Google Urged the US To Limit Protection for Activist Workers (bloomberg.com)

Google, whose employees have captured international attention in recent months through high-profile protests of workplace policies, has been quietly urging the U.S. government to narrow legal protection for workers organizing online. From a report: During the Obama administration, the National Labor Relations Board broadened employees' rights to use their workplace email system to organize around issues on the job. In a 2014 case, Purple Communications, the agency restricted companies from punishing employees for using their workplace email systems for activities like circulating petitions or fomenting walkouts, as well as trying to form a union. In filings in May 2017 and November 2018, obtained via Freedom of Information Act request, Alphabet's Google urged the National Labor Relations Board to undo that precedent.

Citing dissents authored by Republican appointees, Google's attorneys wrote that the 2014 standard "should be overruled" and a George W. Bush-era precedent -- allowing companies to ban organizing on their employee email systems -- should be reinstated. In an emailed statement, a Google spokeswoman said, "We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses" against meritless claims at the NLRB.

Comments

How 1984 of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoda thunk a bunch of rich white 1%ers who push "progressive" ideals is also all about stifling any dissent?

Re: How 1984 of them

[cayenne8]

I hate to say it, but I kind of agree with Google on this one.

Hey, if you want to organize protests, etc....do it on your own time, or at the very least, do it on your own private email, etc.

I mean, why should a company essentially pay you to protest them or let you use their facilities and servers to promote things that are against the best interests of the company or it's shareholders (you know, the folks that own the company)?

Sure you have the right to protest me or oppose me, but I shouldn't have to foot the bill for you too should I?

Re: How 1984 of them

[gorehog]

On my own private email...gorehog@gmail.com...uh huh...

Re:How 1984 of them

[TheGratefulNet]

rich WHITE?

have you BEEN to any bay area campus?

(narrarator: most tech workers are indian and chinese; last I checked, that's not 'white' by definition).

Re: How 1984 of them

[ArchieBunker]

Would you consider company email as being private?

Re: How 1984 of them

[cayenne8]

And how do you propose obtaining the private email addresses of your coworkers? IT people hardly interact face-to-face these days, and a corporate email: "Hey send me y'all's' personal email address so that we can plot a revolution" would be arguably disallowed.

I believe that burden is upon the organizers.

How did they do it in the past before there were computers and email?

Certainly you know some if not most of the people you work with, and see in person ask them. Or you could even use company email to just ask for private emails, without stipulating what it was for...that wouldn't violate any policy, just say you'd like to converse with them offline from the company about something.

I mean, what about working and coming up with something? Life doesn't owe you the easiest path you know.....show some initiative, where there's a will, there is a way.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Solandri]

Agreed, but IMHO this is pushback against companies taking punitive action against employees for doing stuff on their own time. e.g. You post pictures of yourself smoking weed and drinking beer at an evening party on your Facebook account, and your company fires you for it.

Either they're both wrong, or they're both right. Either you shouldn't do personal stuff on the company's time, and the company shouldn't care what you do during your non-work hours. Or the company can exert control over your behavior during non-work hours, and you can work on personal stuff during work hours.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Type44Q]

rich white

Skin color is totally orthogonal to power and control, numbnuts.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Tom]

I mean, why should a company essentially pay you to protest them or let you use their facilities and servers to promote things that are against the best interests of the company or it's shareholders (you know, the folks that own the company)?

Because it works.

I come from a country with strong employee protection laws, including the right to organize inside the company, and even laws regulating how to organise, how to elect representatives to speak for the employees, and rights and protections for those representatives, including extensive use of company facilities and even money to pay for what they need (training, lawyers, etc.)

The result is much more peace within the workplace, because there are accepted ways to bring your grievances to the attention of management. There are ways to force management if they don't comply with the law, without going to an external court and putting all the internal dirt into public.

It may not be perfect, but even most companies agree that it beats being hit by multi-million dollar lawsuits every few years.

Re: How 1984 of them

[SuricouRaven]

There is still a clear correlation, though one that is steadily lessening as time passes. Wealth and skin color are both inherited.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Z80a]

The same kind of logic could (and is) used by very bad people to argue things such as exterminating all the black people.
While most rich people are white, most white people aren't rich, as most black people are not violent criminals and so forth.
Beware of the retarded mindflip.

Re: How 1984 of them

[careysub]

And how do you propose obtaining the private email addresses of your coworkers? IT people hardly interact face-to-face these days, and a corporate email: "Hey send me y'all's' personal email address so that we can plot a revolution" would be arguably disallowed.

I believe that burden is upon the organizers.

How did they do it in the past before there were computers and email?

Employees were (and are) allowed to contact, and interact with other employees on the company premises and on company time on matters of workers rights and interests, including organizing unions.

If the organization is global, interacting electronically, then extending those existing rights to email would be the way to go.

Re: How 1984 of them

[careysub]

The lawyers are paid by, and represent, Google. They do not do anything that is not "Google really".

Also recall that last year the top corporate sponsor for CPAC, the far right-wing circus that used to be relegated to the fringes, was Google.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Anonymous Coward]

> the company or it's shareholders

it is shareholders? WTF is that supposed to mean?

Re: How 1984 of them

[Anonymous Coward]

I originally agreed with the person you are replying to. But your comparison makes perfect sense. It's a slippery slope that we shouldn't go down.

Re:How 1984 of them

[zifn4b]

Whoda thunk a bunch of rich white 1%ers

A lot of the 1%ers are not white. A lot of the money is in investment firms and the racial diversity is a bit different than you think it is. But keep exercising your free speech to push the false racism narrative I guess.

Re: How 1984 of them

[zifn4b]

Agreed, but IMHO this is pushback against companies taking punitive action against employees for doing stuff on their own time. e.g. You post pictures of yourself smoking weed and drinking beer at an evening party on your Facebook account, and your company fires you for it.

Funny you should say this. Did you know Silicon Valley companies are particularly bad offenders of thinking they own people's personal time? I mean heck, they're the ones that came up with the idea that firing someone is "graduation". We want to congratulate Bob for graduating XYZ Silicon Valley startup ABC. We wish him well on his next badass adventure. Talk about a bunch of evil psychological hackery.

Re:How 1984 of them

[Shaitan]

What do rich white 1%ers have to do with Google? I think you meant to say high income indian 1%ers.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Shaitan]

"How did they do it in the past before there were computers and email?"

They saw there co-workers, they were in the same building and not a different state or even country. Jesus, isn't it bad enough they maximize the number of contract and visa workers to crush their staff and prevent fair pay?

Maybe it is hard to sympathize with complaints about pay from people making in the low six figures but when their job should by all reasonable metrics be paying at least the mid 200's and it is underpaid nationwide in a massive industry it is something of a big issue. Especially when many of these staff are being forced to work insane hours to meet unrealistic deadlines because of a blatantly bought and paid for exception to overtime requirements under labor law.

Re:How 1984 of them

[Shaitan]

He said 1%ers, the 1% is mostly more successful and educated workers. Maybe he meant the 0.1%

Re: How 1984 of them

[Shaitan]

Entitlement to lost wealth and blame for how it was acquired are not. You don't have any say in whether you are born rich or poor or what color your skin is. The son doesn't inherit the sins of the father and he doesn't inherit a legitimate complaint of his father's either.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Shaitan]

"While most rich people are white, most white people aren't rich, as most black people are not violent criminals and so forth."

And just as importantly, the sins don't pass from father to son. White people born today aren't guilty of a crime or owe any sort of debt to people randomly born with dark skin. Just like people randomly born wealthy with dark skin don't owe any debt. There is no score to settle and nothing to correct, the people who committed the crimes and the victims are all dead or so old as to be irrelevant. Your grandparents might have had something coming but you aren't entitled to collect it from the grandchildren of the people who owed it because being in either position was a dice roll. That's the whole point, you can't change what you are born as and that is what makes discrimination on those traits so evil. It is the same lesson we learned about thrones and positions passed from parent to child.

Frankly the wealth shouldn't pass down either. The sensible thing would just be a tax on wealth rather than income. If you can't bring in enough to cover the taxes on your built up wealth you sell it and pay the bill. After all if you can't grow enough to cover the tax the wealth should be in the hands of those doing a better job. Merit.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Z80a]

Averages, specially shit like racial averages are pretty bad tools to judge individuals.
You don't get any richer just because there are a hundred Adrian Mr.Billionaires on "your team".

Re: How 1984 of them

[cayenne8]

I come from a country with...

Well, this is about an US company...so, what you say doesn't apply and doesn't really matter....no offense meant, but if you're in another country than the US on a discussion about US companies and policies, it is best to just sit on the side and watch.

Re: How 1984 of them

[dryeo]

US can't learn from other countries?

Re: How 1984 of them

[drinkypoo]

Skin color is totally orthogonal to power and control, numbnuts.

It is not. As long as most of the wealth is held by white people who prefer to do business with other white people, and most of the power is held by the people with most of the wealth, that statement will be utterly false.

Re: How 1984 of them

[drinkypoo]

Your grandparents might have had something coming but you aren't entitled to collect it from the grandchildren of the people who owed it because being in either position was a dice roll.

There is a concept known as "ameliorative justice" in which the idea is to improve the situation, not to punish people. Taking money away from white people and giving it to black people would be racist, right? But that's much of what you do when you take money away from rich people and give it to poor people, because black people are still suffering from economic distress whose roots were deliberate. The single strongest correlation in determining economic outcome is the economic status of one's parents, i.e. one's starting conditions. The truth is that being in either position was very much not a dice roll — white people deliberately made things worse for black people. In order for things to be fair now, white people are going to have to deliberately make things better for them. It doesn't matter if those white people are the ones who made it worse for them or not, it only matters that they are the only ones capable of ameliorating the current situation specifically because they are in the positions of power and wealth.

Frankly the wealth shouldn't pass down either. The sensible thing would just be a tax on wealth rather than income. If you can't bring in enough to cover the taxes on your built up wealth you sell it and pay the bill. After all if you can't grow enough to cover the tax the wealth should be in the hands of those doing a better job. Merit.

A lot of problems would be solved if you taxed income fairly. For one thing, we should tax corporate income, not corporate profits. If a corporation isn't profitable, then it is either a failure or a tax dodge. Either way, it should go away and let some other corporation take its place. As you say, Merit. That brings you to the problem of how to solve the problem of instability when corporations are failing left and right. I argue that it's UBI, and that you simply print the money to pay for it. This produces inflation which discourages cash hoarding/encourages investment (same thing really) and diminishes the very value of large inheritances. But we should certainly tax inheritance at least at a similar rate as other income.

Re: How 1984 of them

[drinkypoo]

The son doesn't inherit the sins of the father and he doesn't inherit a legitimate complaint of his father's either.

He doesn't inherit the complaint, he has the same complaint. His economic starting position is predicated upon the initial economic abuse (to say nothing of other kinds) placed upon his ancestors. In our system, the single strongest factor which determines economic success is starting position, so you would expect that to still have effects today since it has never been corrected.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Shaitan]

More like "Gimme part of your family jewels.....cause you didn't earn them or your keep but they cost public resources to protect and maintain and so do you."

"So all the things you worked for/earned cannot be benefited to your own kin without them paying some penalty to keep it constantly?"

The alternative is everyone else pays a penalty to enable them to keep them. Also just because you accumulated wealth doesn't mean it was in proportion to what you rightfully had coming. People have earned billions while making less contribution than people who've earned minimum wage and no person contribute a billion dollars worth of effort to society in their lifetime, they've accumulated wealth from the efforts of others. Which is fine to some extent, you don't want to punish working hard and kill the american dream and also we don't really have a better system for determining the custodians of our wealth at this point. But the idea that children of those who have shown merit to be custodians of wealth translate to their children through breeding like thoroughbreds has been debunked. More commonly the children of the extraordinary are mundane and sometimes the apple falls very very far from the tree.

The system is far better for the economy as a whole and would seriously alleviate the treadmill that stands in the way of the success of those with merit working toward wealth. Seriously if you have enough wealth it almost grows on its own anyway. This doesn't really hurt those with a great deal of wealth even if does attack the way the wealthy like Buffett dodge taxes. What it does do is stop punishing productive merit and success.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Shaitan]

"But that's much of what you do when you take money away from rich people and give it to poor people, because black people are still suffering from economic distress whose roots were deliberate."

But there is a very big difference. Once is racist, the other is merely a correlation. Rationale based on race is faulty and unsound, period. If it weren't racism wouldn't be bad.

"The truth is that being in either position was very much not a dice roll — white people deliberately made things worse for black people."

No, people who happened to have white skin deliberately made things worse for people who happened to have dark skin . Not because they were bad or evil but largely because of faulty information, logic, and reasoning which allowed them to justify their actions to themselves and others. Those people aren't really around anymore. Being born into either group, or none of the above IS a dice roll. Losing that roll and being born poor is really no different regardless of the reason your family is poor. Without the discrimination you speak of at least as many people would be born poor and disadvantaged it just wouldn't happen to have a correlation with a logically insignificant trait like skin color. Actually the sad reality is most likely more would be poor and disadvantaged, the slave labor and disadvantages it excused enabled huge economic opportunities in the United States and boosted the economy. Yes there are families that are wealthy and white who have benefited but there is also more overall opportunity for everyone of all colors today and a larger middle class because of the wealth that institution fed into our economy.

"In order for things to be fair now, white people are going to have to deliberately make things better for them. It doesn't matter if those white people are the ones who made it worse for them or not, it only matters that they are the only ones capable of ameliorating the current situation specifically because they are in the positions of power and wealth."

That isn't fair at all. Two wrongs don't make a right. You don't cure racism based on skin color from the past with new racism based on skin color today. You cure the underlying problem by NOT continuing to use faulty logic based on invalid criteria which have no impact on merit like skin color. You do fight the advantages of wealth with regard to future success but you do not do so in a racist manner deliberately targeting people based on skin color or race. The idea is to level the playing field and let economic disparity take care of itself in a few generations. A playing field with rules regarding race beyond a rule to not consider it isn't level.

The other problem with your logic is people you categorize as "white" don't owe any sort of debt and the people you categorize as "black" aren't owed anything. There is nothing to correct because skin color isn't logically significant. There is no downside to people who happen to have white skin being the ones with wealth and people who happen to have black skin correlating to low wealth. The same would be true if it were the other way around. How it ended up that way is historical trivia.

All the history and other factors are strawmen. It comes down to this. Does the act of being born with a given skin color entitle someone to advantage or disadvantage? What exactly "do you have coming" for the act of being born? I say no and nothing beyond whatever value we ascribe to the potential of a human life. If that is true than any policy that is contrary to that is faulty no matter how it is rationalized. What that individual is entitled to thereafter should be entirely a function of their own capability and merit. There is a lot more room for debate on how to achieve that but we can control what advantages and disadvantages we give in our society purely on the basis of inborn traits which can't be changed and don't impact merit.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Tom]

Well, this is about an US company...so, what you say doesn't apply and doesn't really matter....

Yes, it does apply.

Sure, you don't have the same laws, but the laws are only the implementation. The basic principle - that by giving people an outlet for their grievances your increase peace in the workplace - is the same. You'd just use a different method to implement it. One of those methods would be to support workers to exchange, discuss and organise within the company, using company resources. Because it might end up being more expensive to you if they organise and protest outside the company. And a lot less of your dirty underwear will be washed in public with this approach.

Re: How 1984 of them

[Can'tNot]

This is one of the craziest comments I've ever read on this site. I'm guessing you probably just weren't reading too carefully, and thought that the parent was trying to suggest that a foreign law might apply to a US company, but it comes off as just amazingly myopic to suggest that foreign successes shouldn't influence American lawmaking.

HaHa...Do No Evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just be like every other large, sleazy corporation!

So much for "do no evil"

[ZorinLynx]

With the news of Chrome disabling ad-blocking extensions, and now then, I guess we can put Google squarely in the "evil" category.

The thing is, what other options are there? There's Apple, which for the moment is a bit better but they have some evil of their own, and there's no guarantee they won't go full evil like Google has in the future.

Microsoft? HA, I kill me.

Should I just hunker down and stop using the Internet? I don't know anymore.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you were going to rate evil, wouldn't it go something like this from worst to, hmm, not as bad:

Oracle
Google
Apple
Microsoft

Yes, the Microsoft of old was pretty evil. They have gotten a bit better while many of the rest have gotten much worse.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[epine]

The thing is, what other options are there?

Welcome to the free market, where real choice exists only in chaotic beginnings, and every mature product space collapses to two (or maybe three) barely distinct shades of moral chartreuse.

I grew up in a non-gospel church with "We Shall Overcome" as regular staple.

As an adult, I now understood that those who sang it best were the committed capitalists, overcoming the strictures of competition in an open market of ideas, where the customers make important choices about right and wrong, rather than just plucking a lifestyle allegiance out of their belly buttons.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[Anonymous Coward]

In retrospect, even saying "don't be evil" was a pretty big red flag.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[Anonymous Coward]

True. Kind of like "Honest Charley's" as a name for a business.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[SCVonSteroids]

Depends what you use it for.
Nobody honestly cares what kind of porn you watch.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[rickb928]

And which of these owns Twitter?

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[stealth_finger]

In the interest of cost cutting and efficiency they decided to drop the middle word.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[TheGratefulNet]

all large corps are evil.

life sucks as you realize this.

life aint no disney movie.

oh, and humans generally suck.

that is all.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[Archtech]

Yes, it's essential to be realistic. Corporations are legal fictions - AIs with human components, as it's been said - and they have absolutely no conscience or morality.

Robert Heinlein once wrote something that applies perfectly to corporations:

"Never rely on a man's better nature; he may not have one".

In the case of a corporation, it hardly ever has any trace of a better nature. Just as a Terminator is interested in absolutely nothing but destroying its target, a corporation is interested in absolutely nothing but profit. (Not all of the profits may reach the shareholders, admittedly; the managers get their share).

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[kramer2718]

With the news of Chrome disabling ad-blocking extensions

Has Chrome really disabled ad blocking extensions?

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[Tailhook]

Well if you were going to rate evil

Yeah sure. That's a useful exercise. When you finish ironing out your evil ranking system why not run around in a circle and make chicken noises for a while? Should make for a really productive Thursday!

Google is a piratic valley cesspit just like all the other valley pirates, except that it has a greater cohort of apologists and naive pink hairs that are still knocking back Google's progressive flavored kool-aid.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[Opportunist]

Corporations are not inherently evil. They're just intelligence without conscience or accountability, neither legal nor moral. That usually leads to pretty rotten actions, which we consider evil, but corporations are not evil. Corporations neither think nor act.

The shell of a corporation only allows people to act without having to justify their actions morally, because they have to do something, because if they don't, someone else would have and they'd have been fired.

The main difference to the Third Reich is that in a corporation even the CEO can point to someone to blame that forces his hand.

Re: So much for "do no evil"

[Type44Q]

You were a philosophy major, weren't you.

Re: So much for "do no evil"

[Type44Q]

Corporations are not inherently evil. They're just intelligence without conscience or accountability,

Same fucking thing, for all practical purposes.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[drinkypoo]

Apple introduced their version of the ad blocking API that Google is proposing years ago. And as I pointed out in the story about it, Google is actually looking at keeping the older API for stuff that needs it

Embrace

and offering the new one as a higher performance but more limited option.

Extend

What comes next?

Google is the new Microsoft.

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you were going to rate evil, wouldn't it go something like this from worst to, hmm, not as bad:

Oracle
Google
Apple
Microsoft

Looks about right. To rate them in standard units:

Oracle 0.75 Facebooks
Google 0.5 Facebooks
Apple 0.45 Facebooks
Microsoft 0.35 Facebooks

Re:So much for "do no evil"

[ayesnymous]

LOL, Microsoft should definitely be worse than Apple. Apple isn't collecting all sorts of telemetry on their OS/devices.

Re: So much for "do no evil"

[Opportunist]

Well, governments (democratic ones, at least) at least nominally have the interest of their constituents in mind. Corporations don't. Corporations are accountable to shareholders, not you (unless you hold shares).

Corporations and its acting figures are also not under your control. Not even nominally. You don't get to elect the Alphabet CEO.

This is one of the reasons why I'm always a bit puzzled when people would rather trust a corporation than their government. With a government, you at least have some kind of say. But I guess some people just want to be ruled, without having a voice.

Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Working behind the scenes to limit workers rights while they build literal Company Towns.

Pretty soon they will start paying employees in Google Bucks that are only redeemable at the Google Company Store.

Ah, the royal 'we'

[ChoGGi]

"We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses"

Thems weasel words Google.

Re:Ah, the royal 'we'

[stealth_finger]

"We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses"

Thems weasel words Google.

We're not lobbying to change the rules, we just want them to be different and are trying to make that happen.

Re:Ah, the royal 'we'

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

It's not a stroke. It's just a temporary problem with blood-flow to the head.

(paraphrasing a line from the movie "Dave")

Re:Ah, the royal 'we'

[omnichad]

Oh, that old "It's against the law but someone said it probably shouldn't be" defense.

Re:Ah, the royal 'we'

[sinij]

"We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses"

Thems weasel words Google.

I just Googled definitions, and they are using them exactly, perfectly, correctly, don't look any further now, we know your browsing history...

Google has to be broken up

[WCMI92]

This is one reason why. Among many.

disagree

[supernova87a]

I support a company's right to be able to regulate the internal use of their software and tools that they provide and pay for. Just because a certain message might be (at the moment) a popular one doesn't mean it gets more privileges or gets to assume the use of someone's resources without question.

Freedom of speech, and US regulations about labor organization communications, don't imply the right to disseminate messages in any way without regard to the rights of others or in any channel you may encounter. People are free to speak to each other, and they're free to publish documents, papers, blog posts, news articles using their resources.

Google is right to do this, and they should learn to act even more like a professional business. They already brewed themselves a shitstorm by inviting their employees to discuss and debate controversial political topics on internal forums as if it's some kind of college campus. It's coming back to bite them in the ass.

Re:disagree

[tomhath]

Employees were not allowed to use the company's copy machines for this type of activity. Using the company's computers, printers, network, email system, etc. is no different.

Re:disagree

[omnichad]

I support a company's right to be able to regulate the internal use of their software and tools that they provide and pay for.

They already brewed themselves a shitstorm by inviting their employees to discuss and debate controversial political topics on internal forums

Well Google can't have it both ways, can they?

Re:disagree

[Pseudonym]

Bring your whole self to work. Except the part of you that hates being treated like shit by your employer.

Re:disagree

[sinij]

I support a company's right to be able to regulate the internal use of their software and tools that they provide and pay for.

Do you understand scope of Google control over modern communications?! If you let them do it, they can very effectively censor any attempt to organize - it won't be searchable by Google, you won't be able to email to @gmail, you won't be able to make Youtube videos.

Re:disagree

[supernova87a]

This is talking about the company's internal mail and forums. I don't know what random tangent you're off on.

Re:disagree

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Generally the first amendment protects your right not to say things as well, and forcing the company to pay factionally for email to support speech it doesn't like violates this principle, however minor.

The government is basicslly forcing you to fund your detractors.

whoa

[Cpt_Kirks]

Did I hit the wrong site? /. gets more like /b/ every day.

Sad.

On topic:

Want to organize? Go for it.

Using the company email system to foment strikes or walk outs? You should be fired on the spot.

Re:whoa

[tomhath]

The little guy has the power to use email for organizing. There's no reason the company must supply the resources.

Re:whoa

[Pseudonym]

What if the company is one of the world's largest providers of free personal email which it hands out on a non-discriminatory basis?

Re:whoa

[MikeS2k]

In 50 years time American workers will go back to living in Company barracks, and being paid with company scrip. They will be working 6am - 9pm, monday to saturday, with a half day on Sunday generously provided. Any sick days will not get paid, and there will be no vacation pay.
There will be vacations allowed, but due to the cost of living in the company barracks nobody will take any off, as nobody will have a bank balance over $1000 USD.
A handful of cartels will control all of this, and any upstarts will get squashed immediately. e.g. New guy has idea for a new car? Well he cannot buy rubber, steel etc because only the Big Cartel can buy from the rubber suppliers (if they disobey, they no longer get any Cartel orders) - and the State will allow this as long as the campaign contributions flow in.

And the Americans will still rant on about how great their system is, and how the free market cures everything.
I like it when they say - those fancy Euros and their 5 weeks vacation and 40 hour workweeks, what pussies, Our US GDP is twice theirs! How does that high GDP serve them when they are sleeping at the office most nights?

It is sad really, I feel for the US workers but they are all so selfish and so ignorant they will never organise or vote differently. A guy bullied them back in high school? Well we need the free market so he can work like a slave in a crap job, and I can feel superior than him for being paid $4 an hour more than him

Why not?

[GoTeam]

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but I don't think company resources should be used to undermine that company. Why should a company be forced to let employees use company infrastructure against itself? I also think it is stupid for an employee to use company resources for these activities. The company can monitor those resources and find out who in the company needs to get assigned the tasks that no one else would want to do. The whole thing seems a bit silly, although I am a simple minded fool so...

Re:Why not?

[shess]

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but I don't think company resources should be used to undermine that company. Why should a company be forced to let employees use company infrastructure against itself? I also think it is stupid for an employee to use company resources for these activities. The company can monitor those resources and find out who in the company needs to get assigned the tasks that no one else would want to do. The whole thing seems a bit silly, although I am a simple minded fool so...

What if the employees are trying to save the company from making a bad decision? Do they have to do that entirely externally to the company?

I worked at Google for a long time, and there were many times when someone used internal communications for completely-inappropriate stuff. But there were many times when such communications were essential to get things sorted out. Unfortunately, there was not a bright line between the different types of communications, mostly because people are people, with all the squishiness that comes along with that (I mean, sometimes people go out in a blaze of misguided glory, sometimes they do the right thing, and sometimes they are just asshats).

Re:Why not?

[painandgreed]

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but I don't think company resources should be used to undermine that company. Why should a company be forced to let employees use company infrastructure against itself? I also think it is stupid for an employee to use company resources for these activities. The company can monitor those resources and find out who in the company needs to get assigned the tasks that no one else would want to do. The whole thing seems a bit silly, although I am a simple minded fool so...

To begin with, there is some line where an employer does not have say over what one does at work. There are employee and even human rights protected by law and just because they are the employer, they can't just dictate all behavior. Being able to communicate with fellow coworkers probably comes into that even about non-work items. This particular case seems to be about a work issue, and thus banning it could be banning any discussion of workplace issues not pre-authorized by management. Next, it's not really about using the resources. IT is not coming going to manangement complaining that the email system is being taxed by this. Next, realistically, it's not about even using company resources. If people moved to off campus and organized via personal emails, those peopel doing the work would then be punished or laid off for some reason and the company would just go to the next issue they can push to stop it. Probably not finally, the base cause of most such actions comes down to bad management and workers reaction to bad management. Efforts to stop it without looking at the root causes is just another way of doing the entire "beating will continue till morale improves" routine. Management rarely looks towards themselves as the problem. A company will deal with a department with unusually high turn over of workers being fired for "insubordination" or other causes rather than replace one bad manager who is the one causing the issues and perhaps even violating company policies or employee rights laws.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[cayenne8]

Everybody wants single payer healthcare system

IF everyone wanted it...we'd have it.

Personally, I do NOT.

There are a number of things they could do to make ti better here in the US, but I do NOT want the overreaching, poorly managed Federal Govt in charge of it.

Hell, we can't afford it even if we wanted it...its starting to weigh heavy and fiscally drag things down under its own weight in countries that have it, I hear in Great Britain they're starting to show cracks in that system.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[KixWooder]

I want insurance and healthcare completely disconnected from employment. I don't get my homeowners or car insurance via my employer and neither should health insurance.

Some of the Obama era protections were wrong

[scourfish]

If you are using a resource someone else owns and pays for (such as corporate email) then on principle they should be allowed to set the limits for the use of that resource. Encrypted email services are cheap and free, and workers are free to organize their gripes outside of those channels.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[TheGratefulNet]

but I do NOT want the overreaching, poorly managed Federal Govt in charge of it.

you are pathetic and insincere.

SOMEONE is in control. you dislike the government. fine, I mostly agree with you there, but who else should control this? currently its the insurance companies and they are allowed mostly free control of this industry. they are entirely profit driven. the government is not; so that's a plus in the gov's favor. both have competancy issues, so that's a moot point for both.

does our current system work? not really. therefore, we have only 1 choice: CHANGE IT and make it less of an industry and more of a SERVICE to mankind.

other countries do this. almost all do, in fact. the US is a 3rd world hellhole when it comes to this issue.

Re:Trump Fails It

[omnichad]

It appears to me that Trump has offered to negotiate.

He's made it a one-issue debate and refuses to negotiate on that. That's not an offer, it's a stonewall.

Re:The rest of the story

[omnichad]

They can ask, but their faces are already on the Internet for anyone who knows how Google Image search works:
https://ocdn.eu/images/pulscms...

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[cayenne8]

I want insurance and healthcare completely disconnected from employment. I don't get my homeowners or car insurance via my employer and neither should health insurance.

I agree whole heartedly on this one.

I also think that they should open it up for medical insurance sales across state lines.

Competition there might help things a good bit.

I'd also like to see the govt. PROMOTE and make it easier to set up individual HSA's (Health Savings Accounts) that people can use to save pre-tax for their routine medical needs....or to even pay for individual insurance, etc. Rather than try to inhibit this as the Obama regime did, it should be opened up and promoted to make it easier for people to do.

HSA's, unlike FSA's are not use it or lose it either, you can put these accounts together to grow over time and even earn interest on them, etc.

Re:The rest of the story

[Stolovaya]

All your post does is show that you don't know what many of those words mean. Stop putting certain groups on pedestals; they're human, not deities for you to worship.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[danbert8]

This. This. And this again.

No solution to healthcare that doesn't put more control in the hands of the patient is going to make things worse. Federal control for sure isn't going to give patients more control. Why should my company's HR department pick my plan and deal with coverage? Even worse, for anyone who has ever dealt with insurance problems and had to get their HR involved, HR generally sides with the insurance company... What are you going to do? Quit?

Re:Trump Fails It

[danbert8]

You can't have compromise on moral issues. And the Democrats have made everything Trump says immoral. Now, I will grant you that a lot of the stuff Trump does is immoral, but seriously even serving McDonalds is an abomination now? Peace with North Korea? How can you be against that?

Re:Trump Fails It

[cayenne8]

He's made it a one-issue debate and refuses to negotiate on that. That's not an offer, it's a stonewall.

Well, he's asking for like $5B.

Either offer him something lower than than amount....or maybe try to get something MORE that they want....

I mean, c'mon...you've got democrats on record like Shumer, Obama...big time democrats that only a few short years ago were openly supporting wall construction and re-enforcement.

It isn't like they weren't for a wall not that long ago, so, why not give Trump something....for something in return?

Secure Fence Act of 2006

Schumer sound bites sound like trump...

Ok, I know the last one is from Fox, but try to get by that and just listen to the two of them sounding the same and saying the same things.

For that skip to about 1:45 to see the comparisons start.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[Opportunist]

Why do you think one delusion is more justifiable or better than any other?

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[Opportunist]

And that solves the problem of those that can currently also not participate in a healthcare system, i.e. the ones that cannot simply stuff money in some account because they live paycheck to paycheck, in what way?

Or, wait, do we simply have them die off? That's a solution of the problem, I give you that...

Re: Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[cyber-vandal]

Why do people who are against universal healthcare think that it wouldn't be possible to get health insurance on top of the state system?

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[Opportunist]

I have to admit, back when "Obamacare" was all the rage, I stood there baffled and befuddled that anyone could oppose universal healthcare. You see, over here in Europe, you can do a lot to us. You can take away our guns, we don't really care about them that much, you can take away our holidays, you can make us work overtime for no pay, there's very little that you can't do to us, just as a few right-leaning governments recently proved.

But talking about taking away universal healthcare would probably lead to worse riots than you'd see in the US if someone tried to repeal the 2nd.

Just the idea that I somehow can't afford an operation or even going to a doctor, or that I can't afford some medicine that I need is absolutely alien to us. We also don't worry about which hospital an ambulance takes us to, the closest one is the correct one. The very idea of not being able to afford medical care is kinda ridiculous to us.

Why anyone would not want that is really hard to understand over here.

Doubleplusgood! :)

[VeryFluffyBunny]

I, for one, support our corporations right to censor, misinform, & coerce us into doing whatever they like. Human decency gets in the way of profits, for crying out loud!

Re:TRUMP IS A TRAITOR - DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM

[Opportunist]

You are aware that we get Pence as a replacement, right?

I'm still convinced that's the main reason nobody pulled the trigger on the annoying orange yet.

Re:Trump Fails It

[Opportunist]

More that he's acting like a kid throwing a tantrum. Maybe a spanking would help?

Re: Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[Type44Q]

you are pathetic and insincere

And you clearly possess an amazing ability to convince those who don't agree with you; "sky-high EQ" and all that. ;)

Re: Trump Fails It

[Type44Q]

The wall's a fucking logistical joke; just turn the border into a [regularly-used] bombing range.

No walls, fences or even guards required...

Government Regulation

[rsilvergun]

that's the option. When you have a natural monopoly you write laws to keep things from going south. Or you let them go south (often out of a slavish devotion to laissez faire economics) and live with the consequences.

Fine if Google banned all non work speach

[rsilvergun]

but they don't and they don't want to (it would hit moral hard).

Furthermore there is nothing wrong with giving workers extra protections. As a worker you already have a significant disadvantage (you've got less money and you work for a living as opposed to owning things for a living). If that balance is not redressed somehow you get oligarchy and totalitarianism like we had in the era of robber barons & company stores.

Don't be afraid to have a sense of entitlement. You work for a living. You earned it.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Rather than try to inhibit this as the Obama regime did..."

Inhibit HSA's? Citation needed.

HSA's, unlike FSA's are not use it or lose it either...

Absolutely so. HSA's are what the FSA's want to be, when they grow up.

Not sure where you live

[rsilvergun]

but that doesn't work in America unless you're healthy. You need the bargaining power of your business to keep your rates low if you're going to actually _use_ healthcare.

This goes both ways too. A friend worked for a small company. He had some pretty major health problems (cancer). He was politely told that if he signed up for the company health insurance he'd be fired. This is legal in my state.

But you're right, healthcare shouldn't be coupled to employment. Every civilized country (and some not so civilized) in the world has single payer of some sort except the United States.

Re: Trump Fails It

[cayenne8]

The wall's a fucking logistical joke; just turn the border into a [regularly-used] bombing range.

No walls, fences or even guards required...

Well, I'd come up with the idea of having our military snipers line the border, and they could do target practice....

Or, maybe we lay land mines along the border....

Either of those might make a better deterrent than a wall, but I figured some might consider those to be a bit too extreme.

Re:Trump Fails It

[cayenne8]

You can't have compromise on moral issues.

I"m STILL trying to figure out how a border wall is somehow "immoral".

I especially wonder, when so many democrats, only a few years ago...were for a wall?

Re: Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[cayenne8]

Why do people who are against universal healthcare think that it wouldn't be possible to get health insurance on top of the state system?

Why should I have to pay twice?

Re:TRUMP IS A TRAITOR - DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM

[SuricouRaven]

Pence is at least a known factor. He's a straight-ticket Republican on all issues. We all know his policies, and he'd do what he could to advance those policies in the conventional way. I disagree with him on practically everything, but I am still confident that he is not going to wake up grumpy one morning and order a nuclear missile strike on North Korea. With Trump, anything is possible.

Re:Trump Fails It

[SuricouRaven]

It's not the wall, it's the attitude the wall represents. There are people who want into the US, and the two major factions see those people in very different ways. The liberals see a horde of desperate people - impoverished, oppressed, starving, fleeing lives of violence and hoping to start a new life. To them, only a true monster could ever turn away such people and leave them to die. The conservatives see an unruly mob of criminals, murderers and rapists, and believe that the country must be defended against this threat. To them, only a naive idealist could fail to recognise the deadly criminal menace and the importance of holding it at bay.

It's impossible to reach agreement with the liberals regard conservatives as racist monsters and the conservatives regard liberals as retarded hippies.

Google: "First, Do Evil"

[WillAffleckUW]

I see they have sold their souls and now expect recompense from their masters in the heap

This is the way lawyers are taught to think

[doubledown00]

Disclaimer: IAAL

Lawyers are taught from the beginning to think and plead "in the alternative" which sounds much more sophisticated than "throw it all at the wall and see what sticks" or "bury the judge in bullshit and see what he'll buy". This is particularly true when playing defense.

Lawyers operate like the litigation realm is some isolated 4th dimension quasi-universe where the rules of time, space, and physics don't apply and what they put in their pleadings does not have real world consequences. It can and does. But should this be any of the attorney's concern? Making these arguments may cause additional headwinds for your client in the Real World(tm). Not making the argument may cause them to lose a winnable case which could have repercussions on the client and the (ineffective) lawyer.

Re:This is the way lawyers are taught to think

[djinn6]

I assume by making their client look bad in the eyes of the public, they're less likely to be hired for the next case that comes along. And for a company like Google, there's always new cases coming along.

Re:This is the way lawyers are taught to think

[doubledown00]

I doubt Google would hold such a thing against the attorney. The law firm is paid to win the case. Cleaning up the aftermath is why they have a PR department.

oh

[cascadingstylesheet]

Citing dissents authored by Republican appointees

Oh, well that cinches it.

Dissent is not allowed.

Republicans aren't allowed either. Well, we're working on that one, but we'll get there ...

Re:Trump Fails It

[danbert8]

See, that false dichotomy is why there cannot be any compromise. Maybe the conservatives see: a horde of desperate people - impoverished, oppressed, starving, fleeing lives of violence and hoping to start a new life by crossing illegally into a foreign land with no prospects other than handouts or illegal labor to get them out of poverty. And by letting them in with no consequences, we encourage more refugees to do the same. Are some of the migrants criminals, murderers, and rapists? Most definitely, but that's a poor excuse to build the wall.

One way or another, there needs to be an orderly control of the border. I don't know that a wall is effective, but the symbolism of a barrier might be an effective deterrent.

I don't know how someone can be a "monster" by turning away people to leave them to die when a huge percentage of the world's population is in the same or worse circumstances and there is no way we can save them all. Someone needs to turn some people away. Why should people who are lucky enough to have easy land access be given priority by virtue of not having a restriction on entry? And the bigger question is, are we making it worse by having desperate people put their lives on the line trying to get here by any means necessary without regard for laws or order?

I tend to agree

[renegade600]

If you are on company time, if you are using company property, then you should only be doing company business.

Re:Trump Fails It

[turp182]

The problem with that is if you call Stormy in to perform the the spanking he would like it too much, even if it hurt.

Re:Trump Fails It

[drinkypoo]

It appears to me that Trump has offered to negotiate....the Dems should begin the process on their side.

No. Trump is not negotiating, nor willing to compromise. He is still demanding the full amount he was always demanding, and the only thing he is willing to give up is the hostages he's taken, if that. The dreamers only get a three year reprieve, and there's no promises on the caged refugee children.

Our nation has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, and Trump is still holding hostages. Let him give back the refugee children and agree to extend DACA, and end the shutdown, and then we can negotiate. A mature democracy doesn't let the president unilaterally shut down the government, for that matter.

Re:Trump Fails It

[drinkypoo]

I don't know how someone can be a "monster" by turning away people to leave them to die when a huge percentage of the world's population is in the same or worse circumstances and there is no way we can save them all.

Look up the countries these people are coming from, then look up what caused the unrest in their country. Note how the US is culpable for most of it. We make the refugees, then we get mad when they show up asking for help, then we scratch our heads and act surprised. This innocent act ain't gonna fly.

Re:Trump Fails It

[danbert8]

The US is culpable for most of it around the world. Why does central america get to flood the border and not the Middle East, southeast Asia, Africa, and North Korea?

Re:Trump Fails It

[drinkypoo]

The US is culpable for most of it around the world. Why does central america get to flood the border and not the Middle East, southeast Asia, Africa, and North Korea?

If your argument is that those people should also get to come here, I agree. If you're actually asking, I weep for you.

this is why Pichai has to go

[WindBourne]

The man has been destroying Google since he became CEO. Now, he wants to stop workers from unionizing.
Look, if they want to limit email, I am good with it. That is THEIR system. But once you are actively trying to block any legal union attempts, well, that is BS.

Clue: 1%'ers sniffling dissent are senior managers

[drnb]

Whoda thunk a bunch of rich white 1%ers who push "progressive" ideals is also all about stifling any dissent?

rich WHITE? have you BEEN to any bay area campus? (narrarator: most tech workers are indian and chinese; last I checked, that's not 'white' by definition).

Clue: the rich 1%'ers sniffling dissent are the senior management, not the workers.

Re:Trump Fails It

[danbert8]

My argument is that the process should be fair to everyone who needs asylum regardless of origin and we should process the requests in a controlled manner. Having mobs of people crossing all willy nilly and claiming asylum when caught is not a reasonable immigration system. It's unmanageable and inhumane because we cannot process them when they arrive in caravans.

These people are taking over Google

[AbRASiON]

I've got 2 contacts in there and I continue to hear stories about these people effectively hijacking the workplace, shaming others into joining their protests, putting up banners all over the campuses and so on.

Nothing wrong with equality but now you basically have the gestapo running around making up rules and trying to enforce them, people who seem to think their entire job is to stop people working productively and to just push politics.

Google is no longer producing exceptional tech, or at least, less of it. There's a lot more misses now, there's a lot of odd decisions, I feel like management are stuck for getting things done, dealing with these people and moving in the right direction.

I visited a campus a few months ago and it was something /straight/ out of a TV show / movie or 1990s high school drama, I saw a wide variety of people walking around chatting and little productivity. I'd say I saw a 60/40 ratio of women to men, most people relatively young and attractive.
Out of the 3 or 400 people I saw, I'd say, I saw about 5 guys, at most who were your traditional looking neckbeard type programmer dudes (Let's be honest, a lot of us don't present great) - they were on their own and just generally looked pretty out of place there if anything. The only thing I saw less of, was people over the age of about 35. I've never felt so old in my life. It felt like clique club.

But I digress, I've posted this before and had responses here before, from others inside, confirming that there's a good portion of the workforce, simply not doing /real work/. It's a place of business, to develop products and software and a /lot/ of staff are not only not doing that, they're actively making it more difficult for the business to do so.

I miss the days where I thought Google was the most amazing company of all time, near a decade ago. Endlessly producing amazing things, better than others, for 'free'. Now they shut things at a moments notice and 'fix' existing products with UI overhauls that make them worse (this month? Google maps)

Re:These people are taking over Google

[djinn6]

Pretty sure Google pays for a "diversity chief" and has an entire of team dedicated to "diversity".

I think upper management is fully aware of what they're doing. If they wanted to have somebody to appease the SJW's, they could have made the position entirely ceremonial, instead of giving them actual power.

The question now is whether the premise that "diversity" improves productivity is actually true.

Re:These people are taking over Google

[AbRASiON]

Was upper management blackmailed into hiring or shamed into hiring them though?

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[greythax]

Notice how the comment above assumes that people choose not to get health care because they are greedy, and not because they desperately need the money that would go to those premiums just to make it to the next paycheck.

Re:Trump Fails It

[Pseudonym]

If I were the Democrats, I'd offer funding for the engineering studies and environmental impact assessments.

Re:Trump Fails It

[SuricouRaven]

It's a dichotomy, but it's not a false dichotomy. It's the nature of American politics. There are two sides, exactly two sides. Anyone who doesn't pick a side is effectively excluded. The number of people in house and senate combined who don't come with an R or D next to their name is in the single digits, and has been for a very long time. There are two major political factions, who are inseparably linked to the two major political parties in such a way that they both define and are defined by each other.

This is not the way things should be, but it is the way things are.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[djinn6]

Next you'll tell me that cancer research is useless because it doesn't help heart attack patients.

Not all solutions are designed to help everyone.

HSA's are helpful to people who make too much to qualify for the subsidies under the ACA, but lives in a relatively high-cost area and those who are impacted by the so-called "family glitch".

Re: Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[djinn6]

Added together, it's still cheaper than your current rate.

Re:Trump Fails It

[cayenne8]

...and then we can negotiate.

The Dems will not negotiate at all, if there is no leverage on them.

They will pull what they did with Reagan in the 80's...he signed generous immigration laws and all then, with the understanding that the Dems would then come to the table and work with them on strengthening things, etc.

Once he signed the laws....the Dems disappeared, and we have a massive flow of illegals coming into the US.

And it isn't just Trump shutting down the govt.

It takes all 3 houses agreeing on a budget and items in it. And one of the 3 branches of govt. will not even come to the table with bargaining chips...the same ones that have proven they can't be trusted to "get this done now and we'll come back to talk about your issue".

Re: Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[cyber-vandal]

Because you might find yourself in a situation where you can't afford private healthcare. The NHS has its problems but I'd be in a much worse place in my life if I hadn't been able to access healthcare when I was poorer.

Re:Trump Fails It

[drinkypoo]

And it isn't just Trump shutting down the govt.

Yes, it is. He took ownership of the shutdown on national television, saying he was proud to do it. IT IS TRUMP'S SHUTDOWN. TRUMP SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. HE SAID SO.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[Opportunist]

The problem is that it's a very small step from "I'm gambling with my health because that extra money allows me to take a vacation to Hawaii" and "I have to do without health insurance because I can't afford it if I want to eat daily".

Re:TRUMP IS A TRAITOR - DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM

[Opportunist]

If that's the case, it's odd that nobody offed the hairpiece yet.

Re:Trump Fails It

[Opportunist]

Could we get to see that instead of his next speech? I'm pretty sure it would be more interesting and informative.

Re:Trump Fails It

[drinkypoo]

Could we get to see that instead of his next speech? I'm pretty sure it would be more interesting and informative.

You actually want to see Trump getting spanked? I think we've finally found the first confirmed case of TDS

Re:Trump Fails It

[Opportunist]

Think of the memes!

Re:TRUMP IS A TRAITOR - DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM

[SuricouRaven]

I'm sure lots of people want to, but this isn't 1963 any more. The president has excellent personal protection - he is quite possibly the single best-defended individual in the world. I did just google on 'trump assassination attempts' and can see three distinct attempts referenced just in the first page of results.

Re:Americans take corporate dick in the ass

[Hognoxious]

I do NOT want the overreaching, poorly managed Federal Govt in charge of it.

And yet the poorly managed governments of almost every developed country do it better, cheaper - and frequently both - than the US private sector does.