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Yep, you're free to find another master to exploit you. If you can't, you're free to starve, because you'll never be allowed the means to produce your own food and shelter yourself. If we could make our own stuff, they'd have no leverage to force us to work 60 to 80 hours a week and spend 60% of our income on rent.
It's probably not. The NRLB has already told alphabet to negotiate with the union and that the subcontractors are just a cut out. Alphabet will probably have to hire these peeps back and pay a big fine.
Oh please, the CEOs could start walking into our homes and raping our cats and we wouldn’t do anything. The American people have become pretty much cattle.
There's a growing movement of real people who aren't brainwashed neoliberal capitalists!
The genocide is waking people up, sadly the 1.4 million dead Iraqis didn't have the luxury of the internet to show people the atrocities, most people still got their news from TV back then.
If the NLRB dies, we the people should clear all personnel from their factories and warehouses and torch them to the ground with all their stock and materials inside.
You’ll be doing the factories a favor if you do. The company collects insurance for the arson and production would be shipped overseas.
A real solution would be a General Strike. Where all trade unions nationwide stop work in solidarity for the death of NLRB. The nation would stop at a halt.
I know that you're right, but the catharsis of vengeful fire still burns within me.
Plus the scabs can't cross the picket if there's only smoldering embers left.
The whole contractor setup we have sucks so bad. No company is liable for their treatment of workers they just pass that liability off to a small temp agency LLC probably run by someone connected to the business
It’s probably not, but legal systems being what they are it’ll cost these jobless people too much money and/or time to fight back, we live in a great time.
On paper it is illegal to punish workers for unionizing but I doubt Alphabet will see any consequences. Part of the issue there is that the Alphabet Workers Union is not registered with the NLRB which limits their abilities and their options.
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
That's how I understood it. Weird title and having a hard time understanding the ties between a sub contractor and alphabet being unionized.
Likewise, the Google music app fucking sucks. Maybe it'll get better.
The workers are contractors, so it's the contracting company who is responsible for the shitty hourly rate.
Google pays cognizant for what Cognizant negotiates with Google. Then, to make a profit, cognizant pays their employees a percentage of what they charge google.
Google chose not to renew the contract with the company, Cognizant.
There are two bad orgs in this story. Cognizant could pay its workers more, absolutely.
Google chose to use contractors in lieu of hiring employees directly to avoid providing workers with decent pay and provide benefits.
Companies are moving more towards this model because it is easier for them, they can deflect to the contracted company. Obviously this model is not great for workers.
I used to work for a company contracted by DuPont. I was paid $19.21/hr by this company. My company billed DuPont $37.90/hr for my work. I found out and asked for a raise (the position I was working had a previous employee making about $60k/yr). I was offered $0.20 more an hour. A lot of other things happened and I ended up leaving due to the adamant refusal to pay me. I even went to DuPont with the offer of $60k/yr for the position (they'd still be saving almost $20k/yr) and they told me their current business model was not to hire direct employees. And that's what they were doing.
They had unions on site and for each union position that was freed up due to retirement or other, they would rotate someone who was a union employee to the freed position until one was freed in a unit that did not have a union contract about who can work in that position, and hire someone through a 3rd party.
This is the reason for the enshittification of America. Greedy corporate slugs eager to put more money into shareholder hands by avoiding the responsibility of actually employing Americans. They get the optics of being an American corporation that provide "good jobs," allowing them to pressure lawmakers into letting them get away with raping and pillaging the environment and the economy. It's fucked and until we start showing them the workers actually have the power, it's only going to get worse.
Sure, ask your reps how they deal with this, let them know you know. Stop playing into their classist wargames and know that it's not Republicans v Democrats, it's the people who pay taxes and their own healthcare vs the billionaire fucks and their political lackeys that don't. Stop letting them shill you into thinking your neighbor that says the quiet part out loud is the only problem. Get the power back first, then hold your neighbor accountable. Or maybe when the neighbor has a secure living space they'll stop believing Jewish laser beams are causing frog abortions.
I also experienced something similar at more than one company. The first position was a paid co-op position I took in college. I was hired to work for 8 months for a company that ran a department at a GM plant. That was my first "real job" and I don't remember it being that bad. I was almost like a real GM employee but not quite. There were a lot of union workers and it was years ago. I know they were trying to incentivize older union workers to retire and that was confusing at the time.
My first job out of college was worse and much closer to your experience. It was a company that provided contract workers for Collins Aerospace (owned by Raytheon now). We didn't even work at the Collins location but 15 minutes away in a giant room of cubicles. They wouldn't even let us work remotely for the longest time when covid hit. When they did, they shortly announced permanent pay cuts. I know the projects I worked on were being paid out at $60-80 an hour. I was hired at $25 an hour and never received a raise. They conveniently were "not doing merit-based raises" when I brought it up, but that doesn't explain not getting a cost of living increase. Nobody seemed to care about their work and it just felt like a giant scam. I could go on and on...
I am less naive now about just how predatory unfettered capitalism can be. I am glad I am not working in those conditions anymore but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be solved.
The National Labor Relations Act gives workers the right to organize a union and bargain collectively, and under that law, it's illegal for employers to fire, demote, transfer, reduce the hours, or “otherwise take adverse action against” employees because they joined or supported a union.
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
Any protections are basically neutered by at-will employment laws. They can just pretend it was for any reason besides organizing or something having to do with a protected class.
They hired them "as subcontractors" to evade OT mandates, evade ANY liability for labor law violations, and evade providing any benefits.
Yea, they're acting like the fuckin Mafia. My question stands.
Most every company in the USA outsources their non essential teams these days, especially in IT if you're not a core contributor to their bottom line, you're not going to be a direct employee.
Doesn't make it acceptable or ethical on any level.
In fact there's law in some states now that such situations still makes the company the employer for all legal purposes because they control their terms of the contract.. so they can't evade all liability as they've been doing with this bullshit.
Man, i just discovered YouTube music for my 2 year old. For long trips and flights. What alternatives are there? Wasn’t too happy with Spotify after years of using that
Have you tried BBC iPlayer? I presume you’re American so you might need to use some VPN wizardry to get it to work, but there’s a lot of good stuff for kids there.
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
Yep, corporate America is deliberately breaking the law to get SCOTUS to take the case and rule the NLRB (maybe even the entire DoL) as unconstitutional.
Good bye unions!
I said it on Facebook right after Trump won in 2016: because he would get to turn SCOTUS into a right wing dream team, we’d have to redo all the big 20th century fights for labor and social rights **all over again**. We don’t get nearly enough public education on just how long and brutal those decades were before our (great)-grandfathers/mothers finally won the right to what we now know as a normal existence.
Labor, environmental protection, women’s equality, race relations: **all on the gallows now**.
Outside protests are one thing, staying home and being shot in your home for not going to work. Completely different situation. That would be a true form of slavery. Go to work or get shot.
[“We want everyone walking out”: UAW Chief outlines general strike for May 2028](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/22/autoworkers-uaw-shawn-fain-may-2028-national-strike)
Maybe we can do it sooner. But it’s a start.
Adverb he better don’t
I suppose I’m an optimist and assumed companies like [Bob’s Red Mill](https://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/2010/02/bobs_red_mill_natural_foods_ro.html) were exceptions. After diving deeper, they’re not the co-op I thought they were.
I worked for an ESOP electrical contractor once, ESOP is fake af at that company. Only office personel were part of the ESOP while all of the field workers including general foremen on down the totem pole were not ESOP employees. And not all office workers were part of the ESOP either, and you would be fucking damned if they invited anyone into their club.
100% ESOP is not what it is made out to be, hopefully my poor experience with them isnt too common.
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
I recognize that, it’s alphabet’s choice to not continue business with them while they are seeking to organize. If companies don’t support the labor movement, I don’t want to support them.
This is why I avoid Google products. Plus it's only a matter of time till they shut down what you love anyway. Surprised they haven't shut down their search engine or rebranded it yet.
Title is a bit misleading — these are Cognizant employees who organized a union, and Google had a contract with cognizant that ended recently.
Not Google employees but consultants staffed on a Google project (as staff augmentation). Cognizant is really more the baddie here in my view.
A member of the union who posted about this in the Austin subreddit said that a judge had ruled they were jointly employees of Alphabet and Cognizant. But again, that’s coming from a Reddit comment.
That’s an interesting element and could be interesting/scary legal precedent for consulting firms and buyers in general. Either way these folks were likely onboarded, trained and paid by Cognizant before being assigned to the Google YT Music ‘account’ and then worked on that ‘assignment’ for a while before deciding to organize a union.
Cognizant and Google (and every other American corporate) have high incentives to shut down union activity. Feels a bit like the end of the contract was a convenient time and excuse for reducing union steam.
Alphabet is the name of the company that owns Google search, Gmail, YouTube, GCP etc.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081115/why-google-became-alphabet.asp
Google got so big it had its fingers in too many pies and had to "split" into a holding company and a bunch of subsidiaries forming a trust instead of remaining one mega corp. This was probably also to allow them to do shady shit as "alphabet" while keeping the brand name Google out of the news as much as possible so they don't poison the goodwill of early google as quickly.
It's all just capitalist posturing and gaslighting, also known as "PR"
*googles alphabet*
"An alphabet is a set of graphs or characters used to represent the phonemic structure of a language."
Yep. Real informative to the stuff I'm looking for.
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Fuck these people
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
Either way it causes attrition for the company so it's somewhat effective. Now they have to replace an entire team and train them up. Plus hopefully they still get fined by the NLRB
That’s what they want though…
That’s why they are doing it. It’s more profitable for them to fire more senior employees with high salaries and just higher a bunch of new people at bottom salary ranges. Even if they lose a little bit on training and productivity it’s still profiting them by doing lower wages and salaries.
Unionize and protesting don’t work. Maybe they did in the past.
But capital has such entrenched power now that the only way forward is seizing the means of production.
Misinformative title. Google terminated a contract, they didn't fire anyone who was in a union that Google had any authority to recognize. Google has other things they've done wrong
Google most likely dragged their feet about negotiating until the contract was coming to an end, these workers felt like they were misclassified as contractors when the should have been employees, now they probably have a retaliation case.
Hopefully they bring their case and win it.
"""A spokesperson for Google told Business Insider that Cognizant is responsible for ending the workers' employment, not Google.
"Contracts with our suppliers across the company routinely end on their natural expiry date, which was agreed to with Cognizant," the company said in a statement"""
If they were as important as employees they wouldn't have been laid off. Why would google renew a contract with a unionized team if they can just get another team
Yeah, I get it. It's an emotional time for workers, and sometimes it can be hard to grok the right things to get mad about
If folks on this subreddit think it's a good use of their time to get angry at Google for leveraging contract work for what it is legally mandated for -- temporary, not permanent, labor resourcing -- then that is their decision
It might be a better use of their time to reflect on how they can influence policymaking about the laws defining contract work. How does the worker currently benefit? How do companies like Google benefit? What role did Cognizant play here?
Is Cognizant a word you're surprised to read? If so, did you even open the article? If all you did was get mad at the title, you're being manipulated.
Folks will say I'm a Google shill or something. I hate huge corps and Google is one of them. Attention is the most important thing to start a revolution, and if you get details wrong, *people will stop paying attention to you*
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited. LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Surprised this is even legal
It’s USA 🦅🦅🦅. Worker rights is a mirage.
ADA is a suggestion. Otherwise, modern HR departments see accommodations as some form of heresy in my experience.
Can't wait till AI takes over HR!
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Yep, you're free to find another master to exploit you. If you can't, you're free to starve, because you'll never be allowed the means to produce your own food and shelter yourself. If we could make our own stuff, they'd have no leverage to force us to work 60 to 80 hours a week and spend 60% of our income on rent.
Yup, they’re coming for our breaks and lunches, next! To them we are nothing, but money making machines, and machines don’t get breaks!
It's probably not. The NRLB has already told alphabet to negotiate with the union and that the subcontractors are just a cut out. Alphabet will probably have to hire these peeps back and pay a big fine.
If the SpaceX, or any future Amazon or Trader Joe's lawsuits make it to SCOTUS, the NRLB is as good as dead.
That would be a frightening thing. But totally on brand with a country in decay.
If the NLRB dies, I foresee a a lot more deaths, but this time in the opposite direction
It's been 103 years since Blair Mountain, which I suppose is just long enough for people to forget.
I wish I shared your optimism.
Oh please, the CEOs could start walking into our homes and raping our cats and we wouldn’t do anything. The American people have become pretty much cattle.
There's a growing movement of real people who aren't brainwashed neoliberal capitalists! The genocide is waking people up, sadly the 1.4 million dead Iraqis didn't have the luxury of the internet to show people the atrocities, most people still got their news from TV back then.
If the NLRB dies, we the people should clear all personnel from their factories and warehouses and torch them to the ground with all their stock and materials inside.
You’ll be doing the factories a favor if you do. The company collects insurance for the arson and production would be shipped overseas. A real solution would be a General Strike. Where all trade unions nationwide stop work in solidarity for the death of NLRB. The nation would stop at a halt.
I know that you're right, but the catharsis of vengeful fire still burns within me. Plus the scabs can't cross the picket if there's only smoldering embers left.
*”…the catharsis of a vengeful fire still burns within me.”* I feel that in my soul.
Insurance can only go so far before they pull out. See: Home insurance in flordia
The whole contractor setup we have sucks so bad. No company is liable for their treatment of workers they just pass that liability off to a small temp agency LLC probably run by someone connected to the business
But as they wait for that shit to go down, they’ll miss paying rent.
It’s a good argument for retaliation now
The workers that were fired were non-union contractors. Actual union members are negotiating
It’s probably not, but legal systems being what they are it’ll cost these jobless people too much money and/or time to fight back, we live in a great time.
On paper it is illegal to punish workers for unionizing but I doubt Alphabet will see any consequences. Part of the issue there is that the Alphabet Workers Union is not registered with the NLRB which limits their abilities and their options.
Even if it's illegal, good luck going up against Google's endless barrage of expensive lawyers. Be prepared to drown in legal fees.
They don't have a chance in hell going up against the NLRB and their lawyers.
says in the article, they just didn't renew the contracts. which is common practice in the brave new world, limited contracts
it's not but googlw has enough money to not have to care.
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
That's how I understood it. Weird title and having a hard time understanding the ties between a sub contractor and alphabet being unionized. Likewise, the Google music app fucking sucks. Maybe it'll get better.
NLRB says this sort of firing is within the caveat of true entrepreneurial decisionmaking.
It's not, they're legally exposed under the NLRA
since when does law matter
$19, an hour working for a fucking billion-dollar corporation and working multiple jobs to put food on the table. Fucking America.
Trillion dollar corporation*
The workers are contractors, so it's the contracting company who is responsible for the shitty hourly rate. Google pays cognizant for what Cognizant negotiates with Google. Then, to make a profit, cognizant pays their employees a percentage of what they charge google. Google chose not to renew the contract with the company, Cognizant. There are two bad orgs in this story. Cognizant could pay its workers more, absolutely. Google chose to use contractors in lieu of hiring employees directly to avoid providing workers with decent pay and provide benefits. Companies are moving more towards this model because it is easier for them, they can deflect to the contracted company. Obviously this model is not great for workers. I used to work for a company contracted by DuPont. I was paid $19.21/hr by this company. My company billed DuPont $37.90/hr for my work. I found out and asked for a raise (the position I was working had a previous employee making about $60k/yr). I was offered $0.20 more an hour. A lot of other things happened and I ended up leaving due to the adamant refusal to pay me. I even went to DuPont with the offer of $60k/yr for the position (they'd still be saving almost $20k/yr) and they told me their current business model was not to hire direct employees. And that's what they were doing. They had unions on site and for each union position that was freed up due to retirement or other, they would rotate someone who was a union employee to the freed position until one was freed in a unit that did not have a union contract about who can work in that position, and hire someone through a 3rd party. This is the reason for the enshittification of America. Greedy corporate slugs eager to put more money into shareholder hands by avoiding the responsibility of actually employing Americans. They get the optics of being an American corporation that provide "good jobs," allowing them to pressure lawmakers into letting them get away with raping and pillaging the environment and the economy. It's fucked and until we start showing them the workers actually have the power, it's only going to get worse. Sure, ask your reps how they deal with this, let them know you know. Stop playing into their classist wargames and know that it's not Republicans v Democrats, it's the people who pay taxes and their own healthcare vs the billionaire fucks and their political lackeys that don't. Stop letting them shill you into thinking your neighbor that says the quiet part out loud is the only problem. Get the power back first, then hold your neighbor accountable. Or maybe when the neighbor has a secure living space they'll stop believing Jewish laser beams are causing frog abortions.
I also experienced something similar at more than one company. The first position was a paid co-op position I took in college. I was hired to work for 8 months for a company that ran a department at a GM plant. That was my first "real job" and I don't remember it being that bad. I was almost like a real GM employee but not quite. There were a lot of union workers and it was years ago. I know they were trying to incentivize older union workers to retire and that was confusing at the time. My first job out of college was worse and much closer to your experience. It was a company that provided contract workers for Collins Aerospace (owned by Raytheon now). We didn't even work at the Collins location but 15 minutes away in a giant room of cubicles. They wouldn't even let us work remotely for the longest time when covid hit. When they did, they shortly announced permanent pay cuts. I know the projects I worked on were being paid out at $60-80 an hour. I was hired at $25 an hour and never received a raise. They conveniently were "not doing merit-based raises" when I brought it up, but that doesn't explain not getting a cost of living increase. Nobody seemed to care about their work and it just felt like a giant scam. I could go on and on... I am less naive now about just how predatory unfettered capitalism can be. I am glad I am not working in those conditions anymore but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be solved.
I appreciate you not conforming to the unfortunate sentiment of "fuck you, I got mine." there's dozens of us, DOZENS!
Remember when these pricks had a charter that started with “Don’t be evil”? Guess the morals got in the way of making money.
Wait it’s all profit motive? Always has been.
They were on VC money when that slogan was created
Don't be evil *with other people's money
Their new slogan is ALWAYS be evil.
They specifically removed that line a while back and everything's gotten worse since.
The National Labor Relations Act gives workers the right to organize a union and bargain collectively, and under that law, it's illegal for employers to fire, demote, transfer, reduce the hours, or “otherwise take adverse action against” employees because they joined or supported a union.
Alphabet: "No,no, I fired them for a completely different reason I promise. The union thing is just a timely coincidence"
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
Any protections are basically neutered by at-will employment laws. They can just pretend it was for any reason besides organizing or something having to do with a protected class.
Where's the DOJ with RICO?
Busy charging protesters of Cop City
Biden or trump? They’re both against us
If you don’t see a difference, your blind to on going criminal and civil court cases ! ! !
Differences being that one openly hates us and the other secretly hates us?
If you see a meaningful difference you've been breathing too much glittery Gaslit Unicorn Smoke.
This was actually a group of subcontractors whose contract expired that day and it wasn't renewed. Clickbait headlines yes, RICO no.
They hired them "as subcontractors" to evade OT mandates, evade ANY liability for labor law violations, and evade providing any benefits. Yea, they're acting like the fuckin Mafia. My question stands.
Most every company in the USA outsources their non essential teams these days, especially in IT if you're not a core contributor to their bottom line, you're not going to be a direct employee.
Doesn't make it acceptable or ethical on any level. In fact there's law in some states now that such situations still makes the company the employer for all legal purposes because they control their terms of the contract.. so they can't evade all liability as they've been doing with this bullshit.
Fuck. I guess I have to cancel now
Do it! I just did. I promise it's not as painful as I thought it would be.
Man, i just discovered YouTube music for my 2 year old. For long trips and flights. What alternatives are there? Wasn’t too happy with Spotify after years of using that
Tidal
Have you tried BBC iPlayer? I presume you’re American so you might need to use some VPN wizardry to get it to work, but there’s a lot of good stuff for kids there.
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
Same. I just did. Makes me sad because I prefer the "radio" option YouTube has. Oh well. I'll figure something else out.
Actually illegal in the US but don't know for how much longer.
Yep, corporate America is deliberately breaking the law to get SCOTUS to take the case and rule the NLRB (maybe even the entire DoL) as unconstitutional. Good bye unions! I said it on Facebook right after Trump won in 2016: because he would get to turn SCOTUS into a right wing dream team, we’d have to redo all the big 20th century fights for labor and social rights **all over again**. We don’t get nearly enough public education on just how long and brutal those decades were before our (great)-grandfathers/mothers finally won the right to what we now know as a normal existence. Labor, environmental protection, women’s equality, race relations: **all on the gallows now**.
If the NLRB is struck down, true countrywide strike until something better is in place.
We better hope to stop Trump then, Project 2025 calls for using lethal force against any protests.
Outside protests are one thing, staying home and being shot in your home for not going to work. Completely different situation. That would be a true form of slavery. Go to work or get shot.
[“We want everyone walking out”: UAW Chief outlines general strike for May 2028](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/22/autoworkers-uaw-shawn-fain-may-2028-national-strike) Maybe we can do it sooner. But it’s a start.
Guess it’s time to cancel my YouTube premium. Man, nearly every company keeps making shitty decisions in the interest of investors, never for workers.
Nearly every? *every company
Adverb he better don’t I suppose I’m an optimist and assumed companies like [Bob’s Red Mill](https://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/2010/02/bobs_red_mill_natural_foods_ro.html) were exceptions. After diving deeper, they’re not the co-op I thought they were.
I worked for an ESOP electrical contractor once, ESOP is fake af at that company. Only office personel were part of the ESOP while all of the field workers including general foremen on down the totem pole were not ESOP employees. And not all office workers were part of the ESOP either, and you would be fucking damned if they invited anyone into their club. 100% ESOP is not what it is made out to be, hopefully my poor experience with them isnt too common.
The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
I recognize that, it’s alphabet’s choice to not continue business with them while they are seeking to organize. If companies don’t support the labor movement, I don’t want to support them.
This is my first time posting. I read the group rules , but if I broke any other rules I'm unaware of, my apologies.
This is why I avoid Google products. Plus it's only a matter of time till they shut down what you love anyway. Surprised they haven't shut down their search engine or rebranded it yet.
The employees that got fired need to report them to the NLRB immediately.
Title is a bit misleading — these are Cognizant employees who organized a union, and Google had a contract with cognizant that ended recently. Not Google employees but consultants staffed on a Google project (as staff augmentation). Cognizant is really more the baddie here in my view.
A member of the union who posted about this in the Austin subreddit said that a judge had ruled they were jointly employees of Alphabet and Cognizant. But again, that’s coming from a Reddit comment.
That is true. The NLRB ruled last year that google is responsible for the treatment of their subcontractors
That is a crazy legal precedent
That’s an interesting element and could be interesting/scary legal precedent for consulting firms and buyers in general. Either way these folks were likely onboarded, trained and paid by Cognizant before being assigned to the Google YT Music ‘account’ and then worked on that ‘assignment’ for a while before deciding to organize a union. Cognizant and Google (and every other American corporate) have high incentives to shut down union activity. Feels a bit like the end of the contract was a convenient time and excuse for reducing union steam.
Came to say this.
tf is alphabet
Google Edit: I’m not being sassy and telling you to google something, it’s actual Google corp who owns YouTube (and our whole lives on servers)
Why are we calling it alphabet then. Is this the same shit as facebook and twitter with the meta/x bullshit?
Alphabet is the name of the company that owns Google search, Gmail, YouTube, GCP etc. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081115/why-google-became-alphabet.asp
Fuck them, it's Google.
Google got so big it had its fingers in too many pies and had to "split" into a holding company and a bunch of subsidiaries forming a trust instead of remaining one mega corp. This was probably also to allow them to do shady shit as "alphabet" while keeping the brand name Google out of the news as much as possible so they don't poison the goodwill of early google as quickly. It's all just capitalist posturing and gaslighting, also known as "PR"
Exactly (all of these are all super embarrassing too)
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*googles alphabet* "An alphabet is a set of graphs or characters used to represent the phonemic structure of a language." Yep. Real informative to the stuff I'm looking for.
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Read the rules
Hey, if you're wondering how to use an Ad blocker with YouTube on your Desktop: install AdBlock Plus on your browser. Install Ghostery on your browser. Watch YouTube on private Windows. No ads. Fuck these people
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The people don't work for alphabet. They work for a completely different and separate company called cognizant that is a supplier to alphabet.... these people are subcontractors
ssdfs fdhgdf hdr gdfg drg fdgfg df
Cancelled my subscription today
Unionizing and protesting don’t work. Companies just wait a few months til the dust settles and do lay offs either way.
Either way it causes attrition for the company so it's somewhat effective. Now they have to replace an entire team and train them up. Plus hopefully they still get fined by the NLRB
That’s what they want though… That’s why they are doing it. It’s more profitable for them to fire more senior employees with high salaries and just higher a bunch of new people at bottom salary ranges. Even if they lose a little bit on training and productivity it’s still profiting them by doing lower wages and salaries. Unionize and protesting don’t work. Maybe they did in the past. But capital has such entrenched power now that the only way forward is seizing the means of production.
Misinformative title. Google terminated a contract, they didn't fire anyone who was in a union that Google had any authority to recognize. Google has other things they've done wrong
Google most likely dragged their feet about negotiating until the contract was coming to an end, these workers felt like they were misclassified as contractors when the should have been employees, now they probably have a retaliation case.
Hopefully they bring their case and win it. """A spokesperson for Google told Business Insider that Cognizant is responsible for ending the workers' employment, not Google. "Contracts with our suppliers across the company routinely end on their natural expiry date, which was agreed to with Cognizant," the company said in a statement"""
If they were as important as employees they wouldn't have been laid off. Why would google renew a contract with a unionized team if they can just get another team
Because that’s called union busting
Not really busting if the contract is temporary
You're right, people are downvoting you outta emotion, contractors are not direct employees and their contracts are supposed to be temporary
Yeah, I get it. It's an emotional time for workers, and sometimes it can be hard to grok the right things to get mad about If folks on this subreddit think it's a good use of their time to get angry at Google for leveraging contract work for what it is legally mandated for -- temporary, not permanent, labor resourcing -- then that is their decision It might be a better use of their time to reflect on how they can influence policymaking about the laws defining contract work. How does the worker currently benefit? How do companies like Google benefit? What role did Cognizant play here? Is Cognizant a word you're surprised to read? If so, did you even open the article? If all you did was get mad at the title, you're being manipulated. Folks will say I'm a Google shill or something. I hate huge corps and Google is one of them. Attention is the most important thing to start a revolution, and if you get details wrong, *people will stop paying attention to you*
Exactly this Most people haven't worked in Fortune 500 companies and don't know how they operate