Around 80 Google Help subcontractors who recently voted to unionize with the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America (AWU-CWA) found out last week that they will be laid off.
No offense, but it seems like a really dumb idea to unionize in the middle of mass industry layoffs.
Maybe you would do it when things are going good, but if everyone around you is getting laid off and you unionize, it almost seems self-evident who’s going to get laid off next.
Is it illegal? Probably. Are they going to get away with it? Probably.
Everyone should remember that big tech companies aren’t your friend.
At this point, I’m hoping for there to be a spree of unionization.
Maybe a millennium from now we’ll have better means of keeping corporations in check, but in our species’ current and primitive state, unionization might be one of our only options.
In the fable of the and and the grasshopper the grasshopper needed food stored up more than ever when the winter came, but the time to be preparing for winter was the spring, summer, and fall when you plant, tend, and harvest. By the time winter comes it’s too late.
The best time for someone with a variable rate mortgage to refinance as fixed rate would have been 2020. You didn’t need a fixed rate back then because variable rate was in some cases less than 1%, but you need one now because mortgages are around 7%. If you refinance now it won’t help.
The time to unionize was when labor had power by being in demand. 2020 would have been a good time, but maybe even the mid 2010s.
Planting a tree isn’t going to war (and unionizing is in a sense mobilizing for a war). Both you and the seed want the tree to grow. If you go to war and the time is not right, then you will be wiped out and history will be written by the victors.
The Fable of the ant and the grasshopper I’m referring to comes from Aesop’s fables, a work collected around between 500 and 600 BCE.
It’s been told and retold in many different languages around the world, and in virtually every example of the Fable being told, the story is basically the same: the ant works through the summer, and the grasshopper dances. Eventually the winter comes, and the ant survives and the grasshopper dies of starvation. For over 2,000 years the moral of the story has been but there’s a work time for work and there’s a time for play, that you need to work hard in the summer or you will starve in the winter.
It’s wonderful that somebody reinterpreted the Fable for a modern kid’s movie, but that does not change the original meaning of the fable. Aesop was a slave born in Greek society, a society that utilized slavery. It’s not likely that greek society would have been super into a slave teaching their kids that one day the slaves would overcome their Athenian masters.
Aristophanes wrote many plays criticizing greek society a few hundred years after Aesop. The following was from his play “Ekklesiazousai”, which was a comedy about what would happen if women took over the government. It’s a sort of hilarious example of the difference between greek society and modern society for many reasons, especially this exchange:
Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; […] I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. […]
Blepyrus: But who will till the soil?
Praxagora: The slaves.
In Orwell’s 1984, the main character’s job was in the ministry of truth, ironically changing history to better suit the party. In this sense, replacing a 2500 year old fable with a 25 year old movie sounds more like that 1984 than simply citing the original fable.
We just bought a house and went with a 5 year ARM instead of 30 year fixed to get a 5.5% rate. Sure hoping that rates go down a little in the next 5 years so we can refinance and lock in at a decent fixed rate. Rolling the dice… : (
Layoff protection was listed in the article as one of their reasons for unionizing. Being able to better negotiate severance, the right to be rehired, etc. The auto industry has layoffs, but unionized workers get recalled when jobs pick back up.
Yeah, and a lot of people want to refinance their variable rate mortgage at 3% fixed.
It’s too late for that.
Sun Tzu says that the wise general wants to attack where the enemy is weak and avoid where the enemy is strong. Waiting until the layoffs to get protection against layoffs and not expecting to just get laid off is the epitome of attacking the enemy where it is strong, and not unionizing when the company is on a hiring spree is the epitome of not attacking the enemy when it is weak.
European companies somehow survive just fine with people being in unions. There are many strong protections in place, which is why we have 6 weeks vacations, maternal leave and so on.
You’re consuming too much American anti-labor propaganda.
I remember a propaganda a few years back that European countries with decent unemployment compensation made people leave their jobs to stay at home spending their welfare on cupcakes. But these American fake news don’t even try to hide their how American they are, because cupcakes aren’t a thing in many European countries.
I checked before posting, and yes, many European nations do have youth unemployment in the 20% range.
Which makes sense. Companies still need people, but if it’s more expensive to get low-end workers you just won’t hire entry level workers unless they’ve proven themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt.
@[email protected] was talking about European companies doing fine despite strong unions in Europe and there being a lack of companies toppling over due to the strong unions.
They actually undersold it, because in many Western-European countries everyone benefits from union negotiations, even people that aren’t members of a union because the collective bargaining agreements unions manage to negotiate will affect everyone working in the relevant industry by virtue of laws deferring to those collective bargaining agreements.
You in turn decided to reframe the discussion at hand from companies doing well to unemployment numbers and not just general unemployment numbers, but youth unemployment numbers because you felt it would serve your argument best.
But if you look at the trends for unemployment then the story isn’t as bleak as you’d make it out to be.
For starters general unemployment averages under 6% with only two countries being above 10% (and below 15%).
Average youth unemployment sits at 13.9% with a hand full over 20%.
However, both general and youth unemployment are on a steady downwards trend since 2013.
One exception to this trend for general unemployment is during the pandemic, where it shows a bump and for youth unemployment there’s an additional minor bump in 2022, which suggests a correlation with the influx of refugees from Ukraine.
This is the European source on these statistics.
There will always be a higher unemployment rate in the EU compared to the US, especially when it comes to youth unemployment.
This lies mainly in the fact that most European countries have a civil registry system that automatically keeps track of certain data, unemployment being one of them, whereas in the US this data is collected by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics by conducting a survey of roughly 60,000 households.
Another factor is a difference in definitions. A good example is the one from the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Garrett is 16 years old, and he has no job from which he receives any pay or profit. However, Garrett does help with the regular chores around his parents’ farm and spends about 20 hours each week doing so.
Lisa spends most of her time taking care of her home and children, but she helps in her husband’s computer software business all day Friday and Saturday.
Both Garrett and Lisa are considered employed.
Neither of them would be considered employed in most European countries. There are other such discrepancies, for example the US doesn’t include people under 16, whereas Europe looks at 15-24 for youth unemployment.
And then there’s the cultural difference between the two markets about when people are expected to start working and subsequently the jobs that will be available.
Which makes sense. Companies still need people, but if it’s more expensive to get low-end workers you just won’t hire entry level workers unless they’ve proven themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Your hypothesis is quite lacking.
As stated, the trends have been going down for a decade now, if your hypothesis was true we’d see an upwards trend.
Additionally, these labor protections, including protections against being laid off, have been around for decades, your hypothesis doesn’t offer an explanation why, despite these protections, unemployment is going down.
Also, minimum wage, as is often paid for these kinds of jobs, is lower in most EU countries than in many US states, making it comparably cheaper to hire those kind of jobs in Europe than it is in the US, your hypothesis doesn’t explain why, despite this, the unemployment rate is higher in Europe than it is in the US.
In short, your hypothesis nor the unemployment rate is relevant to what @[email protected] was positing, so lets refocus to the topic at hand: the lack of companies toppling over like domino bricks despite the copious amounts of employee protection facilitated by strong unions.
Perhaps afterwards, we can talk about the lack of landlords, corporate or otherwise, going bankrupt despite the strong tenant protections as well as the lack of companies selling merchandise to consumers pulling out of the market despite the strong consumer protections, and so and so forth.
And then, maybe, just maybe, we can afterwards all come to the conclusion that these QoL improvements are attainable without some kind of economic doom scenario.
Why should government grant businesses corporate charters and give them special privileges in the first place, if they’re mistreating the citizens who work there?
That is such clear retaliation that I don’t know how Google hopes to get away with it.
Well the penalty is a slap on the wrist to a company of googles side.
The cost of doing business
No offense, but it seems like a really dumb idea to unionize in the middle of mass industry layoffs.
Maybe you would do it when things are going good, but if everyone around you is getting laid off and you unionize, it almost seems self-evident who’s going to get laid off next.
Is it illegal? Probably. Are they going to get away with it? Probably.
Everyone should remember that big tech companies aren’t your friend.
When working conditions are getting worse and people are being fired, that’s when you need a union more than ever.
At this point, I’m hoping for there to be a spree of unionization.
Maybe a millennium from now we’ll have better means of keeping corporations in check, but in our species’ current and primitive state, unionization might be one of our only options.
It didnt work though
These things are measured in decades.
Imagine where they’ll be 5 years later if they do nothing
In the fable of the and and the grasshopper the grasshopper needed food stored up more than ever when the winter came, but the time to be preparing for winter was the spring, summer, and fall when you plant, tend, and harvest. By the time winter comes it’s too late.
The best time for someone with a variable rate mortgage to refinance as fixed rate would have been 2020. You didn’t need a fixed rate back then because variable rate was in some cases less than 1%, but you need one now because mortgages are around 7%. If you refinance now it won’t help.
The time to unionize was when labor had power by being in demand. 2020 would have been a good time, but maybe even the mid 2010s.
There’s a Chinese proverb that goes like this: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
We can’t go back in time to plant the union tree. But we can do it TODAY. Doing it late is better than never doing it at all.
Planting a tree isn’t going to war (and unionizing is in a sense mobilizing for a war). Both you and the seed want the tree to grow. If you go to war and the time is not right, then you will be wiped out and history will be written by the victors.
deleted by creator
The Fable of the ant and the grasshopper I’m referring to comes from Aesop’s fables, a work collected around between 500 and 600 BCE.
It’s been told and retold in many different languages around the world, and in virtually every example of the Fable being told, the story is basically the same: the ant works through the summer, and the grasshopper dances. Eventually the winter comes, and the ant survives and the grasshopper dies of starvation. For over 2,000 years the moral of the story has been but there’s a work time for work and there’s a time for play, that you need to work hard in the summer or you will starve in the winter.
It’s wonderful that somebody reinterpreted the Fable for a modern kid’s movie, but that does not change the original meaning of the fable. Aesop was a slave born in Greek society, a society that utilized slavery. It’s not likely that greek society would have been super into a slave teaching their kids that one day the slaves would overcome their Athenian masters.
Aristophanes wrote many plays criticizing greek society a few hundred years after Aesop. The following was from his play “Ekklesiazousai”, which was a comedy about what would happen if women took over the government. It’s a sort of hilarious example of the difference between greek society and modern society for many reasons, especially this exchange:
In Orwell’s 1984, the main character’s job was in the ministry of truth, ironically changing history to better suit the party. In this sense, replacing a 2500 year old fable with a 25 year old movie sounds more like that 1984 than simply citing the original fable.
We just bought a house and went with a 5 year ARM instead of 30 year fixed to get a 5.5% rate. Sure hoping that rates go down a little in the next 5 years so we can refinance and lock in at a decent fixed rate. Rolling the dice… : (
My condolences. It’s a very tough time to be stuck with a mortgage.
Layoff protection was listed in the article as one of their reasons for unionizing. Being able to better negotiate severance, the right to be rehired, etc. The auto industry has layoffs, but unionized workers get recalled when jobs pick back up.
Yeah, and a lot of people want to refinance their variable rate mortgage at 3% fixed.
It’s too late for that.
Sun Tzu says that the wise general wants to attack where the enemy is weak and avoid where the enemy is strong. Waiting until the layoffs to get protection against layoffs and not expecting to just get laid off is the epitome of attacking the enemy where it is strong, and not unionizing when the company is on a hiring spree is the epitome of not attacking the enemy when it is weak.
Why shouldn’t companies retaliate? Anchorsteam workers unionized and it went bankrupt
European companies somehow survive just fine with people being in unions. There are many strong protections in place, which is why we have 6 weeks vacations, maternal leave and so on.
Don’t many European countries have like 20% youth unemployment?
Nope.
You’re consuming too much American anti-labor propaganda.
I remember a propaganda a few years back that European countries with decent unemployment compensation made people leave their jobs to stay at home spending their welfare on cupcakes. But these American fake news don’t even try to hide their how American they are, because cupcakes aren’t a thing in many European countries.
I checked before posting, and yes, many European nations do have youth unemployment in the 20% range.
Which makes sense. Companies still need people, but if it’s more expensive to get low-end workers you just won’t hire entry level workers unless they’ve proven themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt.
@[email protected] was talking about European companies doing fine despite strong unions in Europe and there being a lack of companies toppling over due to the strong unions.
They actually undersold it, because in many Western-European countries everyone benefits from union negotiations, even people that aren’t members of a union because the collective bargaining agreements unions manage to negotiate will affect everyone working in the relevant industry by virtue of laws deferring to those collective bargaining agreements.
You in turn decided to reframe the discussion at hand from companies doing well to unemployment numbers and not just general unemployment numbers, but youth unemployment numbers because you felt it would serve your argument best.
But if you look at the trends for unemployment then the story isn’t as bleak as you’d make it out to be. For starters general unemployment averages under 6% with only two countries being above 10% (and below 15%).
Average youth unemployment sits at 13.9% with a hand full over 20%.
However, both general and youth unemployment are on a steady downwards trend since 2013.
One exception to this trend for general unemployment is during the pandemic, where it shows a bump and for youth unemployment there’s an additional minor bump in 2022, which suggests a correlation with the influx of refugees from Ukraine. This is the European source on these statistics.
There will always be a higher unemployment rate in the EU compared to the US, especially when it comes to youth unemployment.
This lies mainly in the fact that most European countries have a civil registry system that automatically keeps track of certain data, unemployment being one of them, whereas in the US this data is collected by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics by conducting a survey of roughly 60,000 households.
Another factor is a difference in definitions. A good example is the one from the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Neither of them would be considered employed in most European countries. There are other such discrepancies, for example the US doesn’t include people under 16, whereas Europe looks at 15-24 for youth unemployment.
And then there’s the cultural difference between the two markets about when people are expected to start working and subsequently the jobs that will be available.
Your hypothesis is quite lacking.
As stated, the trends have been going down for a decade now, if your hypothesis was true we’d see an upwards trend.
Additionally, these labor protections, including protections against being laid off, have been around for decades, your hypothesis doesn’t offer an explanation why, despite these protections, unemployment is going down.
Also, minimum wage, as is often paid for these kinds of jobs, is lower in most EU countries than in many US states, making it comparably cheaper to hire those kind of jobs in Europe than it is in the US, your hypothesis doesn’t explain why, despite this, the unemployment rate is higher in Europe than it is in the US.
In short, your hypothesis nor the unemployment rate is relevant to what @[email protected] was positing, so lets refocus to the topic at hand: the lack of companies toppling over like domino bricks despite the copious amounts of employee protection facilitated by strong unions.
Perhaps afterwards, we can talk about the lack of landlords, corporate or otherwise, going bankrupt despite the strong tenant protections as well as the lack of companies selling merchandise to consumers pulling out of the market despite the strong consumer protections, and so and so forth.
And then, maybe, just maybe, we can afterwards all come to the conclusion that these QoL improvements are attainable without some kind of economic doom scenario.
Source?
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/youth-unemployment-rate?continent=europe
Not all, but quite a few in that 20% range.
EU stats:
Comparatively, Denmark, the country with unions being core part of economy (70% of the workforce is unionized):
You can probably find that info on Google. :)
People unionizing have never bankrupt any company.
Don’t buy this crap propaganda that treating workers with respect will break a company.
Because it’s illegal? Unless you’re a million/billionaire it’s foolish to not vigorously support labor over capital
Because a modern country would have laws to protect unions, so companies can’t over-exploit their employees without facing legal consequences.
That was due to mismanagement by Sapporo
Why should government grant businesses corporate charters and give them special privileges in the first place, if they’re mistreating the citizens who work there?
(See also: https://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/)
They can find a better job if one exists, nobody puts a gun to your head to work there.