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Google's 'Shadow Workforce' of Contractors Demands Higher Wages, Equal Benefits in a Letter To CEO Sundar Pichai (cnbc.com)
Members of Google's "shadow workforce" of temporary workers and contractors is demanding higher wages and equal benefits to full employees in an open letter addressed to CEO Sundar Pichai. From a report, submitted by an anonymous reader: It's the latest in a series of public stands made by Google employees against aspects of the company culture. A coordinated walkout by employees around the globe protesting discrimination and sexual harassment at Google led the company to end forced arbitration for claims. Last month, several hundred employees signed onto a letter protesting the company's censored search efforts in China. A Bloomberg report in July said Alphabet had more contractors than direct employees this year, for the first time ever.
Google's mission is to 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible.' But the company fails to meet this standard within its own workplace. Google routinely denies [temporary, vendor, and contract workers] access to information that is relevant to our jobs and our lives," the letter published Wednesday says. The latest letter is signed only by "TVCs at Google" and does not indicate the number of employees backing the effort. Google did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
Google's mission is to 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible.' But the company fails to meet this standard within its own workplace. Google routinely denies [temporary, vendor, and contract workers] access to information that is relevant to our jobs and our lives," the letter published Wednesday says. The latest letter is signed only by "TVCs at Google" and does not indicate the number of employees backing the effort. Google did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
Google constantly talks about Social Justice when it appears they need a bit of Social Justice applied to them.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Oops, NBC didn't get the memo: https://www.nbcnews.com/better/business/job-hopping-rise-should-you-consider-switching-roles-make-more-ncna868641
I'm confused. No one's making them work there; if they're unhappy they all should leave and warn others about hiring at the horrible place. If NO ONE signs up, then G's going to _have_ to improve pay or the work place or go out of business. If someone continues to work for them, then I guess it wasn't THAT big of a deal then, huh? Vote with your feet and wallet, words are cheap. OTOH I don't blame them for trying to change things, but what if G says NO?
I don't see anyone with a gun making them work there -- especially since it's Silicon Valley.
(Hey, that'd make a great name for a Pr0n star! "Hi, what's your name?" "Bond, James Bond. What's yours?" "Valley, Silicon Valley." "Of course it is.")
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
I'm tired of companies using contracting to skirt labor laws. The big one is unemployment insurance. They'll keep you for 18 months (don't know why that's the magic number, IRS maybe?) and then replace you. Sure, you might make a bit more money, but you lose it all to crazy expensive health insurance and being unemployed for weeks after the end of every "contract".
A lot of guys I know stuck in the contract mill are in their late 40s/early 50s and just have to take whatever they get. They never get any savings because they're 2-3 months out of work every 18 months. Being over 40 means they don't just get a job right away (hurry for age discrimination!)
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It is bred into current management dogma that you *never* do that. You drive the company off the cliff before you do that. You have a parachute, the workers do not.
Since the article lists temporary workers and contractors, it may be possible that this includes foreign workers brought over to work specifically for google through the government "get your cheap labor here" programs.
Surely Orange Man is not as bad as you purport him to be.
Seriously, pichai has another fuck up by outsourcing heavily to India/china, and not paying decent $, and is being called on it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Good luck with that.
The primary reason any company even uses contractors in the first place is because they are cheaper than their own workforce. They may pay the contractor a higher wage, but they rarely see any of the benefits that a full time employee has. ( healthcare, 401k, the very rare pension, etc )
If hiring a contractor is going to cost them the same amount of money that using a full time employee does, there will be little need* for contractors.
So be careful what you wish for.
*Outside of very special use cases where a contractor has some skills the employees don't.
No, pichai, along with others, are outsourcing to India/China. This is why Hillary was going to increase H1Bs from 50k / year to 500k .
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If "foreign" contractors make enough money, at some point it will actually make financial sense to hire "local" contractors instead.
As for treating contractors as employees, there are actually US laws pertaining to the treatment of contractors.
If the economy was doing that well, companies would be falling over themselves trying to retain workers by increasing compensation packages. That has not happened yet.
You're looking at a trailing indicator. Labor now has "pricing power". Clearly these contractors feel they might succeed in their demands for a raise (and I have a lot of sympathy for them - Google invented this shitty classist system that goes far beyond how the other tech giants use contractors).
The usual business cycle from the bottom is:
1. Consumers stop being so scared, start fixing problems they've been living with.
2. Businesses stop being so scared, start hiring again, and strategic acquisitions.
3. Workers stop being so scared, start asking for the rasies they didn't get during the downturn.
4. Hiring going full bore, workers getting raises, consumers spend on credit like the good times will last forever, businesses overextend like the good times will last forever.
5. "Natural" inflation (unrelated to govt spending) becomes meaningful, cost of borrowing goes up.
6. Everyone is over-leveraged and over-extended when the downturn starts.
7. Kaboom! Everyone is scared, consumers stop spending, businesses stop spending.
We're at 3. Lots of run left in this business cycle. 2000-2013 were like the mid-60s through the 70s: a business cycle without a real upturn, but that's not usual.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Yes, get a job at some other company with equal motivation to keep your compensation package down.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Are you sure you want to write on Slashdot? This is site is aimed for people with 3 digit IQs, I think you're missing a digit or two.
If the economy was doing that well, companies would be falling over themselves trying to retain workers by increasing compensation packages. That has not happened yet.
It has not happened yet and has not happened ever.
NEVER say never... It has happened, just not in most of our living memories. During WW2 manufacturing jobs where plentiful and compensation increasing, including the standardization of health insurance as a benefit.
Don't be fooled by the claims of "record low" unemployment. It's a lie. Those low numbers are achieved by simply not counting millions of people.
You are being a bit myopic. While I agree that the headline unemployment number is a bit misleading, it only counts folks collecting unemployment compensation, there are OTHER numbers in the news releases that show a marked increase in employment and a decrease in the "labor participation rate". More people are actually working as a percentage of available workers. Also, the "record low" unemployment statements are technically accurate. It may not mean what some think, but it's a good sign regardless of what you may say.
Even when the economy is "doing well" there are plenty of people desperate for work and plenty of companies looking to increase their bottom line by eliminating workers, cutting wages and replacing human workers with third world monkeys.
And this is wrong how? Of course companies are driving offshore looking for lower labor rates. I don't blame them. HOWEVER, this is NOT universally true for all of us. Many are seeing increased pay, more hours and better working options here in the USA. Companies ARE paying more if you look at the household income numbers, more people are working more hours for more money, at least according to the Department of Labor's reporting.
When your company is controlled by Jews and the CEO is a third world monkey, you can expect to get screwed on a daily basis.
Seriously? So, you are unabashed about being a racist too? Shame on you, How wrong can somebody be....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Tough. Don't like it? Quit and get a job somewhere else. You are not employees and you should not be treated like employees.
I disagree... They are doing what they should be doing. If you don't like your compensation package, ASK for better. If you don't get what you want and still think it's unfair, THEN move on.
A wise man once told me, "You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate." I say let them ask.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It must suck to have the Orange main constantly Lipton bagging your mind. Do you see a psychiatrist for this?
..or 'whorehouses', depending on what mood I'm in.
'Staffing companies' like Aerotek and Kelly and their ilk are basically parasites; they really don't add anything to the equation, they're just the pimps, pimping you out to whoever for whatever, collecting the money, and giving a pittance to the 'contractors' (or 'whores', depending on what mood I'm in).
Meanwhile the 'customer' (or 'Johns', depending on what mood I'm in) is relieved of any responsibility for all these people who are doing the actual work, making them their profits; all it takes is a phone call, and anyone, regardless of how important they are to the workflow, are gone. They don't have to pay them any benefits, retirement, and so on, and more often than not, the parasite 'staffing company' doesn't bother either.
Not happy with your rate of pay anymore? Been years since you even got a couple percent bump? Too bad; if you were working direct, there would be something you could do about that (agitate for that much-needed bump); but since you're working for the parasites/pimps, they play the 'pointing game': 'staffing company' tells you, "oh, well, it's not up to us what you get paid, it's written into the contract by the customer"; then the 'customer' (who you're not supposed to be talking to, by the way; against parasite-company policy) would tell you "oh, well, you're not our employee, it's not up to us what you get paid". So you're stuck, unless you want to quit and take your chances.
Then there's the complete, by-design lack of transparency; all the '(parasite) company policies' are designed specifically to be as opaque as possible, preventing you from direct communication with the '(Johns) customers', often even to the point where the day-to-day operations have to go through some 'staffing company' representative, so who you're actually working for never even speaks to you directly.
Then there's the fake-ass 'carrot' the 'customer' dangles at you (if you're stupid enough to fall for it): "Oh hey Anon you do a good job would you be interested in a longer-term deal than just six months?" Don't fall for it. Go from being a 'contigent worker' (i.e. street whore) to a 'contractor' (i.e. house whore). Same bullshit, just longer-term, no end-point. You might think that's better, right? It's not. Now you're locked into the same pay-rate forever. Oh, the parasites might throw some half-assed 'benefits' at you, but they're shitty; 'health insurance' from some company you never heard of, who pays for NOTHING, but is perfectly happy to suck money out of your measly paycheck every week anyway.
Then there's the completely false bullshit 'carrot' of you being hired direct. Never happens either, no matter how hard you work, not matter how intelligent and talented you are. Just another fake-ass carrot to dangle to get you to hang on and suck their dicks that much longer.
It's all bullshit. None of it benefits the workers, it all benefits the companies involved. It's another sign of capitalism out of control, and another sign of the The Rich sticking it to everyone below them and trying their damnedest to destroy the Middle Class and leave a vacuum in the wake of it's death, an uncrossable gulf forever preventing any of The Poor from crossing over into a life where they're not living paycheck to paycheck.
Inevitably some jackass who still believes in the lies he's been told will now comment on this, tell me I'm a crybaby, and then go on and on about how 'well' he's done as a contractor, how much money he has, blah blah blah; but you're still a whore working for parasites, and this illusion you've deluded yourself into believing is real can be ripped away from you with a single phonecall. All it takes is for them to be tired of sucking their cocks instantly on command, and you're gone, living on unemployment, and wondering what the fuck happened.
This shit has got to stop. You want to 'Make American Great Again'? Start by discouraging this practice of making >50% of a companies'
Companies do not prosper by spending more than they need to. They can prosper by retaining talent and paying the market rate, but paying more, or keep more talent than useful, is not good for anyone. Reference General Motors.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
the Southern Strategy. It's how the economically right wing pundits in our midst distract us from economic issues. The people pushing for it were never left wing, but they needed something to get the working class off their back.
Take "equal pay for women" as an issue. Ok, we can debate if women are getting less pay or not. But even the most extreme estimates say 3%. Meanwhile workers in general make 20% less than they did 40 years ago. Folks are fighting over 3% while they've lost 20%. It's nuts.
OTOH the reverse (anti-SJW) is just as bad. There's a youtuber called "Cult of Dusty" that's got a series on how the alt-right has pivoted to 24/7 anti-SJW. Meanwhile the Evangelicals (who the alt-right, being skeptics, traditionally didn't get along with) are using the alt-right to win political offices all over.
The only consistently sane voice I know in all this has been Bernie Sanders, who's been trying to get the working class to stop fighting over scraps and go after the meat.
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IF they can't find enough people then they need to. IF the people they find at what they are paying aren't skilled enough then they need to. I see companies complaining about this all the time. If they didn't need to, then it wouldn't be a problem. Sure, if a company is having a hard time making a profit than they can't. But that's a nice thing about profit; it can be reallocated to business expenses when the market doesn't go their way.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You're free to wander out into the wilderness and get eaten by a bear or die in the winter...
People gave up on slavery in the 1800s not because they were suddenly moral beings but because wage slaves were a better deal. You didn't have to sink a ton of capital into a slave. If a wage slave got tore up in your factories you didn't care, you just got another one.
Contract workers are going to be the kinds of workers google needs but that they can easily replace. Google, along with the other major companies, are the ones that set the rules. The sheer amount of mergers and acquisitions going on means we have de-facto monopolies. The complete lack of any anti-trust enforcement in regards to workers (there's a tiny bit coming out of Europe for _consumers_) and the murder of Unions (not a death, they were killed) means these workers are running out of options.
TL;DR; If a small group of companies has all the jobs and can easily crush competitors then you no longer have a choice. That's why Unions exist. This is the start (re-start?) of Unionizing. Google's going to do everything to crush it. Google is not your friend. No company is. There is _always_ an adversarial role between worker and boss. Remember that.
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Don't be fooled by the claims of "record low" unemployment. It's a lie. Those low numbers are achieved by simply not counting millions of people.
You are being a bit myopic. While I agree that the headline unemployment number is a bit misleading, it only counts folks collecting unemployment compensation, there are OTHER numbers in the news releases that show a marked increase in employment and a decrease in the "labor participation rate". More people are actually working as a percentage of available workers. Also, the "record low" unemployment statements are technically accurate. It may not mean what some think, but it's a good sign regardless of what you may say.
That may be true, but as far as low employment triggering significant wage increases due to supply/demand mismatches, the
'missing' labor force remains a factor. As demand increases, supply can also increase until that pool is tapped out. So wages don't increase as much as the unemployment figure might suggest they would.
I also wonder how much of recent wage increases are reflecting state-by-state increases in the minimum wage. Are there enough minimum wage jobs that significant wage increases for them would show up in the overall wage rates? That would be a good thing - to the extent that it shows a significant minimum wage increase doesn't hurt the overall economy - but as an indicator of an improvement in middle class wages, not so much...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
It's not that Google has anything in particular against paying their contract workers better.
But Brin and Page have long bucket lists of important ways they'd like to change the world, and many of these simply can't be undertaken until Alphabet reaches a $2 trillion market cap.
Pros and cons, as with all things.
As they say, you can't raise an omelette to the stratosphere without breaking eggs.
Many of these contractors work nights and weekends for no extra pay to make the system stay up. They dont need to leave, they can simply clock in at 9 and leave at 530 and bill 8 hrs as per their contracts and Google would come to a screeching halt.
**Life is too short to be serious**
So people are suppose to get a free pass for voting for Bill Clinton because they didn't know how much of a douche bag he was. Are you a fucking moron.
Screw that. Lets vote for a government that regulates business so that they cannot treat employees like slaves. You have been warned.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
What in TFA has lead you to this conclusion, please?
My reading of it is not, that these people aren't paid well. It is that they want to be paid better — which is a normal and constant human condition...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Screw that. Lets vote for a government that regulates business so that they cannot treat employees like slaves. You have been warned.
What? Have Unions become so ineffective that we now need government interference to do what they used to do? Heaven help us! (sarc off)
By the way... "slave" has a specific definition: "a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them." I'm more afraid of the government enslaving me than the company I work for. The government has the power to own me, the company I work for, not so much. One can take everything I own and earn while forcing me to stay, the other I can just quit and walk away from.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Listen to Bernie. Watch his Youtube Channel. He's all about policy that helps working class Americans and levels the playing field.
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Why whatever do you mean?
I'm over 50 and switched jobs about 3 years ago now. I am regularly getting unsolicited job offers from head hunters and could easily move back to either of my last two employers if I wanted. Last time I looked, I found multiple interesting jobs that I would be perfectly qualified for with a 30 min commute of my home and I have friends who have expressed interest in having me work for their companies, who are looking for talent though not advertising. Moving may not be easy, but it's possible and sometimes necessary and there are places where talent is in short supply, do like I did and live in one of those areas.
I'm guessing the issue is one of career choice and location, not age and not because it's a non-profit. Of course, non-profits have little room to pay more and you accept less because of the nature of the work, but in that case you are receiving other forms of compensation and are doing the work for reasons other than receiving a paycheck. If you are truly locked in and feel that you need more, then I'd start doing what you have to to find another job, if that means moving, so be it.
I moved in my 40's with a young family, twice, both times to follow work. Don't be afraid of it. Yea it's a pain in the ... But it's better than being caught in a dead end for the rest of the 20+ working years you have left. Unless of course the reason you stay is because you want to support the Non-Profit's mission, then figure getting less is a cost of doing what you want. Up to you.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101