Chinese Ad Resellers On Anti-Google Hunger Strike

itwbennett writes "About 200 employees from 7 Chinese ad reselling companies are protesting outside Google's offices in Shanghai in response to Google terminating their contracts, said Fan Meiyong, a representative for the group. 40 of those have gone on a hunger strike that will last until the group's grievances are resolved, Fan added. The ad resellers have said they have held talks with Google about the matter but they still don't know why the contracts were terminated. The group has even written an open letter to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, asking them for their intervention."

Comments

Hunger Strike?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man those chinese are desperate. This isn't a prison, Google isn't responsible for your personal well-being under any international treaty, convention, or agreement

Re:Hunger Strike?

[MichaelSmith]

In china you can hire professional mourners for funerals, so I wonder if you can hire professional hunger strikers.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Man those chinese are desperate. This isn't a prison, Google isn't responsible for your personal well-being under any international treaty, convention, or agreement.

I dunno, but it sure appears weird from thousands of miles away. I know it's an off the wall theory, but could it actually be motivated by the government as a way to marginalize the idea of a hunger strike as a meaningful protest so that actual political dissidents who go on hunger strikes might be more easily brushed off?

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Mashiki]

In China you can hire just about anything you want, as long as you grease the palms of bureaucrats first.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Fluffeh]

Man those chinese are desperate.

Yes, they probably are. If you were sacked and not given a reason, you would probably be asking questions. These folks didn't start the hunger strike the moment they got shitcanned. They tried to find out what happened, how to resolve it and the like. This is the only thing they can think of doing - for better or worse.

I don't know the background of this at all, they could have been doing shonky business practice and got caught out once too many by Google or perhaps Google thought they could make more money by simply getting their own folks to do the work, or a million other possible scenarios.

Or perhaps they are simply that desperate to have a job to be able to support their families/put food on their own table that they do not see any other option but to get all the media attention that they can by sitting outside the office of the big "foreign company" starving.

Google ISN'T responsible for their personal well being, I totally agree, but that probably isn't a consolation for them.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[StikyPad]

Hunger strikes don't need marginalizing; they're the grown-up version of holding one's breath.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[eleuthero]

...and yet, Gandhi successfully pulled it off over salt (yes, yes, there were other things and other events involved).

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Stregano]

What kind of greivers? I have been to funerals where the Mom was crying, wigging out, looking up shouting at God asking him why. That might be awesome if I could hire somebody for that.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[FatdogHaiku]

In china you can hire professional mourners for funerals, so I wonder if you can hire professional hunger strikers.

Sure you can, but try to avoid the ones with the "Will Hunger Strike For Food" signs...

Re:Hunger Strike?

[poetmatt]

hunger strikes can work, it just helps to have a legitimate cause. In this scenario, there isn't one.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Darkness404]

This is the only thing they can think of doing - for better or worse.

Except for, you know, like taking Google to court? Yes, I'm sure the court system in China isn't as good as the court system in freer, western, nations but at least do that.

Or, better yet, run your own ad company. When you are a useless middleman as it seems these people were, don't be surprised when companies streamline things to leave you out.

I'm really having a hard time finding sympathy for a company who totally relied on only one company to be a middleman. Thats just a piss-poor business strategy.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[__aajfby9338]

Cool. I'd like to hire one of them for my next design review at work.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Fuzzums]

Haha. That is so funny.

Is that the same as when a big company "supports" politicians and the politicians in turn "support" that company?

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Locutus]

hunger strikes don't cost anything so anyone can do them.

LoB

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you can. But tell them you'll pay after the job. If they are good at their job, they'll die!!!!

Re:Hunger Strike?

[je ne sais quoi]

One possibly significant difference: millions of people looked to Gandhi as their political leader. 20 chinese workers? They won't have the same effect.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Anonymous Coward]

In china you can hire professional mourners for funerals

Similar used to apply in Ireland and Scotland. It's where the surname "Keener" comes from, from the irish/scottish gaelic "caoineadh". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keening

Re:Hunger Strike?

[zoogies]

Agree - absurd theory. Just some nutty self-serving individuals. The only reason to even bring this up is an attempt to blindly play on the "big, bad, scary communist government" theme.

The truth is, the PRC is completely clueless about PR (public relations) and will continue to be roundly slaughtered in the court of public opinion because of this.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Miseph]

Don't be ridiculous, that's a totally legitimate business practice. You're probably just upset because you don't have enough money to put yourself on an even playing field with the big boys... maybe you should try working harder and having some personal accountability. Commie.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Fuzzums]

So true. I can't wait for the day I have kids and tell them I make all the money, so I get to tell them what to do (the dished for starters). I have to start somewhere.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[nashv]

Actually, Gandhi made several hunger-strikes, but they all occurred only after he was a hugely popular leader- which meant that the possibility of his death, brought massive pressure over the ruling British Government who would have to deal with anarchic rage riots that could break out in the population.

To protest the Salt tax, he simply marched to the sea and made his own , with about a few hundred other people.

.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> In china you can hire professional mourners for funerals

You can do that here too. I would totally be willing to mourn for $400/hr or so. And you could find people willing to do it for less.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Ohrion]

I don't see the downside of this.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[hairyfeet]

Even better, go clowns! Can you imagine the looks on your families face if right beside them was a group of sad clowns complete with floppy shoes and a little sad clown dog in a hat? Damn, that would almost be worth faking your own death just to see!

As for TFA, the sad part is China probably don't even know they're about to get fucked. The Chinese poisoned their land, filled their water with toxins, but now that more are wanting an actual livable wage you'll see some place like Indonesia or some other have starved third world country suddenly become the "capitalist paradise" and China will end up with tons of empty factories just like we in the USA have. Never forget the words of the great Thomas Jefferson: "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."

It may take them a decade or more, after all we here in the USA didn't lose our manufacturing overnight either. But I bet as we see more and more of this you'll see the big corps looking for the next "capitalist paradise".

Re:Hunger Strike?

[oiron]

Technically, that wasn't a hunger strike; you refer to the Dandi march, which was more of civil disobediance. The point was to make salt, which was a forbidden commodity.

The hunger strike was a different tactic, which he used more often to highlight differences between his own people (Hindu-Muslim unity and so on). And yes, that was reasonably successful too.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Bigjeff5]

Apparent to whom?

(yuk yuk!)

Re:Hunger Strike?

[quickOnTheUptake]

Only slightly on topic, but I split my side when I read this at wikipedia:

A hunger strike cannot be effective if the fact that it is being undertaken is not publicized so as to be known by the people who are to be impressed, concerned or embarrassed by it.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[tftp]

If you were sacked and not given a reason, you would probably be asking questions.

If you are a permanent employee in the USA you still can be sacked and not given a reason. If you are a contractor in the USA nobody will even think about giving you a reason. Contractors are specifically employed for temporary, special jobs that are not expected to be needed all the time. This is becoming even more popular in the USA because labor laws put more and more burden on employers for the privilege of employing people.

Those contractors in China are likely disappointed, but that's the nature of their job. In the USA contractors are supposed to work for several companies, own the tools, etc.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[wisnoskij]

Hunger strikes have worked when the person(s) you are trying to convince are not responsible for you.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[macshit]

Really, they should just hire the Falun Gong people. Experts at protesting and garnering sympathy. This hunger strike just looks kind of stupid.

Of course as soon as the Chinese government noticed that Falun Gong was involved, in even the most tangential way, they'd freak out and nuke the entire town... Hmm, I guess that'd show Google though!

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Yvanhoe]

Here in France we had a member of parliament hunger-striking to prevent a factory from moving from the place where he was elected (It is really a one-of-a-kind character, this level of dedication is extremely rare here). It worked... for two years. Then the factory moved. It does happen from time to time, but yeah, I find it strange to fight in order to keep a factory somewhere when it is apparently economically non viable.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[31eq]

The truth is, the PRC is completely clueless about PR (public relations) and will continue to be roundly slaughtered in the court of public opinion because of this.

They're clueless about international PR. They manage the Chinese public's opinion very well. What we see as bad PR is partly that the message for China doesn't work outside China and partly that the government doesn't realize this and doesn't understand liberal culture.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[lxs]

Yes, but it is their shit hole now. Everybody has the right to their own shit hole.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[MichaelSmith]

At my wife's uncle's funeral in Malaysia his family paid for two (2) days of professional crying. Seriously, nobody is going to sit out in the tropical sun crying if you can pay somebody else to do it for you.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Luckyo]

Not so much clueless as uncaring. The opinion they care is that of higher ups in certain countries. That's pretty much it.

And that's not that much different from US, or any modern Western nation really. We still rape and pillage many 3rd world countries without caring about their public opinions.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[EasyTarget]

Not an original thought of course...

http://www.economistsdoitwithmodels.com/2010/05/13/dilbert-and-wally-on-outsourcing-and-leverage/

Re:Hunger Strike?

[xaxa]

now that more are wanting an actual livable wage you'll see some place like Indonesia or some other have starved third world country suddenly become the "capitalist paradise" and China will end up with tons of empty factories just like we in the USA have.

I've noticed lots of the cheapest products (plastic buckets, plastic cutlery, very cheap clothes, plastic £2 toys etc) are now made in Vietnam. This is the stuff that used to be made in China in the 1980s when the electronics were made in Japan.

There's much of Africa waiting to be exploited too.

Re:Hunger strike?

[neumayr]

They're trying to show that whatever they're protesting against made them desperate enough to go that far. People dying because of that won't do Google's image a lot of good.
In short, they're lvl10^7 attention whores with an agenda. They're dangerous, and given how much they invest people will start wondering if they have a point. Not you obviously, but other people different from you. You know, those with souls and a shred of empathy.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[jandersen]

The truth is, the PRC is completely clueless about PR (public relations) and will continue to be roundly slaughtered in the court of public opinion because of this.

Far from it; they are very competent, as you will understand if you look at eg the Olympics and their efforts in space. PR is not always about saying "Please love me, I am sooo nice" - when the Chinese government seem to be oblivious to how we in the West see them, it is to send a message about strength and independence.

Look at the way they handle the criticism of their human rights record. Objectively, they are doing more or less as much as a nation can sensibly do; a responsible government will not just introduce "democracy and freedom" overnight - there are enough examples of what can happen: normally complete chaos, where only gangsters and psychopaths stand to gain, and everybody else loses out. That kind of things have to be introduced in small steps.

They could try to appease the West by producing plans etc for how they will introduce these things - but why should they? If they did, it would signal subservience and weakness, so they don't. We in the West are not going to stop trading with them or stop talking to them, whatever they do, and by putting on this display of strength, they tell the Chinese people "Look, you are part of The Winning Team", something that is hugely important for morale. I think it is very clever of them.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[Ginger Unicorn]

You sir, are a comedy genius.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[ciaran.mchale]

Actually, Gandhi made several hunger-strikes, but they all occurred only after he was a hugely popular leader- which meant that the possibility of his death, brought massive pressure over the ruling British Government who would have to deal with anarchic rage riots that could break out in the population.

True. But Gandhi also trained some (I think a few dozen) of his followers in his tactics, and sent them off to various villages to carry his message. Typically, such a follower would work hard to become a respected member of the village. Later, if a serious disputes arose in the village, then the person might go on hunger strike until the dispute was resolved. According to one of Gandhi's biographies, such hunger strikes were successful in ending disputes, at least in some cases.

I think this shows that a person who is respected nationally can go on hunger strike and have a national impact, while a person who is respected more locally can go on a hunger strike and have a local impact.

Whether locally, nationally or internationally known, a hunger strike is much more likely to be effective if there is widespread publicity about it. The fact that the Chinese people on hunger strike against Google have gotten international exposure will certainly help their chances of success.

Re:Hunger strike?

[painandgreed]

I've never understood how these hunger strikes are suppose to work.

Well, in this case, it gets them in the news and attempts to sway the court of public opinion.

If you were a prisoner of an oppressive state, it is often the only form of resistance you have.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[BranMan]

"professional hunger strikers"? Do they stand on street corners and carry signs that say "will fast for food"?

Re:Hunger Strike?

[MysteriousPreacher]

This is probably the most insightful comment I've read this week.

Re:Hunger Strike?

[badkarmadayaccount]

Not exactly. http://www.chinalawblog.com/2010/01/terminating_your_china_employe.html

Google's China strategy has always been a mess

[microbee]

and I don't think Larry and Sergey will give to damn to those Chinese resellers.

Re:Google's China strategy has always been a mess

[ElectricTurtle]

Fifty centers must be moderating today to rate up such poorly written fluff.

Re:Google's China strategy has always been a mess

[biryokumaru]

For those of us not up on the lingo.

Protests? In CHINA?!

[countSudoku()]

Get out the Google Tanks! Oops, wrong regime. Get out the Google StreetView data collection vehicles! If they're not jumping from the building yet, then things are pretty good in Shanghai. Damn, I love me some Shanghai tiles...

Re:Protests? In CHINA?!

[Fuzzums]

Protests are SO overrated. If banks fuck up your savings, it's TOTALLY acceptable to all bend over and take it like a man.

Re:Protests? In CHINA?!

[lgw]

If my bank fucked up my savings, I certainly wouldn't waste my time "protesting". Protests are useless. We have a court system now, which replaces the older practice of stringing up cheating bankers from the nearest lamppost. I prefer the older practice, but one tries to keep with the times.

Re:Protests? In CHINA?!

[nobodylocalhost]

torches and pitchforks works better. you can even upgrade to a truck full of rednecks with shotguns. however, court room is not the answer to your problem, because real winner in the court rooms are them lawyers.

Re:Protests? In CHINA?!

[lgw]

I like how you chose taxpayer over citizen. $44,107 is nowhere near as inflammatory as $124,000 now is it?

Either one is pretty damn inflamatory! But only taxpayers are even in the game as far as paying the debt down. And it's insane: We could cease paying Social Security and Defense entirely, and that would merely break even - now think about paying down the debt. The austerity coming for us may be worse than Greece or France.

Could it possibly maybe be that wee need to dramatically cut back on the role of government not because of some political argument, but simply because we're flat broke, and can't borrow any more? Will we ever learn that we can't just keep spending more than we make indefinitely? That not every desire can be immediately gratified?

Re:Protests? In CHINA?!

[AltairDusk]

Considering that taxpayers are the ones footing the bill I personally find his $124,000 figure more relevant. It may be $44,107 per citizen but that doesn't help us pay it. Arguments can be made for either number being inflammatory, so long as both are accurate they are different ways of breaking down the same data and I personally consider both to be far too high. $44,107 is near or above median salary for most of the country.

Pointless

[Sponge Bath]

If Google violated a contract, take them to court. If not, then there is no room for complaint.

Re:Pointless

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If Google violated a contract, take them to court. If not, then there is no room for complaint.

Oh sure there is, the court of public opinion doesn't follow the same rules as a court of law.

Re:Pointless

[poetmatt]

and if there's no public opinion, there's always grandstanding.

Re:Pointless

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> If Google violated a contract, take them to court. If not, then there is no room for complaint.

It doesn't work like that in the US. Here, we only go to court if the transaction costs associated with the trial, together with the risk of loss, do not exceed the expected benefit.

That calculus is thrown off by the fact that lawyers almost always estimate their chances as higher than they are. Note that I am including harm and benefit to reputation in "transaction costs."

initial thought

[jnpcl]

(just a guess): the ad resellers were caught adding malware to the ads.

Re:initial thought

[eleuthero]

has this caused Google to stop hosting ads (all by itself) in the past?

Re:initial thought

[shougyin]

I'd agree, but it doesn't matter. A company has every right to replace people when it wants to. That's just the corporate world for you. It happens to people daily, but I’m sure that because Google is standing behind their decision, that people were doing something wrong.

Live to work

[Microlith]

I'd say I was impressed that they're going on a hunger strike, except that in doing so they place their health on the line for their employer.

Perhaps it's the western perspective that work isn't something worth our health?

Re:Live to work

[eleuthero]

perhaps more so that in a communal culture, they are naturally going to put more on the line for their perceived social group. Another possibility is, of course, that their health would be more on the line if they didn't protest.

Re:Live to work

[tftp]

I'd say I was impressed that they're going on a hunger strike

Would you be equally impressed if 20 young men are walking around your house and chanting "Microlith, hire us or else our death will be your fault!" (Note that you don't need anything that those guys are selling.) Will you hire them? Will you hire them if your name is not Microlith but Google?

Re:Live to work

[vadim_t]

Two things:

1. Atheism is the lack of a belief. You don't really "believe in it", in the sense that there's no dogma, holy book, prophet or anything of the sort. Atheists can argue on things like what is the highest calling and where morality comes from precisely because none of that is defined anywhere.

2. It is not necessary at all to think the highest purpose is reproduction. IMO there really isn't any. There's no godless version of the mandate "be fruitful and multiply", it's just that reproducing is how species survive in this world. An individual within any species is perfectly free to disagree, though. In fact there's the theory of that homosexuality helps species survive by freeing individuals from having to deal with their own progeny, and allowing them to take a support role.

Re:Live to work

[neumayr]

It isn't? I know quite a few people who work more than their health allows, ruining it even further in the process. It's so commonplace actually it's being portrayed in popular culture.

Re:And that'll work out so well for them.

[MightyMartian]

It's a simple answer. We'll just alter Google Maps to show Shanghai in the middle of the China Sea, and then *blub*, that will be the end of that.

huh?

[ZenDragon]

I dont understand why they think a "hunger strike" is going to do any more than a regular strike. They arent just going to sit out there till they die, they will eat eventually. Just let them go hungry. Weird. 0_o

Re:huh?

[Nadaka]

Or their google jobs were the only thing putting food on their table. If they are going to starve anyway, might as well get attention and possibly redress for it.

Re:huh?

[VortexCortex]

Think about it... they can afford to NOT WORK AT ALL, in order to protest and hunger strike. I'd say leave 'em to it. There are folks that can't afford to hunger strike, at least these strikers are leaving the jobs for those that need them.

On second thought: Can get all the other middle-men in the world to go on hunger strike too?

Re:huh?

[MillionthMonkey]

There are folks that can't afford to hunger strike, at least these strikers are leaving the jobs for those that need them.

WTF? Who can't afford to not buy groceries?

Google "reselling" is over

[Animats]

The "search engine optimization" community is waking up to the fact that Google "reselling" is over. The October 27th merger of "Google Places" into Google web search wasn't about "places". It was about "businesses". Google is pulling third-party revenue in-house. Google is squeezing out "made for AdWords" sites, "directories", and other intermediaries that are just forwarding clicks. Search for "London hotels" or "DVD player", and notice how far down you have to go to see an organic search result. If you want to advertise a product that's found by search, you now talk to Google directly.

This will put a big dent in the "search engine optimization" industry. We'll see many junk sites going under, too.

Bing, having copied Google in this within days, is doing roughly the same thing.

The guys in China are getting hit by this, but they're just collateral damage of a major policy change.

Re:Google "reselling" is over

[Anonymous Coward]

The guys in China are getting hit by this, but they're just collateral damage of a major policy change.

Or perhaps they are just experiencing the backlash of being worthless human beings who fail to offer anything of value to society. Is there any way we can get the rest of the link-farmers, fake bloggers and forum spammers to starve themselves to death? Failing that, can we just shoot them?

Re:Google "reselling" is over

[nashv]

This will put a big dent in the "search engine optimization" industry. We'll see many junk sites going under, too.

I believe that is called "cutting the middle man", which is always a good thing.

Re:Google "reselling" is over

[amicusNYCL]

That would be awkward if there was a starving chinese dude by the front door

It's not so awkward when it's self-inflicted. At that point it's just stupid.

Re:Google "reselling" is over

[X0563511]

Indeed. I can't wait for these wastes of resources to die.

Re:Google "reselling" is over

[lxs]

I think you're missing the point. They are ad resellers. The nationality of the scum is irrelevant.

They didn't protest to the China government

[kikito]

... because they would risk being imprisoned and suddenly disappear, I guess.

Smear Campaign?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone willing to bet they're being paid by Baidu, or even better Beijing? Those on the hunger strike probably get a nice bump. Or maybe they're just using the only chance they'll get to protest in public. If this was a Chinese company they were protesting against, there would be 200 freshly dug graves.

To quote George Carlin

[ewhenn]

"Don't eat, see if I give a shit"

Seriously, if you have a contract dispute, take them to court.

Re:To quote George Carlin

[ram.loss]

"Don't eat, see if I give a shit"

Seriously, if you have a contract dispute, take them to court.

In China, take them to court in China. Seriously?

American companies do this shit all the time...

[Scannerman]

...Work with a local partner, get them to do the hard work, then decide to keep the benefits for themselves, drop the local guy..

Then act surprised when its not considered acceptable (or even legal) in other parts of the world.

The American legal system is so completely skewed in favour of the big guys that even people who decry this in other areas accept it as 'just the way things are'.

The google guys obviously totally believe their own bullshit about what good people they are, and probably don't realise how much this sucks to people who devoted a big chunk of their lives to building up something. Legally they obviously owned nothing, and I'm sure the American reaction would be that they should have negotiated a better deal, Americans expect to be shafted and act accordingly. most of us (even the Chinese) are more trusting.
 

Re:American companies do this shit all the time...

[Lazareth]

They worked for google, they got money from google.
Google got somebody else to do the work (themselves), google stopped paying a workforce no longer needed.
Omfgod google is evul for not paying workforce to do nothing! Workforce doing nothing really hard! Google entitled to pay workforce doing nothing!

No seriously, you're trying to make it sound like they are entitled to something beyond their contracts. While it really suck to lose your job and I can imagine it sucking even more in China, the reality of a normal job is that you're only entitled to a paycheck for as long as you work and you're only entitled to work for as long as you're needed.

If their contracts say something else, then google is doing something illegal in the scope of the contracts. If not, you don't really have a case.

Re:American companies do this shit all the time...

[Lazareth]

Addendum:
That said it does seem like China has some gotchas regarding terminating employees. If the local law prohibits google from doing it the way they did, then of course there is a case. If not, there isn't. In the first case they should be taking it to court, not protesting, in the latter case they should be looking for new jobs instead of protesting. In both cases, they should stop protesting.

Re:American companies do this shit all the time...

[Scannerman]

the reality of a normal job is that you're only entitled to a paycheck for as long as you work and you're only entitled to work for as long as you're needed.

No, that's the reality of a job in America, Most civilized parts of the world you have a lot more protection. "You're not needed" has to mean that the work isn't happening here anymore, not we found someone else to do it cheaper. If long-term work is going to be brought in house or transferred to another company you will often have to employ the guys who were doing it.

Americans often seem to think that because everything is so wonderful in America it must be the same or worse anywhere else.

Re:American companies do this shit all the time...

[Peeteriz]

If a partner company isn't needed, then even in the most liberal first world countries the company would be closed down without question - only there the laws would ensure that the employees get decent termination compensation and the owners take the most of the loss for the failing business model.

If your business model is 'reselling adwords', then it's your bet with your capital that reselling adwords is something useful that people want to pay for. Well, it isn't - the link-sites border on spam and aren't useful to the market in the end.

Newsflash

[Vinegar Joe]

Chinese labor laws are not the same as those in the US or Europe.

http://www.chinalawblog.com/2010/01/terminating_your_china_employe.html

Re:Newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says that google didn't terminate a contract with the employees, but with the resellers that were employing them. It effectively put them out of work, but the protesters were never actually employed by google.

Re:Newsflash

[biryokumaru]

Someone really needs to mod this up, or steal his link and post it up higher for instant karma. Heck, this link should be in the freakin' summary.

Re:Newsflash

[Korveck]

The hunger strikers are not Google employees. Labor laws would not apply to them. Their companies had contracts with Google. As far as I can tell, Google terminated the contracts lawfully. Google owes them nothing, but they are likely betting on generating some public pressure to force Google to "compensate" their "loss".

Re:Newsflash

[euroq]

Labor laws generally differ from state to state, not at the federal (U.S.) level. For example, I know some people who were laid off in North Carolina that were paid for 6 months by the company. I think that's crazy... one of them didn't even bother looking for a job until 5 months later. On the other hand, in Georgia, you can be fired/laid off for almost no reason, for example "lack of work" (which does make plenty of sense most of the time). It is only an employer's generosity that they pay you ANY money after the day you are let go; the standard is 2 weeks, although the two times I have been laid off I was paid one month's salary.

Re:Newsflash

[vlueboy]

Your link discussed China's* sobering anti-layoff laws that make USA's at-will employment look like the joke it really is.

So looking beyond "ad resellers" and Google to the whole outsourcing deal, it's hard to see how laws against US companies layoffs are a problem today. It's here in the US that they can and have been aggressively shrinking forces, and over in Asia where they are growing, so it will be several years before they even think of shrinking, if US outsourcing doubiously ever reverses its growth.

Further, though there are tons of plants manufacturing and assembling stuff there, I thought they were Chinese-owned, so we won't be the ones doing the firing and the point is moot. For the giants who DO see a danger in Chinese land, they'll just do the sensible thing and open India centers like the rest of the world has been doing recently. I reckon India only seems to be used for coding and English-language phone support, so I've no idea about their manufacturing power.

But that's not our problem. The outsourcing will continue wherever it is linguistically and politically easier. Under recent signs of US prosperity, forced accretion has been obversed in US branches while headcounts rise in Asian branches. More power is going to India, Australia and the Philippines because it makes perfect sense to beancounters to avoid promoting American labor again, in spite of what that means to us here.

*Europe too, without additional detail.

Re:Newsflash

[Matheus]

Sure. Great point and quite interesting. The problem is that it doesn't apply here.

Google did not employ these people. These were companies that Google stopped doing business with. As long as Google didn't have some long term binding contract that ceasing business violates they are not 'legally' responsible for the employees that these companies can no longer afford to pay because they don't have Google's business.

This article doesn't go into detail but I believe, even in China, it is OK to cease employment if your company goes under which is exactly what is going to happen to these companies since their business model was so flawed as to depend on a sole customer anyway. Whether the "in China" factor means that there are more severe ramifications for the terrible CEOs that run these organizations is another matter.

Re:Newsflash

[vlueboy]

Heh, I'm not even a lawyer and already realized US firms on Chinese ground will copy a US trick to avoid China's ad-hoc layoff prevention:

Stop growing and start sub-contracting new work/manufacturing to Chinese-owned firms. That eliminates the local contract bindings and allows thousands of ties to be cut by just severing one business relationship --without lowering your internal headcount.

As a bonus, report back to president Obama that 0 jobs were added outside the US and 100% (of 3 or 4 per month, but hey, percentages hide hard numbers) were inside.

Re:Newsflash

[lgw]

Why do you believe you have the right to be overpaid for a job? Or that it's more moral to hire an American than someone in China? Simple racism?

Meanwhile, China has been losing jobs steadily, because they've much of it's growth has come from low-skilled manufacturing jobs, and those workers are being replaced by robots. Long term, even that's a great thing - no human should spend his days in mindless repetitive labor.

Want a job that will stay in the US? Do something that can only be done locally, or do something better than those who can work cheaper.

Re:Newsflash

[xnpu]

Please note though that Chinese courts have a history of showing "fairness", where the definition of fair is probably different from yours.

E.g. if my truck driver drives off a cliff while delivering the goods you ordered to you, you usually can't sue me for the loss of the goods. Instead you're likely to be asked to share in the total costs of the truck, the goods and damages to the drivers family. The fact that you did not directly employ the driver nor owned the truck does not matter. To the court, that's just meaningless paperwork. The driver and the truck were doing a job for you.

Re:Newsflash

[vlueboy]

Why do you believe you have the right to be overpaid for a job? Or that it's more moral to hire an American than someone in China? Simple racism?

It seems that my post just flew by and got tl;dr by some, so read my post to find what I really said.

Compare jobs with software: OpenOffice was in good hands, and the Oracle's ownership apparently killed it. Most people will take something produced by the original crew than the "new" our outsourced ones. Tech support quality loss is a prime example of that.

With the lost jobs that up and left the coutry, people can't just "

Do something that can only be done locally, or do something better than those who can work cheaper.

" is not how a country gets out of 10% unemployment, especially with expert economist forecasts asking to just wait it out another 2 years. A jobless someone with 20 years of management experience and 0 years as nurse has no way to compete with someone at a hospital who spent the same 20 years in their "hard to outsource field," and an oblig. established network of professionals with a foot in the door to resort to, to boot.

People can't switch fields in a heartbeat, like the US or any nation can't shift away from doing what it's best known for in just a few days or weeks to a more profitable venue. You're affected by the recession too, no matter your location, and my [and yours, presumably] IT job exodus plan is miles away from that "currently hard to outsource" nursing job in my prior example. Please be more sensitive.

Re:Newsflash

[lgw]

Please be more sensitive.

Have you seen an Indian shanty-town? The "poor" in America live better than most everyone who has ever lived. When a software development job moves to India, 1 American is looking for work, but 5-10 Indian jobs are created (the software developer and the service people he will in turn employ), often lifting families out of abject poverty. There's no moral injustice in a job moving to India, and only by racism could we pretend there was.

I've worked in several professions and re-invented my job skills more than once. I've worked in 3 states to follow opportunities where they led. I'm also quite happy and successful in my "IT job" these days, though it has been a hard road.

Life just isn't going to be easy. It doesn't work that way, because we re-define the easy life by what we see around us, lacking a larger perspective. That's not the government's fault, nor some employer's fault, it's just life. By the standards of history and most of the world, life is great here, and I'm simply unimpressed by the "hardship" involved in retraining if one's first career choice didn't work out so well. (BTW the shortage of nurses is so extreme in most parts of the country that you don't need to compete your way into a job, though substantial training and hard work are required.)

Re:Honest question

[__aajfby9338]

Whatever they are, I bet they get first class seating on the B-Ark.

Good, hope they die

[WillAffleckUW]

Seriously, Google doesn't owe you a living, comrades.

Next time don't donate so much to Comrade Boehner's crusade.

Can someone explain the situation better?

[euroq]

I read the article and I read the letter. I didn't understand what the problem was. It sounded like Google had a contract with some people, and they terminated the contract under normal pretenses. Sort of like anyone contracted here is contracted for a "6+ month job", where the amount of time is somewhat loose, and eventually terminated. The employees were asking the founders of Google why they were being evil by letting the contract terminate. Is there something extra that Google did that I am not getting? Also, is the reason that the Chinese are so upset and calling them evil is that people don't get fired in China? They want $7 million dollars? They mention that there was no consultation beforehand, is that the evil part? I just don't see how losing a job turns into a hunger strike, instead of finding another job.

Re:Honest question

[poity]

purchase ad space in bulk and sell small parcels at markup? allows a manufacturer to outsource their sales/marketing department.

did it even dawn on them Google is having leaving?

[Locutus]

Were they all sleeping when Google moved over to Hong Kong for handling Chinese searches? It might be a bit of a problem for Google should they continue to sell ads in China running in this configuration and therefore they don't need those Chinese ad sales people.

It does seem strange to go on a hunger strike because you lost your job. It does solve the problem of finding ways to feed yourself though but even then, it can only be a short term solution.

LoB

Government Conspiracy

[rexus1972]

Let's imaging if the protesters where outside any of the Chinese search engine offices, like Sohu, Baidu. Do you think the authorities would allow the protester to stay? Does anyone believe any "protests" are allowed in China to happen without the authority's backing?

Hunger strike?

[superdave80]

I've never understood how these hunger strikes are suppose to work. I mean, these people are keeping THEMSELVES from eating, so why would I put any blame on the person/group that they are striking against? If I was a Google exec, I'd show up with a bunch of pizzas to deliver to the strikers to look like I was a caring guy ("See? I don't want these poor people to starve!").

Or I might just eat the pizza in front of them to get them hungry enough to go eat something. Depends on how much or how little I thought of their "cause".

Re:did it even dawn on them Google is having leavi

[xnpu]

Google never left China. I live right next to their Beijing office and they've never stopped recruiting or growing. All they did is moved Google Search to their Hong Kong servers and moved some people back and forth between their Shanghai and Beijing offices.

WTF.....?

[IHC Navistar]

Would somebody please explain to me why I should care about Chinese Ad Resellers losing their jobs? With so many unemployed in the United States, isn't this a good thing?

Re:WTF.....?

[neumayr]

They took our jobs1!!

Please, tell me you didn't mean it like that..

Chinese workers protesting?

[neumayr]

Now that's a good development. After decades of taking whatever shit they're handed to, now they finally start to fight.
A little uncoordinated and unefficient maybe, but it's not like the workers in the west did any better at first.

what about morons

[unity100]

morons like you who are using and working on the technologies the damn dirty hippies (no joke, really) invented and spread out around the world ?

it is ironic for someone to talk about this, that, spam, internet and whatnot without knowing shit about it. read some i.t. history first and then blabber about.

yeah they didnt offer anything

[unity100]

forget the millions of websites millions of individuals, ordinary people opened up, to sell those google ads, which then turned into small businesses on their own. not to mention them starting using i.t. services like hosting and whatnot from the start, and stimulating the growth of those sectors. not to mention the web devs, sysadmins hired by bazillions of hosting or software development companies which popped up to meet the demand. or, who started working outright on their own.

now, ALL that revenue will gather in google's hands !! yay, great !! lets see what will happen to internet sector after that consolidation.

Re:did it even dawn on them Google is having leavi

[Locutus]

Sorry but I didn't say Google left China. I was talking about Ad Sales and moving their search domains, servers, whatever to Hong Kong. If you thought I said Google completely left China then I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

Or are you saying you know for sure those employees are Ad Sales related or just that Google has employees in China?

LoB

Re:Hunger Strike? - seriously?

[eleuthero]

While I will grant you that ~100 million people without regular access to good drinking water is bad, this is only 10% of the country (see this link for more on that (hopefully I have that configured right for the google link to a pdf).

The elitist attitude over India is unfortunate, particularly since apparently roughly half that number of Americans have issues with local water having unsafe elements in it (and we have only 1/3 the population of India!). See this NY Times article on the US problem. While for the US, it is an issue of bad standards on water treatment, and it is a separate issue in India, a bit of grace might be helpful in relating to other countries.