "Nitwit", "liar", "What are you 8?" ... ugh.

~~~
yanw
But the author is clearly delusional.

He doesn't seem to understand the difference between being an employee for a
company that was hired by Google and being a Google employee and instead
concocts this story about class warfare and injustice.

~~~
allenbrunson
it would certainly have been possible for the comment author (bane) to have
made that point without all the nasty name-calling.

~~~
yanw
The blog author made his fair share of 'nasty name-calling' as well (bordering
on slander, really).

~~~
algorias
...which does not, in fact, suddenly make it acceptable for others to follow
suit.

------
Xyic
We do not know the conditions in the building. They probably have their own
cafe there. Perhaps someone should investigate if they ever need to leave for
lunch :)

------
jarin
As a minority myself, I think it's unfortunate that the proportion of people
of color is apparently unbalanced between the "yellow badges" and the "red and
white badges".

However, I think this reflects more on the disparity in Ivy League schools
(which Google prefers to hire its full-time workers from) and the computer
science/manual labor fields in general than any inherent racial bias within
Google itself.

------
DanielN
I'm sorry guys I must be missing something here. I figure that this video and
transcript must have some deeper meaning than what I'm grokking from it as it
is currently the top story with a whopping ~500 points.

To my knowledge, cultural hierarchy is very standard within pretty much all
companies regardless of size. Not everyone gets a company car, their own
office, the same health benefits, or if you are privileged enough to work at a
company that provides them, the same gourmet lunch as has been stated
elsewhere in these comments. Furthermore, the existence of sub-hierarchy
(contract and temporary) workers is very common in larger companies. To my
understanding, these temp and contract workers usually enjoy few if any
benefits provided by the company as they are rarely actually employed by the
company they are working for but rather an agency.

In addition to this, it is pretty standard procedure to ban all unauthorized
taping on company campuses. If anything, to my uninformed mind the fact that
an employee got as far as actually taking unauthorized video footage is if
anything a credit to Google's openness (or whatever you want to call it).

So, I guess my question is: Where is the interesting aspect of this? Is the
popularity of this really just due to the "divulging" that Google employs
workers that aren't provided the same benefits as some of its other workers?
Is it the existence of a "class system" in Google to show worker's
authority/hierarchy level? If it is one of these reasons, there must be
something else I'm missing as without having seen this story I would have just
assumed that these things existed at Google.

I ask this as a sincere question as obviously this has gained the attention of
a large portion of this community which I hold as very intelligent. I am
driven to assume that whatever it is that is engaging about this story is
simply going over my head.

~~~
gtirloni
I guess the interesting aspect of it is that Google sells a image that the
Googleplexes of the world are immense areas of joy and happiness where people
have access to awesome benefits.. when in fact, what's the % of people that
really that access to that?

Perhaps Google shouldn't make such a big deal out of its workplace benefits
when there is evidence that it's just a minority that has access to them.

I understand even if Google wanted to keep its benefits private, it couldn't
control how much the mainstream media gives attention to them.

Anyway, I hope to have answered your question. You raised valid points and,
IMHO, it's just a matter of perception... people think Google is something
when it's not (there area varying degrees of gray here).

------
asadotzler
What bothers me most about this is that these workers have a shift that
essentially makes them invisible to the rest of Google employees. They come in
many hours before the bulk of Googlers and they leave at a time when there is
the least foot traffic on the campus.

There's a clear intention to keep this group segregated and hidden from the
rest of Google and that's a bit disturbing.

------
mail2345
I'm pretty sure most companies reduce benefits for less skilled workers, just
not as clear cut as this.

I wonder what's with the confidentiality at book search. The first two things
that pop to mind is keeping the yellow badges secret and preventing their
enemies from messing around(publishers are pretty mad at the whole book
scanning thing).

------
yarian
There's been a lot of comments saying something to the effect of "this guy
does not understand the difference between full-time employees and
contractors" or "people doing manual work should be paid less than employees."

Yet the author mentions:

"I found this social arrangement interesting, and ... decided to investigate
the rationale behind Google’s decision to exclude the yellow badge class from
most privileges the company has to offer, despite the fact that their labor
...[is] being contracted to Google by another company just like ... other
informational laborers, the kitchen staff, the shuttle drivers, the
custodians, and more."

It seems like what piqued his interest was that there seemed to be a disparity
between the benefits of this particular group of workers and other normally
considered low-skill work like the others he mentions.

------
scarmig
As far as sociology or expose goes, the article is uninteresting. What, a
giant corporation uses every legal means at its disposal to make sure it gets
only good PR? What, there exist serious race and class disparities in the
United States that manifest themselves in the workplace? What, Google has a
good PR department that doesn't reflect actual internal practices? Quelle
horreur!

What's more interesting from a sociological perspective is the range of most
of the reactions here on Hacker News, which seem to vary between "he doesn't
understand that this is just how things work" to brick shitting freak out
("passive aggressive", "nitwit", "see a psychologist").

If you find yourself immediately jumping into defense mechanisms, stop for a
second and think about why that is.

------
pnathan
Well. Either Andrew was not sufficiently informed of security policies or
Google overreacted. IMO.

I would presume training for on-site contractors includes the security
policies about job knowledge and ability to talk about it. Likely a handbook
or something...

Or, if Andrew was within limits of the policy, Google overreacted.

At any rate, certainly if someone I didn't know came up and wanted to ask me
questions about my job (which by the way would be company confidential), I'd
be suspicious; I'd likely call security, depending on if I'd seen him around
before or not.

I appreciate that it is interesting about the socio-economic divide. I would
want to ask questions too, but, uh, I'd like try not to be utterly oblivious
to the obvious security concerns.

------
looper888
this is the most interesting read I've found on HN in a long time. Thank you
for publishing it.

------
anatoli
A lot of people posting about how this is a 'blog' or 'complaint' or whatever
seem to be completely missing the fact that this is an artist's portfolio and
an actual art piece that has been previously exhibited.

It's clearly meant to generate discussion regarding racial and human rights
issues, as well as the clash of public/private space. I do not see a single
hint that the artist is in any way unhappy or resentful, but IMO is rather
opening up an issue for discussion. (See his CV:
<http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/resume>)

I'm shocked at all the angry responses.

------
matheusalmeida
I'm scared! Am I the only one that sees no big deal about scanning books? What
is so secretive about it? I think they are doing an amazing job and I'd love
to know how many books they can scan every day, etc...

The second thing is that I don't understand why are you calling him racist. I
believe that things in the USA are quite different from I'm used to.. You can
get sued for anything. I heard that an employer can get sued for asking things
like age, sex, height, color during an interview for a job.

------
ajays
Meh, too much back-and-forth for me to jump in.

There may be a perfectly good reason for Google to exclude contractors from
the "Googly perks": the Microsoft lawsuit.

If Google treats the contractors just like its employees, then the contractors
can turn around and sue Google. Google needs to maintain a distinction between
contractors and FTEs. Recall the Microsoft lawsuit filed by contractors:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp>

------
mateuszb
mind blown. where's the don't be evil thing ?

------
Aloisius
I wonder why it is confidential. The only reason I can come up with is they
don't want any more copyright infringement lawsuits and they're scanning
Disney books...

------
sudhirj
Why is it such a surprise that different kinds of employees are treated
differently and receive different perks? If I went to any factory in the US I
wouldn't expect to see the janitors being picked up and dropped in limousines,
or the housekeeping staff joining in on the company vacations. This isn't
exactly the same thing, but it's like complaining that construction workers
don't get paid as much as architects and investors.

------
sean12345
I think this is the job: [http://us.randstad.com/content/findjobs/job-
details/index.xm...](http://us.randstad.com/content/findjobs/job-
details/index.xml?id=76572&currentPage=1&__version=1&WT.mc_id=Indeed&utm_source=Indeed&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=Indeed)

~~~
gtirloni
"2 year FULL TIME TEMPORARY"

ROFL. Someone has a pretty loose definition of "temporary".

------
CapitalistCartr
If I call a plumber, I want my plumbing fixed. I don't care about the
plumber's work benefits, problems, or anything else about his personal life; I
want my plumbing fixed; that's why I called a plumber. I don't have plumbing
problems enough to hire one personally; that's why plumbing contractors exist.

~~~
gtirloni
The reality is that in the IT world at least, lots of companies hire other
companies in "body shop" fashion. People work for them as contractors for long
periods of time (years) without the benefits of a full-time employee.

I understand your point but it would only apply if these people were at Google
doing their job for days or few months. We just don't know.. but the reality
of most of other companies indicates they could probably be there really as
2nd class employees that are cheaper.

Last IT companies provide this kind of labor to Fortune100 companies all the
time. It's really not hard to find someone employed by $Big_IT_company that
has worked at $Big_Financial_company for years and years.

------
lubos
this made me sad. anyone still got illusion that google left china because of
human rights?

~~~
jrockway
Getting paid to go to lectures about books is a "human right" now?

~~~
guard-of-terra
Being treated equally to the people around you is a human right, should be
anyway.

Because being treated inequally, deprived of things people around you take for
granted, can damage oneself seriously.

~~~
jrockway
So if I work at a company where the CEO gets a corporate jet, that jet becomes
a "human right"?

~~~
reubenyeah
No, but if you work at a company where even the janitors get free lunch, you
should get free lunch.

~~~
jrockway
But if the programmers that get free lunch are working for below-industry
wages, and the data-entry people are getting industry wages, isn't it the
people with the free lunch that are getting screwed over?

~~~
exit
they're both getting screwed. getting screwed by capitalists is not a zero sum
economy.

~~~
hollerith
Someone does not know what a zero-sum transaction is.

------
bugsy
Wow, so these yellow badges are sort of the plantation slave labor then?

Amazing to hear that Google has a strict caste system.

edit: wow, at 1:05PST dozens of people suddenly hit this thread and started
attacking the premise.

~~~
learc83
Yes, if you classify slave labor as someone voluntarily doing work for which
they get paid.

~~~
exit
there's nothing voluntary about participation in capitalism.

~~~
learc83
So you want to change the scope of the argument to: all Google employees are
plantation slave labor?

Ask yourself this--if any plantation slaves were alive today, would they agree
with your comparison?

~~~
billswift
No, he is attacking _capitalism_ , he wants the World Soviet where we are all
slaves of the, or at least of some, government.

------
StuffMaster
Page too wide, and paragraphs fixed at 134 columns...not good design.

------
dr_
On a side note, coming to read this now with over 350 comments, without the
rating system I can't make heads or tails of which ones are or are not worth
reading.

------
ditojim
he was there to cause trouble and google got rid of him. smart.

------
grandalf
Let's not forget that Google's innovation in search has had (and will continue
to have) the most profound impact on the world's poorest people... the people
for whom information is least accessible via other means.

------
guard-of-terra
I think that many commenters are missing the point.

The question isn't whether Google is goind anything strictly illegal.

The question is whether Google is doing something what would be considered
shady by a big part of Google employees; If so, how would Google acknowlege
the situation; And then, how would they live thru this, with Googlers knowing
that their own standards are in a serious mismatch with the actual behavior of
the business body, Google.

Public reaction is another interesting thing. People's passion or neglect
isn't regulated by law; instead it's regulated by their own feeling of right
and wrong. It may be both legal and a PR disaster at the same time.

Of course, it might turn out that people in general and Googlers dominantly
don't see any problem and don't care. It doesn't seem to be this case yet.

~~~
sgentle
Yeah, I'm genuinely surprised by the tone here. I mean, clearly the things he
wrote were a bit inflammatory, but it seems like most of the commenters have
shockingly low standards for what constitutes a fair firing.

Am I to expect that if you were working at a company and you brought an
allegation of racism to your superiors, you should be fired because that
allegation makes them uncomfortable or could lead to legal trouble? Would
everyone here be jumping up and down to say how correct that is?

I obviously only have one side of the story, but I can't think of a way that
firing someone for talking to the wrong people or asking the wrong questions
is right. Not even if it's Google doing it.

~~~
benmccann
He didn't get fired for raising an issue with his superiors. He never raised
an issue with his superiors at all. Instead he went about creating an
inflammatory recording with a video camera in which he attempted to frame his
company's client in a negative light.

------
tkahn6
This is literally one of the craziest things I have ever seen. Google is doing
absolutely nothing wrong or unethical at all. The guy got fired because he
started accusing Google of racism.

Wow. Just wow. The sense of entitlement and self-righteousness is just mind
blowing.

~~~
queensnake
You have to admit it /could/ be like something out of Brave New World, so, it
demands exploring. I mean they come in at 4 and leave at 2. It conflicts with
Google's ethos (perhaps) to have truly 2nd class citizens, so they hide it.
That's curiosity-provoking.

~~~
glenra
The author's main gripe seems to be that contractors don't get treated like
employees.

Does he realize that it's _illegal_ to treat contractors exactly like
employees?

Does he realize that if Google started giving contractors exactly the same
treatment, they could get in big trouble with the IRS and other regulatory
groups, have the contractors retroactively declared employees, be forced to
withhold payroll taxes on their behalf, pay big fines?

He seems to be shocked, _shocked_ that Google acts...the way every other tech
firm acts, and for the same reasons.

~~~
patrickk
_"The author's main gripe seems to be that contractors don't get treated like
employees."_

I thought the main point was that they weren't treated like other
_contractors_ like the author was (red badges)?

~~~
glenra
My impression was that he's a contractor (under salary) for one contract firm
while they're contractors (probably on an hourly wage) for a different
contract firm. Why would he expect the two to have the exact same benefits
package?

~~~
gtirloni
Your impression could be wrong so there's no point in arguing both cases. All
the guy know is that both groups were contractors. Do you know of any law that
distinguishes contractors based on hourly or salary rules? If not, I don't see
your point.

~~~
glenra
> _Do you know of any law that distinguishes contractors based on hourly or
> salary rules? If not, I don't see your point._

The point is purely practical, not so much legal. When employees are on
salary, it's worth doing whatever you can to make it convenient for them to
stick around and stay longer. Providing perks such as free food helps with
that - it helps get more work hours out of people for a given salary. The
perks are in some way a _substitute_ for extra salary, and likely to save the
company money in the long run. Especially perks that save employees time, like
letting them start work on the bus during their commute or letting them have
meals right on campus so they don't lose time driving elsewhere.

Whereas hourly employees get paid for each specific hour they work so there's
little benefit to encouraging them to stick around longer than they would
otherwise be inclined. In fact, you generally want to _discourage_ hourly
workers from doing any overtime, since you'd have to pay them time-and-a-half.

------
yanw
There is a huuuuuuuuuuugly important distinction that has to be made here:

The “Book Scanners” are NOT Google employees!!!!!

They are the workers of a company that was hired by Google to do this
monotonous physical labor, you know CONTRACT WORKERS!

That’s why they don’t get any rocket-ships made of chocolate Lego bricks or
whatever perks Google employees get.

As for security getting involved that is procedure!! and exactly what happens
when you go snooping around on company grounds.

This this whole post is nothing but sensationalist rambling and delusional
nonsense.

~~~
graywh
But the author himself was _also_ a contract worker and he got more benefits
than the yellow-badge workers.

~~~
yanw
Then his company got a better contract.

------
lennexz
I dont think he should have got fired, whats so secret about bookscanning??
Google feels it now has too much power and can walk over anyone.

~~~
jcnnghm
The mountain of pending litigation?

------
sscheper
_Wishes the voiceover was by Morgan Freeman._

------
powertower
High Definition video link: <http://vimeo.com/15852288>

------
avstraliitski
Two words: fuck bureaucracy.

This is why I'll never work for a large company.

------
guard-of-terra
"the first girl I had spoken to had followed the instructions on the back of
her yellow badge – which is to call a certain manager if anyone asks about the
work of the yellow badge class"

This scarely reminds of "Jedem das Seine" and "Arbeit macht frei"

Both phrases actually match the described situation perfectly

~~~
__bjoernd
Actually, this comparison is way out of place. Not giving people benefits (but
still paying them!) is completely different from imprisoning and torturing
people for their race, opinions, or beliefs.

~~~
guard-of-terra
I've heard that segregation is a big deal, and it's what is happening
according to the article.

~~~
Maro
AFAIK, segregation was physical separation, not forbidding people to talk to
each other.

On a large corporate campus, you can't just randomly walk around in the
buildings. Your access card doesn't even work everywhere. So segregation
(physical separation) is pretty standard.

------
garrettgillas
This sounds an awful lot like the movie 'The Antitrust'.

~~~
dangrossman
There's no "the" in the movie title and I don't really see the parallel.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/>

