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'Jeff Bezos is Wrong, Tech Workers Are Not Bullies' (ft.com)
Silicon Valley employees have a right and duty to protest when we think projects are unethical, writes Laura Nolan, who recently left Google. From her opinion piece for Financial Times: Messrs Bezos and Bloomberg paint Amazon and Google as victims, pushed around by powerful employees who do not care about patriotism. This is absurd. Google and Amazon, and the DoD for that matter, are some of the most dominant institutions the world has known. Mr Bezos recently became the richest man in modern history. Mr Bloomberg is not far behind on the list of the world's wealthiest. Demanding that such power be held to account is common sense.
Rank-and-file tech employees, by contrast, do not have the same leverage. Ordinary Amazon employees -- the median annual salary is less than Mr Bezos earns in 10 seconds -- have been aggressively discouraged from unionising. Microsoft fired a team of contract engineers after they voted to unionise and as yet there is no tech worker union. I believe Silicon Valley leaders have historically put profit ahead of employee livelihood and whatever perks these companies provide come at the discretion of bosses, and are less a reflection of individual merit than of employer convenience.
It is significant, then, that over the past year we've seen a groundswell of worker dissent as thousands of employees at Google, Microsoft, Amazon and elsewhere have pushed back against projects and personnel decisions they consider unethical. I am part of this growing tech workers' movement. We believe we have a duty to resist the oppressive and unethical application of the powerful technology we build, and a right to know how our work is used.
Rank-and-file tech employees, by contrast, do not have the same leverage. Ordinary Amazon employees -- the median annual salary is less than Mr Bezos earns in 10 seconds -- have been aggressively discouraged from unionising. Microsoft fired a team of contract engineers after they voted to unionise and as yet there is no tech worker union. I believe Silicon Valley leaders have historically put profit ahead of employee livelihood and whatever perks these companies provide come at the discretion of bosses, and are less a reflection of individual merit than of employer convenience.
It is significant, then, that over the past year we've seen a groundswell of worker dissent as thousands of employees at Google, Microsoft, Amazon and elsewhere have pushed back against projects and personnel decisions they consider unethical. I am part of this growing tech workers' movement. We believe we have a duty to resist the oppressive and unethical application of the powerful technology we build, and a right to know how our work is used.
But being aggressively anti-union and using your control over an economic behemoth to keep salaries down and workers firmly under your thumb... that's not bullying at all, right?
It isn't bullying, but acting victimized has become the go to tactic of the day to gain attention or sympathy, so it's hardly surprising to see corporations utilizing this tactic. Once you've established that you're the victim in the scenario, it apparently grants carte blanche to be as much of a dick yourself as you care to be. Anyone who disagrees can be accused of victim blaming, being on the side of the bullies, or whatever other nonsense someone wants to spew.
The behavior is hardly new, but I think Twitter and other social media platforms handed it such a megaphone that no one is quite sure how to react.
But being aggressively anti-union and using your control over an economic behemoth to keep salaries down and workers firmly under your thumb... that's not bullying at all, right?
The first problem is: who gets to decide what's unethical?
I'm sorry to be the one to burst your bubbles and safe spaces. Here are a few facts for young workers recently graduated from college:
1) Every single company wants a piece of the lucrative DoD pie. The money is simply too big to pass up. This includes FAANG and all the other tech companies.
2) Companies are not moral beings. The sole purpose of companies is to make a return on shareholder equity. Period.
3) The apparent liberal bias of Google and Facebook et al is only so much posturing to retain employees and fit in with the prevailing west coast US culture. They are simply amoral and apolitical money makers.
Groups of employees trying to defend rights it is a necessary part of society. Many times, company owners try to define things as if people working with there were not humans and this must be discouraged.
However.
Check what have been happening in Costa Rica these last months. We are in the middle of one of longest strikes in our recent history. Basically, current scholar year have been finished months before, because unionized workers are against several government tax definitions. And they are waiting for the judicial system to define if their strike it is or not a legal one (Costa Rica has a lot of worker protection laws).
The problem is that, in the middle, thousands of children, their families are suffering, and hundreds and hundreds of derived jobs are in peril.
Sometimes the unions pretend just to show that they are strong and they don't like to negotiate but to impose their way of thinking. This makes many employers to think if they must hire more people as permanent workers, as they know they could be growing a future "enemy" inside their company. Sometimes it is better to be small, or to hire by service and have no more legal links with people.
Unions are needed, but they must have very clear and have well specified goals and action paths. They must help workers (the ones like to receive their help, not by imposition), but they can't define what the company goals are because they are not the company owners. This is like many things in life ... if I have a job, one where my dignity it is preserved, but I don't like what my employer do, then I must find a different job. And, sometimes, some "clever" individuals with particular goals in mind (not the ones for the unionized people but their personal agenda), take the union control and they really become a danger for the companies. That is what owners are afraid of.
Except you're wrong. Laws are not necessarily ethical or moral. Permissible by law doesn't mean it's "the right thing to do" at all.
Bad analogy time : someone in front of you at the grocery store falls down and hurts their foot. It's quite lawful to just walk by, even stretch your arm over them to grab some box of cereal and leave them there. But is it moral ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Did you fail History class when Prohibition was discussed???
Legality != Morality.
* Some things are legal that are moral
* Some things are legal that are immoral
* Some things are illegal that are moral
* Some things are illegal that are immoral
Bad analogy time : someone in front of you at the grocery store falls down and hurts their foot. It's quite lawful to just walk by, even stretch your arm over them to grab some box of cereal and leave them there. But is it moral ?
Is it my ex?