One difficulty I see with the mission statement (https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statemen...) is that it is very broad, and contains a lot of progressive values that are likely not as widely shared as the authors might expect. One might or might not agree with these values, but it is going to be significantly harder to start steering the company's product direction and social responsibility efforts than 'just' representing the employees during e.g. benefits and compensation negotiations.
Seems to me that the organizers are using a union to push their own personal agendas (which they otherwise don't have the power to push) which seems like the perfect way to form a corrupt union that harms workers.
All in all, seems to be good values to want to have in a workplace, especially such a global and pervasive one as Google. If all of these things were pushed for and implemented in Google, you think that would harm the workers?
The primary goal of a union is to ensure safe and secure working conditions, the best compensation and benefits, etc.;
> negotiating the best wages, working conditions, and health and pension benefits; preserving and expanding members’ work opportunities; vigorously enforcing our contracts; and protecting members against unauthorized use of their work.
The purpose of a labor union is traditionally not to set corporate direction / input into the creative process, to ensure “right-think” in the workplace, or for social justice campaigns.
I agree somewhat, the values are a bit wishy-washy, like Google's original "Don't be evil". But I think the dramatically different circumstances of our time are playing a huge role in the distinction you're drawing.
USW were fighting for the abolition of child labor -- this is not a direct concern for Alphabet employees, thankfully. Actor's Equity Association were fighting against McCarthyism and blacklisting (which SAG participated in, and apologized for in 1997).
In particular, for the Alphabet union effort, I think their press release[0] is more concrete. I think the goals of increased workplace democracy, pressuring management to prevent pushing externalities, and preventing suppression and retaliation in the workplace are pretty relevant, and would be high on my list for a prospective union for tech workers.
Ironically, I think they would draw much more ire if they merely focused on analogous workplace/worklife comfort improvements, for Software Engineers at least, given their famed perks. Hopefully the union targets the Alphabet employees who really do need workplace/worklife improvements, mostly found in the non-full-time ranks.
Unions actually legally are very similar to PACs whenever politics are concerned, for a good reason. The United Steelworkers is one example amongst many, I know of a lot of major unions in my city that have similar policy positions.
Definitions mean something. IANAL, but as I understand it, trade unions are a legally protected entity, not an abstract concept which relates to any organization of people who happen to be employed in the same line of work.
> trade union: An organization of workers in the same skilled occupation or related skilled occupations who act together to secure for all members favorable wages, hours, and other working conditions.
There is apparently a concept in trade unions called the "golden formulae";
> golden formulae a non-technical but convenient expression to describe the conditions required for a trade union to benefit from the limited immunities available to it under legislation. There must first be a trade dispute that relates wholly or mainly to matters such as terms and conditions of employment, sacking or suspension of workers, allocation of work, discipline, membership of a union, facilities for union officials or negotiating regime. The acts in question must be in contemplation of furtherance of the dispute.
So, for example, the legal benefits of a union may not confer to any possible activity a group of employees may conduct, but rather must pertain to specific aspects of their employment and relations to their employer.
US Federal labor law defines a trade union as;
> any organization of any kind, or any agency or employee representation committee or plan, in which employees participate and which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work.
I'm not saying that it's impossible for a collective of employees to organize around political rallying points, just that these actions are not generally recognized as the purpose of a trade union, and perhaps would not be legally protected in the same way.
For example, there are carve-outs to requiring employees to pay union dues which are not used for specific purposes;
> In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled (5–3) in Communications Workers v. Beck that private-sector workers who are not full union members cannot be forced to pay for the “social, charitable, and political” activities of unions. They can only be forced to pay the portion of dues used for “collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.” Per the ruling, the federal law that requires compulsory unionism in certain situations does not provide the unions with a means for forcing employees, over their objection, to support political causes which they oppose.
To the extent that this "union" is more of a PAC than a collective bargaining agreement over labor contracts, the specific protections (like required payment of dues) melt away.
Pretty much every politician ever has used manipulative language to try to make themselves sound better than they are. It's why abortion activists call themselves pro-life/pro-choice. To take their words at face value is incredibly naive. For example, the line about "economic justice" almost certainly means the authors believe the company should be used as a propaganda vehicle for socialism/communism. And the line about a "welcoming environment" is an outright lie as shown by these same employees' bullying and harassment of numerous wrong-thinking employees (James Damore and Miles Taylor come to mind as a few examples).
These activists forced Google to oust a black women out of AI ethics (Kay Cole James), and are now complaining that Google doesn't care about black women in AI ethics when someone woke gets let go. It's so transparent that they only care about their political goals.
You don't think it has anything to do with one of these people having a PhD in the field, and the other having the position solely to appeal to conservative politicians?
> For example, the line about "economic justice" almost certainly means the authors believe the company should be used as a propaganda vehicle for socialism/communism
These days it's for race+gender-orientated demands.
> To take their words at face value is incredibly naive
I agree, but that's what we have to go on, as this effort just started. The opposite is naive as well, where you assume everyone always have hidden agendas. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
> For example, the line about "economic justice" almost certainly means the authors believe the company should be used as a propaganda vehicle for socialism/communism.
Well, yes and no. Yes, you can describe their economic justice value as socialistic, I don't think they are trying to hide that. Here's the full value:
> Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst off. Neutrality never helps the victim.
Yes, sounds like socialism. Exactly what they are aiming to implement in the Google/Alphabet workplace. The people who sign up with the union, are people who agree they want to focus on fixing that particular problem. That's a strong point of unions in general, to align about common values.
Not sure how you get it to be a "Google should be used as a propaganda vehicle". The employees there want to improve their own workplace by implementing their ideas. Now they are calling for others (who agree) to join them. I don't have any skin in the game, so I'm fine either way. But I find the process of even trying this to be refreshing, no matter what their values and ultimately their impact will be.
The 'personal agenda' refers to the fact that it is unclear whether these values represent the opinion of an overwhelming majority at Google.
Some of these statements are _actually_ controversial. (Without saying whether I personally agree with them or not -- I am saying that they are far from being universally accepted.)
Examples:
> All aspects of our work should be transparent, including the freedom to decline to work on projects that don’t align with our values.
Not sure how the company should approach this exactly. I'll bring up some extreme (and maybe stupid) examples. Let's say Google wants to monetize the Google search page even more, while employees working in the UX team disagree with this direction. Should Google be able to let them go (in case there's no other UX role in the company) or not?
> Our decisions are made democratically, not just by electing our leaders who set the agenda, but by actively and continuously listening to what workers believe is important.
This approach of corporate decision making practically doesn't exist anywhere, and there's not much proof that it'd work, so I consider this controversial.
> Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst off. Neutrality never helps the victim.
Google had a massive impact on the world by creating the search engine and broadening access to information to people around the world. Should it have other social missions as well? What should those be? What happens if the company's core mission (organizing the world's information) becomes at odds with other social mission(s)?
Normally the leaders of the company are responsible for making decisions here.
> Everyone deserves a welcoming environment
I think this is something most people would agree with, if there weren't many examples of people abusing these policies.
> We prioritize society and the environment instead of maximizing profits at all costs. We can make money without doing evil.
Sure, no reason to not agree with this sentence. Question is: how is this actionable? Who is going to decide what's evil, what's worth it? By default the executives do, that's their job.
> Democratic Decision Making
I'd question whether it's wanting "democratic" decision making or if the group wants a great role in decision making, perhaps beyond that which it's numbers justify. I say this as I work at a place where topics for all-hands could be submitted and voted on. This seemed to work well until a topic was submitted and the downvote to upvote ratio was "disappointing" to the person/group that submitted. After this meeting, only upvotes were allowed on submissions.
If I were a Google employee with an active social media account that promoted conservative politics, this would be pretty alarming to me. It's similar to the CoC debates - the visionary goals foreshadow the darker enforcement strategies.
I've seen harassment campaigns (which ended in a lawsuit against the chief harasser) over association with someone who associates with a certain group. So even if you're a liberal you can get in trouble for associating with the wrong people or speaking at the wrong conference or promoting the wrong project.
Yeah, the argument that this will primarily target conservatives is probably incorrect; the baseline population of conservatives at Google is probably dwarfed by the population of mainstream progressives who would fail in some way, shape, or form to abide by proper woke etiquette and thus create an unsafe environment.
If you're remotely alarmed by what happened to James Damore, then you should be alarmed by a union that organizes itself around these sorts of values.
There's a certain kind of personality who needs to be a hero fighting against the enemy. It exists on both sides of the political spectrum. Both liberals and conservatives hate it when they see it on the opposite side but support it on their own side. When this sort of person lacks a clear enemy they will make one up. Some 10% of the group will always and must always be the enemy. Hope you don't end up unlucky enough to fall into that group.
The language of these organizers triggers too many warnings in my head around being that kind of personality. No matter which side of the political spectrum they are on I try to not support these personalities.
Now I'm not super into US politics, partly because it's so polarized today, but which one of these values are against conservative ideals? Seems to be pretty basic human decency, like everyone deserves a voice, welcoming environment, decisions are made democratically and more. Are those really against conservative ideas?
Edit: My comment seems to have spawned replies to unrelated subjects so I'll repeat the question hopefully a bit more clear: What of the values proposed so far in the "Google Union", goes against modern conservative values in the US today?
In practice, as we've seen numerous times with CoC squabbles, being known to harbor certain political attitudes that are well within the American Overton window will create allegations that you're make people feel unsafe.
For example, if one posts "All Lives Matter" on social media they could easily fall afoul of a "welcoming environment" provision.
> Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst off. Neutrality never helps the victim.
Social justice is a progressive view normally running counter to the individual responsibly outlook favored by conservatives. Prioritizing the needs of the worst off could be supported by conservatism but they will probably define "worst" in a way conservatives find objectionable. As for "Neutrality never helps the victim" that runs counter to a lot of American conservative thought that rule of law and applying rules neutrally is a massive progress over previously biased systems. The implication of the statement is that they want to remove neutrality in certain circumstances for certain people which goes against the conservative view that all people should be treated equally.
Often "welcoming environments", especially when paired with progressive dogwhistles, really mean an environment that is hostile for those that are not on one end of the political spectrum. The threshold isn't just conservative, even moderate liberals fall afoul of this. For instance, not supporting the defunding of police would get you eviscerated at my company despite the fact that it's a view 75% of Americans share: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/07/09/majority-of-...
I really love the whole kerfuffle about the police because it's doing a great job putting on display that you have "law and order" type jackbooted authoritarians on both sides of the isle.
Democracy in the US is seen by some people as the rule of the majority, therefore infringes personal rights and freedom.
Prioritizing the environment? Straight from the radical liberal left playbook. It means allowing my children die of hunger because I can’t find a job so a dolphin survives.
> Prioritizing the environment? Straight from the radical liberal left playbook. It means allowing my children die of hunger because I can’t find a job so a dolphin survives.
So if I understand what you're saying as a reply to my question, you mean that having "We prioritize society and the environment instead of maximizing profits at all costs" as a explicit value for the Google workplace, means that you'll end up without food for your child?
Not sure when/how dolphins became Google's business, but I might have missed something recently as I don't follow their every move.
Heh, sorry. Being sarcastic. You’re going into the right direction. A lot of people believe to save the environment (or fight global warming) the economy has to suffer, therefore I will lose my job, won’t be able to put food on the table, and all of that so cute animals can survive.
I was super sarcastic because it’s not a view I share, but pretty common in the US. Heck, it’s similar to the coronavirus situation right now, we can’t stop the economy just to save people who are about to die anyway.
I think in general, there have been some examples where the the environment has been prioritized of over people in a way that is hard to unsee. This can make some people very suspicious of such taglines and seeding the interpretation of the balance to others.
An eye opener for me is how water policy is impacting small farmers in the eastern part of California. Imagine spending 40 years building a business, and then being told that starting in 2021 you will have to pay 1M$ in fees to continue pumping water that you have legal rights to using your own infrastructure. It is literally taking peoples livelihoods without any compensation and eminent domain.
I suspect many of those values are not shared by a large proportion of the US population and likely by a non trivial percentage of Google workers. They are liberal values and not universal values. You, and me, seem to share those values which is fine but please don't claim they are universally shared. As such they are the personal values of the organizers which they are trying to make company values applicable to all workers.
> I suspect many of those values are not shared by a large proportion of the US population
That's not really relevant, the union will focus on Google and it's workplace, not the US as a whole. Maybe in the future they'll have impact in US politics, but that's not how unions start out.
> likely by a non trivial percentage of Google workers
I guess that's why they announced this, to see how many agree with it. We already know by fact that Google try to prevent internal discussions about unions, hence the people wanting to unionize, have to communicate in other ways (press releases to reach more people).
> As such they are the personal values of the organizers
They might also be the personal value of the organizers, but the explicit goal of setting up a organization (or more specifically a union) is to setup an organization that reflects those views. Once the organization is setup, it's the organizations values, not their personal values.
Ok, let's hear your definitions of what social justice is, and what justice is?
In a traditional sense, social justice is referring to the balance between the individual and society at large. Distribution of wealth, public services/schools, taxation, regulations of markets and more are part of what social justice is, at least in this part of the world.
That does sound like justice to me. It's not criminal justice, which you might be referring to, but more justice in the sense of "just behavior or treatment".
"Social justice" is an awkward term for an immensely important project, perhaps the most important project, which is to make the world a more equitable, fair, and compassionate place.
But the project for social justice has been captured by an elite strata of post-collegiate, digitally-enabled children of privilege, who do not pursue that project as an end, but rather use it as a means with which to compete, socially and professionally, with each other.
In that use, they value not speech or actions that actually result in a better world, but rather those that result in greater social reward, which in the digital world is obvious and explicit. That means that they prefer engagement that creates a) outrage and b) jokes, rather than engagement that leads to positive change.
In this disregard for actual political success, they reveal their own privilege, as it’s only the privileged who could ever have so little regard for actual, material progress. As long as they are allowed to co-opt the movement for social justice for their own personal aggrandizement, the world will not improve, not for women, people of color, gay and transgender people, or the poor.
Right, and forcing balanced outcomes when there's very unbalanced inputs is not justice in the eyes of many people. Consider the fact that Asian students in the US spend on average 110 minutes a day studying as compared to Whites' ~55 and Black student's ~35 [1]. Forcing a balanced outcome with disparate inputs is not what many consider just behavior. I have not only witnessed, but carried out, similar policy in tech. E.g. companies setting diversity targets that are substantially higher (often over 2x higher) than the said groups' representation in the field. I have also worked at companies that let women and URM candidates take two attempts at passing the pre-onsite technical phone interview while white and Asian men get one chance.
Maybe this isn't the kind of "social justice" Google union activists are arriving for. But if that's the case the union activists should lay out specific goals, like establishing name-blind resume reviews, eliminating gender and racial quotas, or something else. Otherwise, my instinct is to lump their views into the same trend as the social justice activists I have encountered during my time working in tech which tends to be hostile to meritocracy and desires picking outcomes a priori.
To be clear, it's fine to be in favor of affirmation action as an individual and I often support it myself, but I definitely wouldn't want a union enforcing it and I could see why many people would be alienated by a union movement espousing it.
Justice is coming up with a fair outcome based on an objective examination of the input factors. For example, deciding on guilt based on an objective examination of evidence.
Social justice is an arbitrary judgment based on subjective examination of inputs. It's collectivism. Disregard for individuals.
This is a clear misunderstanding. We're talking about two different social justice's here. The social justice you're talking about is the current moral panic many feel in the US today. The social justice I'm (and hopefully the future union) talking about, is balancing society at large and the individuals. Not disregarding, balancing. That means that sometimes the individual has to have less of something and society more, and sometimes the other way around.
But maybe the word "social justice" in the US has been completely co-opted by TV politics, so us in the rest of the world now talk a different language...
Yes, the phrase "social justice" has been co-opted. So if you or anyone else wants to refer to what that phrase meant 20 years ago, then you should stop using the phrase "social justice".
As an outside observer, I'd expect a "union" to push an agenda of fair compensation for it's workers and an end to abusive practices from management. This "personal agenda", as you correctly term it, feels more like a political party than a workers' union.
I think these Google workers see their demands falling into this category..not saying I agree with every bullet, but it really doesn't seem that different to me.
The agenda of the workers (benefits, pay, working conditions, etc.) rather than the agenda of the organizers/leaders. If the workers want social issues as their agenda then that's fine but there should be a broad voting process for that rather than a dictatorial preemptive agenda. This just seems like a few dozen people trying to tell 100k what they should care about.
edit: I don't think I've ever seen environmentalism come up as a desirable goal from proponents when people discussed tech unions. Pay, benefits, working conditions, abusive management and so on but environmentalism????
> it is going to be significantly harder to start steering the company's product direction and social responsibility efforts than 'just' representing the employees during e.g. benefits and compensation negotiations.
Unions with a very limited focus on their member's compensation negotiations tend to be either short-lived or so weak it is like they don't exist. Just for survival, unions want wider unionization in their own industry and then other industries and then internationally.
Actually FAANG was already organized against employee compensation in the secret pact between Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt etc. which courts found illegal.
Are corporations and their majority controlling shareholders just representing the employers "during e.g. benefits and compensation negotiations". No. In 1938, the American Enterprise Association (now called AEI) was formed by Chrysler, General Mills, Paine Webber to push corporate hegemony. Their website is one screed after another attacking progressive values. If these companies think it important to spend money attacking, as you call them, progressive values, why should unions limit themselves in not defending them? It makes little sense to start things out with one hand tied behind the back. AEI is just one front of corporate America's many fronts.
This is exactly why I would never join a tech union. Just read their mission statement: this is about enforcing political goals via any power source they can get their hands on. Much like a lot of recent codes of conduct in open source projects.
I think you might misunderstand the goal of a union. It's inherently political, that's the whole point of it. And the values from the mission statement does sound like something every company should aim for, but sometimes they forget we're all humans here, so we need something to keep companies in check.
I'm not sure comparing unions to code of conducts are suitable. Unions are a historically old and proven way for workers to enact change in workplaces, industries and even entire countries. Code of conducts in open source is a fairly new invention (officially, written down ones at least) with no such track record.
> I think you might misunderstand the goal of a union. It's inherently political, that's the whole point of it.
I think this is disingenuous. It's inherently political, yes, but historically it is the politics of the workplace that a union focuses on. Specifically workplace safety, compensation, and benefits. This mission statement is explicitly dragging larger social activism into the workplace.
> Unions are a historically old and proven way for workers to enact change in workplaces, industries and even entire countries. Code of conducts in open source is a fairly new invention (officially, written down ones at least) with no such track record.
It is the same pattern of dragging social activism into a domain where it is not inherently relevant, and using bureaucracy to force it onto members. One mechanism of doing so being old or new isn't the point.
> historically it is the politics of the workplace that a union focuses on
Might be so in the US, but certainly not everywhere. Nor just because it's been so in the US before, doesn't mean it has to be like that. In Spain for example, unions are one of the most active and most likely to actually achieve political change in the country, at least judging by how it's been so far.
Which ones of the announced values you feel is trying to be applied to society at large? The way I'm reading it, all the values are geared towards Google and it's workplace, not going further than that.
> And the values from the mission statement does sound like something every company should aim for
For the record here is the second listed value
> Social and economic justice are paramount to achieving just outcomes. We will prioritize the needs of the worst off. Neutrality never helps the victim.
Let me speak plainly. This type of phrasing is extremely common for progressives. A Trump voter would read this as politically charged and outside the scope of most unions. If you cannot see why someone would oppose this you need to widen the scope of people you talk to.
Yes they should stick to actual "Trade union union issues" to start with - and remember that large number of Google employees would be ok working on defence and probably voted republican.
Selling tech to oppressive nation states who are not the USA's friends is a separate issue
> large number of Google employees would be ok working on defence
> probably voted republican
I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have any surveys or data points to support those two points?
Seems you and a few others here on HN would do good by reading up on trade unions look around the world. As far as I'm reading their values, all of them are within "Trade union issues" and doesn't consider having a country-wide political impact. The people working on this are trying to adjust their own workplace.
Caveats galore of course: Not every Santa Clara resident works at Google, not every worker at that office lives in Santa Clara county, Google has many other offices in other areas, voting for Trump doesn't mean someone is republican, etc. etc.
But, it would be pretty surprising to me if there wasn't a sizable minority -- say at least 10% -- of workers at Google that voted republican/trump.
Here's another data point, re: donations to political parties by Google employees, with probably an even longer list of caveats than the above analysis:
What unions have you seen/participated in? What countries are those located in? Could you imagine a union that does something that is not shared with those unions you've seen?
Being unlike other unions doesn't have to bad, could be great thing. Why not improve on top of the idea of unions and try to come up with something even better? Seems like an excellent idea, especially in these times of "disruption" of industries left and right.
You might get a Google indeed; some new vehicle that helps move society forward. But I suspect a very dangerous Theranos; except the union members will be left holdng the mess after it blows up .
From the definition of unions there isn't much overlap. Yes they want to protect Google Workers from harassment which is valuable but doesn't sound like they're fighting for improving wages, benefits, or working conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...
I think you should point out what specifically is too broad? They are pretty banal points about fairness, ethics, environment, we know that Google employees are likely to push for a blue-ish agenda, and it's really not controversial imo.
Chicken, egg issue I think. The people most likely to seed the movement are gonna be activist type people whereas the actual majority of workers might just be left/libertarian leaning but mostly non-political people. Once the majority of workers are part of the union, and if it's really democratic, then the union should reflect what the members want it to reflect (even if it ends up being the same as the activists').
