> 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.
It’s amazing to me how much Americans have swallowed this kind of “they deserve it,” management line. People seem to immediately imagine themselves as executives in the boardroom, quashing the rebellion before it begins.
As others have pointed out, protections for organizing at workplace sites are common through out Europe. Google employees built Google into what it is, not their senior management (especially given what has come to light). And the company would be better off if workers co-determined its future.
It's amazing to me how much Europeans do not identify with management, as if management is a class separate from them and not just people who were like them before getting promoted. Do Europeans see themselves as confined in their careers to a "class," and not invested in the competitiveness and profitability of the company they've voluntarily joined?
I'm sure these sorts of things are more common in Europe, and it's amazing to me how Europeans don't independently realize that it's not a coincidence that the battle lines are about trying to exact concessions from American companies, since there aren't really any relevant European tech companies anyway.
The concerns of management are not identical to the concerns of employees, even in white-collar jobs. This isn't a moral judgement, it's just business reality.
For instance, labor is always a cost center. The argument "I cost X but bring in 10X" is great for you (assuming it's true), but from your accounting department's standpoint, replacing you with two less productive workers is better if it turns out that together they cost 1.6X but bring in 18X. This calculation doesn't change a whit even if all your company's top-level executives started in the mail room.
Well, this is exactly why I can't truly support "common sense" worker's rights like a higher minimum wage or whatever - I might be that less productive worker, or at least be assumed to be.
Management is a separate class, it’s called the petite bourgeois. It’s basically the same class as small business owners. Maybe you’re thinking of castes which implicitly preclude social mobility?
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
If we look at union membership (which is different than being covered by collective bargaining agreements), the US (10%) has a lower union density than Switzerland (17%) and about the same than France (8% or 10%).
The legal framework is very different however. The local governments (cantons) decide by law which sectors are subject to mandatory collective agreements, mostly manufacturing, construction and transport. All companies and employees in those sectors then have to follow them. Union membership in other sectors is relatively low. Public sectors has specific rules.
Presumably legislators have seen unions as providing a beneficial counterbalance to corporations, and decided to enact this requirement to ensure that stewards don't get discriminated against because their union work necessarily means they have to interact with other employees outside of actual work tasks.
You know, the kind of thing that lawmakers can do when they're not completely owned by corporate donors and lobbyists.
I’ve seen people downvoted for highlighting that “libertarian” was a term invented in the context of anarchist and socialist struggle before being co-opted by the right, so I’m going to go with the latter...
There are a lot of techies on HN with no sense of history. I blame the "STEM uber alles" educational agenda we've been pushing in the US ever since Sputnik.
I can't take that claim too seriously, because a real Libertarian would welcome a free, and non-coercive association between employees as much as they welcome the free, and completely non-coercive association between an employee, and their employer... (I am, of course, not at all coerced to work under the conditions my employer sets upon me!)
But for some reason, many Libertarians have nothing but contempt for the former. It could be that the ideology has been a bit subverted...
Well, non-coercive association between employee and employer... let's talk about job-market monopsony and its distortions thereof. (I'm starting to use this "market-distortion" framing for class struggle.)
One of the more fundamental realisations of our time. Yet most seem unaware. I'm not automatically free in a liberal democracy. Just more free than in others.
This hypothetical “real libertarian” would welcome far more than that, and most of it not for the benefit of workers.
I’m simply stating it’s foolish to expect Google to actively work against their best interests. To provide material support and a platform for unopposed speech on a viewpoint they actively oppose.
There’s nothing stopping these employees from doing this on their own free time and with their own resources.
> I’m simply stating it’s foolish to expect Google to actively work against their best interests.
I think you're indulging in reification here. Google has no best interests because Google is just a legal fiction with no real-world existence apart from its constituent individuals. The investors have their interests. Management has their interests. The workers have their interests. But Google itself has no interests, and for too long we've conflated the interests of Google's management and investors with those of the company as a whole while disregarding those of the vast majority of the people associated with Google: the workers whose work makes Google's billions in revenue possible while getting pennies on every dollar of value they provide.
> To provide material support and a platform for unopposed speech on a viewpoint they actively oppose.
Management has no business having an opinion on unionization one way or the other. If anything, most managers should be pro-union since they're as likely to get thrown under the bus to keep profits up as their direct reports.
> There’s nothing stopping these employees from doing this on their own free time and with their own resources.
From an opsec viewpoint, the smart thing to do would be to organize outside Google offices and then blindside the company with a wildcat strike, but that's easier said than done when you're expected to work twelve hours a day to prove you're passionate.
"the workers whose work makes Google's billions in revenue possible while getting pennies on every dollar of value they provide."
Well, you assume that revenue represents value. How do you even know that? Maybe they are making the world worse on net. In which case, should the workers or investors be liable? I generally feel like it's a nice and fundamental feature of society that they aren't.
That's the standard capitalist assumption. Gotta make a billion dollars no matter who dies.
> Maybe they are making the world worse on net.
Maybe? Have you been paying attention at all?
> In which case, should the workers or investors be liable?
The investors and the management should be liable, under the "command responsibility" doctrine. If you give orders whose implementation makes the world suck more than it already does, then you should indeed be held liable for your orders.
Criminally liable.
> I generally feel like it's a nice and fundamental feature of society that they aren't.
I think that one of the reasons our society is broken is that the people in charge can get away with leaving working-class schmucks like me to hold the bag and take the fall whenever shit goes wrong.
> Management has no business having an opinion on unionization one way or the other. If anything, most managers should be pro-union since they're as likely to get thrown under the bus to keep profits up as their direct reports.
Unionization restricts the management's ability to adapt to new situations and challenges in the pursuit of profit. Shareholders hire and task management to do exactly that, which is why the two are almost always opposed to what is, in effect, tying of their hands.
That sounds like right-wing union-busting propaganda to me. Even if it isn't, why should I care if union representation makes management's job harder? I'm not management.
Free and non-coercive is the key. Things such as Card Check mean that employees as individuals are able to be coerced to sign the card rather than unionization via secret ballot. Furthermore so-called “closed shops” infringe on an individual’s right to not join the union (or pay required representation fees.)
Free and without coercion is fine, but in union activities in the US, it is rarely, if ever the case.
Also look at how “scabs” are treated by union employees. They are often subjected to violence and threats if they choose to exercise their choice to ignore a strike. That is the opposite of free and without coercion.
And no, you aren’t coerced to work for any employer. You freely accept employment conditions in exchange for the agreed upon wage. However when unions get involved, you don’t have a choice — you get paid whatever the union decides. A “software engineer 3” is paid whatever the rate is for a software engineer 3. You can’t negotiate anything better. And, raises are determined by how long you exist at the job and not necessarily your productivity. Traditional unions were designed around workers that were interchangeable — assembly line type work where worker A and worker B are completely interchangeable: as long as the widget screw gets installed at your spot on the line, the work is done: there is no difference between workers doing the same job because it’s rote. When things like judgement, creativity, and other soft skills come into play, workers are quickly differentiated and don’t necessarily deserve the exact same wage because their output isn’t exactly the same as it would be for an assembly line worker.
Join a union if you want— that doesn’t give the union the right to negotiate on my behalf against my will. Unions are no different than labor monopolies and they should be treated with the same suspicion as we treat other monopolies.
>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?
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.