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Google Training Document Reveals How Temps, Vendors, and Contractors Are Treated (theguardian.com)
"An internal Google training document exposed by The Guardian reveals how the company instructs employees on how to treat temps, vendors, and contractors (TVCs)," writes Slashdot reader Garabito. "This includes: 'not to reward certain workers with perks like T-shirts, invite them to all-hands meetings, or allow them to engage in professional development training.'" From the report: "Working with TVCs and Googlers is different," the training documentation, titled the The ABCs of TVCs, explains. "Our policies exist because TVC working arrangements can carry significant risks." The risks Google appears to be most concerned about include standard insider threats, like leaks of proprietary information, but also -- and especially -- the risk of being found to be a joint employer, a legal designation which could be exceedingly costly for Google in terms of benefits.
Google's treatment of TVCs has come under increased scrutiny by the company's full-time employees (FTEs) amid a nascent labor movement at the company, which has seen workers speak out about both their own working conditions and the morality of the work they perform. American companies have long turned to temps and subcontractors to plug holes and perform specialized tasks, but Google achieved a dubious distinction this year when Bloomberg reported that in early 2018, the company did not directly employ a majority of its own workforce. According to a current employee with access to the figures, of approximately 170,000 people around the world who now work at Google, 50.05% are FTEs. The rest, 49.95%, are TVCs. The report notes that "the two-tier system has complicated labor activism at Google." On November 1st, after 20,000 workers joined a global walkout, "the company quickly gave in to one of the protesters' demands by ending forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment -- but only for FTEs."
Google's treatment of TVCs has come under increased scrutiny by the company's full-time employees (FTEs) amid a nascent labor movement at the company, which has seen workers speak out about both their own working conditions and the morality of the work they perform. American companies have long turned to temps and subcontractors to plug holes and perform specialized tasks, but Google achieved a dubious distinction this year when Bloomberg reported that in early 2018, the company did not directly employ a majority of its own workforce. According to a current employee with access to the figures, of approximately 170,000 people around the world who now work at Google, 50.05% are FTEs. The rest, 49.95%, are TVCs. The report notes that "the two-tier system has complicated labor activism at Google." On November 1st, after 20,000 workers joined a global walkout, "the company quickly gave in to one of the protesters' demands by ending forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment -- but only for FTEs."
They used to be Temps, Interns and Contractors (TICs) but that had an obvious negative sound and it was less well know. It was mostly used to poke fun of people (usually friends but not always) and was only a few docs. It was changed to (a) not sound so bad and (b) separate interns from The Others because interns were thought to have actual value. I think the terminology changed some time around 2005 or 2006. Around the same time, a special group of temps had their badges changed to be brown (they became "Brown Badgers" in all conversation) and weren't allowed on the main campus. There was an incident with a chef and one of these folks hoarding food to take home.
Google has never cared about non engineering staff. (There are expectations, yes.) After Wayne Rosing departed, those feelings became more pronounced. This is who they have always been but now there are large enough masses of unhappy people to do something noticeable. (This is far from the first time but previously these things stayed inside and were handled differently.)
Author never worked for a large company... or is just trying to stir-up negativity among people who never have.
If you've ever worked for a large company, you would have seen a presentation of "how to treat contractors (etc)" around orientation time, and probably once a year after that. This is normal for a US-based company - there's nothing unusual or strange about Google having such a presentation, and there's also nothing unusual about the stipulations therein.
(Yes, these companies are perhaps not actually "US-based" in terms of tax jurisdictions but you know what I mean.)
Now whether or not having a large number of contractors is "okay" is a different matter. You can debate all you want of whether there's some moral, legal, patriotic, or other issue with the practice of contract work at large companies. But in discussing that in this Slashdot thread, you have to at least acknowledge that Google is no different than many other large US-headquartered companies. Google's just taking advantage of a system that has been in place for decades. Let's not let this article make us think otherwise.
I work at a public university in the US. I've been both a permanent and, later, a temporary employee. I've seen the same type of thing, where my employer treats permanent and temporary employees very differently, even when the job duties are the same. Temporary employees don't get any paid holidays, so they're required to use vacation leave or be unpaid. An arbitrary decision was made to close the university for the national day of mourning last week on Wednesday. For permanent employees, it was treated like a permanent holiday. For me, I had to burn vacation leave. The university goes to some length to limit the benefits that can be paid to temporary employees, not unlike what Google is doing here.
It's not like temporary employees don't work as hard as permanent employees. The university also has a policy that temporary employees can be terminated immediately for any reason or, presumably, no reason at all. This means that when my boss engages in some very unprofessional behavior, reporting it carries the risk that I could be terminated because I spoke up. It doesn't matter that I'd be right that his behavior is unreasonable, I could be terminated for reporting it. This opens the door to a lot of abuses and, yes, I've seen them, and been on the receiving end of some of this unprofessional behavior.
The biggest thing #metoo got wrong is being just about taking down powerful men who abused their position to harass women. Any time there's a massive power differential, where subordinates don't feel they can speak up without retaliation, those abuses will happen. I've seen it happen to others, including graduate students threatened with having their visas revoked if they didn't work well in excess of 40 hours per week. I've seen faculty who frequently were nasty to female graduate students working for them, who often left meetings crying because of how nasty their advisor was. I've seen outright racism tolerated and the department refuse to do a thing.
Why am I still there? I'm working on leaving, and trying to make sure I land in a good situation next time.
Which if Google gave those TVCs those benefits would get them in the territory of co-employement and then they would have Microsoft's issues...
May I point out that tou are _allowed_ to do things for them? You are also _allowed_ to hire them as employees and provide other benefits.
The point is that if you choose to do certain things for them then the law will decide that you have chosen to hire them as employees. If you don't want to hire them as employees then you must not do certain things for them.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
because they can always dangle the threat of turning you into a temp when you get too uppity. Crap like this is why workers Unionized and why companies spend a small fortune demonizing Unions.
You need to be choosier on who you work for. I used to work in a union environment and it was a nightmare. Office politics out the wazoo. I still have friends there and all they talk about is how a third of their coworkers are incompetent and un-fireable, and how it's generally impossible to get anything fix or improved. The people who are lousy at their job get promoted so competent people can fill in the positions that actually do work.
I now work for a medium-sized IT company and, basically, have complete control over how I do my job. Everyone helps each other. If I need any additional resources I get them. I can work from home when I want to, unless there are meetings, which are rare. There are zero office politics, nobody is gunning for anyone else's job. Best of all, my boss, his boss, and HIS boss are all ex-programmers and IT guys. I can walk into any of their offices with any kind of problem and they'll try to get it fixed.
I'm sure such an environment could exist under unions, but I think unionization stems from a bad work environment to begin with. It certainly doesn't seem to help.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
* Used to be hip, no dull corporate - check
* A bubble of cult-like culture - check
* Lack of innovation since their one-trick pony - check
* Abusive monopoly power, including antitrust lawsuits - check
* Too much money for their own good - check
* Too big to fade away - check
To be fair, those would also fit many other large corporations. A noticeable difference between Google and Microsoft is that Google has miraculously managed to hold on to their badge of cool-place-to-work, despite all the bad press over the last years. Microsoft never managed to rid themselves of the stigma of shit software and computer crashes and viruses.