
Google attempted to shut down a unionization meeting in Zurich - imartin2k
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/21/20924697/google-unionization-switzerland-zurich-syndicom-zooglers
======
vkaku
Call me a cynic, but Europe isn't the USA.

There are a lot of countries in EU which have, IMO, better work culture and
fairness of negotiation as the guiding philosophies behind the work.

If Google did this in the USA, it wouldn't be seen as much. However, they have
strong laws against this in EU, and this incident would not portray Google in
favorable light, IMO.

I also feel that it is high time engineers realized that fairness in work is
something we'd all love to have, and historically, skilled people have kept
unions to ensure that they don't get screwed over.

I believe that at the end of the day, if you need fairness in negotiation, you
need to have a way to express it, especially if it isn't supply driven.

~~~
H8crilA
I'd vote for everyone who has a reasonable plan of more scrutiny towards 40
hour work weeks.

This may reduce salaries but oh God most of us make too much money anyhow.
Let's have a life now! When are you going to enjoy life, after retirement?
Would you wait with sex till after retirement, too, if that offered a salary
increase?

~~~
ChuckNorris89
_> but oh God most of us make too much money anyhow_

Nope, that's just in the USA, us in Europe not at all.

And I'm not even comparing EU salaries vs US salaries just tech
salaries/property prices ratios for each location.

You're not overpaid, it's us that are severely underpaid in comparison.

~~~
londons_explore
The lower salaries are probably due to the lack of VC funding, which in turn
is rooted in a lack of really successful European tech companies.

If you work for a European company, chances are it won't grow and be
successful to the same extent as an American one, and therefore your work has
less value.

------
NotSammyHagar
Better workplace protection for whistleblowers and protection from sexism and
company retaliation seems like a good thing for google. There have been a
stream of these court cases. I think this is actually something that would
also benefit google - they seem to constantly struggle with this. I think
google is no worse than other tech companies and based on my time there I
think the company is well intentioned. They are just so large, a little more
structure could help them.

Of course, union members with workplace protections don't usually get stock
grants, free food, and a free gym. Google needs to address these problems
themselves, but of course it's so hard for big companies not to just try to
stop unions.

Instead of stopping unions, work on those workplace protections. Stop hiding
problems and paying off executives with tons of sexual harassment claims to go
away.

~~~
twobat
It always seemed "funny" how come executives with more wealth than some cities
get to become sexual aggressors.

------
cosmodisk
To those reading the article from America: whatever is mentioned here about
Europe or unions, please note that Switzerland is a planet on its own in
Europe,with completely different mentality,laws and is hardly comparable with
any other country. Also, the entire tech sector in there is more of a high end
because of the costs.

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carapace
Remember when Google, Apple, and "dozens more" stole billions of dollars in
wage theft from their own devs?

[https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-
valle...](https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-
celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/)

[https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-
wage...](https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-
cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/)

~~~
YokoZar
The illegal conspiracy here was real, but "wage theft" has a specific,
different meaning.

~~~
carapace
You're right, sorry.

------
trothamel
I'm by no means familiar with labor law, but are companies (in Switzerland or
the US) required to actively support unionization? It seems like it would be
one thing to actively oppose unionization, and another thing to require the
organizers to provide their own meeting rooms, space, etc. Looking at the
article, it seems like this is the latter.

~~~
NewsAware
Can only answer for Germany, but yes, here the employer is required to provide
for the initial meeting where the first employee committee (Betriebsrat) is
elected. This includes rooms, paper etc but in particular informing all
employees about the initiative as well as freeing people up during their paid
work time so they can attend.

------
random59129412
I've been thinking lately that we, as people working in the tech industry,
especially in places like London, NY, SF, are in a unique position to self
organize in a way no other group of workers is.

We are fortunate enough to live in a period that our skills are extremely
sought for, we tend to work and specialize in code bases or technologies
specific to a company, but we at any time we can take these skills and move
away.~

The atmosphere and the general consensus in most companies tends to be that
"no one is irreplaceable" which is true but it doesn't seem to take into
account the cost to replace someone: You will need to find the right person,
which means that some engineers' time will be spent on interviews, either
phone ones or face to face, and not delivering "value" for the company; once
you find the right person, you will then need to spend at least an extra month
where that person is getting up to speed with "how things work" (paired with
another person probably, even more time spent not delivering "value"), plus
some more time for that person to actually become productive, and eventually
after a few months, get in the position of the person that left.

Now, think in your immediate team, what is your bus factor? How many people
would need to leave before it's going to be unsustainable for the
feature/project/company to continue?

The usual counter-argument is that "it's easy to leave if you're young, but
when you have family, you have to think more than just yourself" and I can
totally sympathize with this. But as I said in the beginning, especially if
you work for in one of the big hubs, and/or in one of the FAANGs, you could
probably be in a new place within a week's time.

We don't need to "unionize" in the traditional term. The companies don't even
have to "acknowledge" a union. As long as we keep in mind how fortunate we are
to working in tech now, and we are determined to just walk away from places
that we are not happy at, they will come to us.

~~~
geggam
Until you compare your salary and expenses to that of someone who was working
blue collar 40 years ago.

My dad made enough to support a family of four as an appliance repair man. He
got a new car every so often, built a shop and had a home mostly paid for and
we went on vacations. Going to the doctor wasnt a big deal and no one worried
about being bankrupt from a hospital stay/

I am supporting a family of four and we get by. My car is 18 years old with
260k miles on it and I am hoping to get another 3-4 years out of it so the
kids finish college. (community college, I am not rich and cannot afford
anything else). The family is one major medical incident away from bankruptcy
and I have good insurance

You tell me how good you have it and I will reply that is because you dont
know how good it could be.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
This is very true, most people i talk to do not realise labour's share of
income has been declining for 50 years straight.

Here is a link by no other than the IMF:
[https://blogs.imf.org/2017/04/12/drivers-of-declining-
labor-...](https://blogs.imf.org/2017/04/12/drivers-of-declining-labor-share-
of-income/)

~~~
geggam
I am not in blue collar :)

I make 6 figures a year in IT and cant keep up with what he made fixing
washers

~~~
free652
How can you be one medical emergency away? My max out of pocket is 7k, that
covers pretty much any emergency. I already met this year and all procedures
are free.

My wife had a brain surgery few years ago and our insurance company paid
around 150k and we paid max OOP and not a cent more.

~~~
geggam
Example : My brother recently fell off a roof and broke his back. Paralyzed
now from the waist down. Can't work. Insurance is now gone because he cant
work to pay premiums. That first year was great... insurance covered
everything. Now... his long term care will end up being medicare disability
which means he loses everything he owns.

------
dahdum
> In the email, Google said it was canceling the meeting because the company
> prefers to only host events on the topic organized in partnership with
> Google’s site leadership team.

So this was a meeting organized solely by employees, using company property,
on the company campus, on a workday, with the only speakers allowed being the
union reps?

I’m not surprised management would try to cancel that, it sounds like a pro-
union propaganda party at Google’s expense.

~~~
pavlov
I don't know about Switzerland, but most European countries have laws that
explicitly require companies to permit unions to operate on company property.

Many countries even mandate that stewards (union representatives) must be
allowed to spend part of their working time on union work.

~~~
s3nnyy
Unions in Switzerland are not very common compared to France or Germany.

~~~
CydeWeys
More than half of Swiss workers are covered by collective bargaining
agreements. That's much higher than in the US at least; not sure about
France/Germany.

~~~
riffraff
Are the mechanics the same in Europe and the US?

For example, in Italy most people have a contract which follows the collective
agreement obtained by the unions for that specific sector (i.e. commerce,
textile worker, metal worker etc) even if people are not part of any union. If
you are a member of the Union you may get some extra legal help or such, but
not a different contract.

From what US people say it seems instead that members of a union live in a
separate world.

~~~
chimeracoder
> From what US people say it seems instead that members of a union live in a
> separate world.

Not really. Because of the way labor laws work in the US, the unions seek
exclusive representation over members within a bargaining unit, which means
that _all_ employees within the bargaining unit are members of the union as
soon as 51% of the bargaining unit votes in favor of the union. That precludes
the possibility of employees having the choice between two different unions to
represent them (or none at all), which is common in most European countries.

It's pretty rare to have union and non-union members working _in the same
role_ (as opposed to at the same company, or at the same jobsite but under
different employers), and even less common to have two people in the same role
represented by two different unions.

------
mscasts
Google has become such a garbage company to be honest. Is anything they do
nowadays good and honest?

I think Google heavily needs to be split up.

~~~
xckfs
Having worked at many large companies, I can honestly say that Google was the
best behaved company of all of them, by far.

I think the difference is that Google has a relatively large contingent of
"activist" type employees, and they're given a lot of latitude to speak their
mind. When something bad happens, _everybody_ hears about it because the
employees are the ones shouting it loudest from the rooftops.

Their track record isn't perfect, and Dragonfly particularly strikes a chord
with me. But other companies do worse, and you're just much less likely to
hear about it.

~~~
mscasts
> I think the difference is that Google has a relatively large contingent of
> "activist" type employees

Yes, I believe also this is the case. This is also in my opinion the biggest
issue with Google nowadays and what makes it extra garbage. They seem to be
caught again and again to use their large size to surpress and censor people
and companies.

------
onlyrealcuzzo
I'm a SWE at Google, and as much as I love unions, I'm not sure it makes sense
for the software industry.

Further, the larger tech companies already have a concept of "levels" to
ensure some sense of pay equality, we already get better benefits than you can
get anywhere else in the states.

Realistically, what more will unions accomplish at a place like Google?

I'd love 6 weeks of paid vacation as much as anyone. I don't see us getting
that. I'd love to make twice as much money. I don't see that happening. I'd
love for promotions and hiring to be more fair / better, but I don't see how
this accomplishes that (nor do I know anyway to improve it).

~~~
BeetleB
> I'd love 6 weeks of paid vacation as much as anyone. I don't see us getting
> that. I'd love to make twice as much money. I don't see that happening. I'd
> love for promotions and hiring to be more fair / better, but I don't see how
> this accomplishes that (nor do I know anyway to improve it).

Not at Google so I can't comment about them directly.

Also very neutral on unions, so don't take this comment as my preference.

6 weeks may seem hard to get, but many companies offer only 2 weeks, and 3
weeks seems the norm. 4 weeks seems doable with a union (although it may not
be necessary - more and more companies are offering 4 weeks).

Non-compete clauses are something unions can help with (I know they're not
allowed in CA, but lots of other states allow them).

The amount of time or how often one is on-call can be something unions can
help with.

Conditions for severance can be something unions can help with.

On the flip side, unions can also make things a lot worse. YMMV.

~~~
cosmodisk
I'm in the UK. Currently have 25 days of paid holidays + 8 bank holidays. I
believe this is a bare minimum one needs in order to maintain straight head
and not go mad. I appreciate that's not something most people get across the
pond, however I do see absolutely zero reasons,why this couldn't be the case
over there as well. However,many heads had to roll and tons of blood was
spilled in most European countries for these things to become a norm.

------
ben_utzer
>Meanwhile, in other offices, Google employees have been posting memes in
solidarity with their Zurich colleagues, criticizing management for trying to
control the talk about unionization.

memes?

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marmada
Wouldn't unions at Google be bad. If unions imposed rules guaranteeing
seniority benefits/tenure rules that would make it harder for younger workers.

I am a fan of unions for blue collar work but unions/labor orgs for higher pay
organizations seem to be bad because they prevent foreign workers from
entering and they make it harder for young people.

~~~
daniel-cussen
The NBA and NFL are unionized and they don't make it harder for younger
workers.

~~~
tomjakubowski
In both the NBA and NFL, younger players are subject to the draft and there
are caps on rookie contracts, and in the NFL young players only get restricted
free agency. Similar restrictions and caps for younger, less-experienced
players also exist in organized baseball.

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ziggomat
I imagine Google is what It is today because of their workers, not managers or
enforcing “drinking of the Kool Aid”, so to speak ¯\\(°_o)/¯

