Hacker News Reader

Comment by remote_phone | Hacker News Reader

I’m glad they were able to unionize but why should they deserve to have similar or same benefits as Google workers? Sorry to be blunt but they are cafeteria workers working for Bon Appetit. If I were Google I would just close all the cafeterias in order to avoid further precedent setting actions. The meals are going to get taxed by IRS anyway so might as well bite the bullet now and get rid of free food entirely.

View on HN

"Deserve" and "should" hasn't got shit to do with it. Are we going to start policing sales and contracts corporations make to ensure the value they deliver "deserves" the compensation they're receiving? You get what you can get. If they can get more, good for them.

Google would be pretty unique among high tech companies and large companies in general if it didn't have cafeterias at all. I doubt they would close the cafeterias. If Compass is unable to negotiate a cost effective labor contract, the more likely outcome would be google switching to another provider. But that in itself doesn't seem very likely considering the optics, and the relatively small cost of this labor.

But, for the sake of argument, can you imagine what the lunch rush hour would look like in downtown mountain view and Sunnyvale if Google didn't have cafeterias at all? It was already pretty bananas when I left the Bay Area three years ago. Google's headcount on the peninsula was much lower then. And they did have cafeterias. Now it would be totally insane.

Or it would be a renaissance for urban restaurateurs and workers, who could afford the city again. Some of these tech areas are surrounded by dead zones.

In an alternate reality where there was a bunch of unused land and commercial real estate for lease in MTV and Sunnyvale, and/or where their city councils were open to building more, I agree. However, that's not the world we live in, so the situation you describe would be an unlikely result.

Apple had room to build a new Venice. Shops, housing, work... but they built a spacepad.

They are not Google employees here they are employed by a third party.

That would be funny. Their engineer employment motivation boils down to: Come to Google and be comfortable.

some people don't want to create a servant caste despite all the pressure from Sundar Pichai to recreate Indian society in Google HQ.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com