Google Maps Workers Say They Can’t Afford the Trip Back to the Office | Hacker News Reader

Google Maps Workers Say They Can’t Afford the Trip Back to the Office

nytimes.com

39 pointsdonohoe9 comments

Hiring people at remote distances (100 miles away) during the pandemic was going to cause this policy to be a clusterf.

I don't doubt that contractors have a hard time living close enough to a place whose prices are set by full-time tech workers.

"The policies highlight disparities between Google’s direct employees and contractors. Google is estimated to have well more than 100,000 temporary, vendor and contract workers who spend their time on Google projects but officially work for other companies. Google does not disclose the number."

Perhaps all employees and contractors should get together and form a union.

“””

The petition was supported by the Alphabet Workers Union, which has more than 900 members.

“””

The Alphabet Workers Union is fairly toothless. It has no legal power, is not officially recognized by Google, and has no contract or formal bargaining power.

That's literally how all unions that become anything else start out, and advocacy like this around specific issues is how they grow into something more.

Legally-recognized unions with employer contracts don't spring full formed from the head of Samuel Gompers, they are the result of organizing efforts that spend a time as unrecognized unions.

Fair enough, though this union also has unconventional goals which I imagine would slow both employee adoption and Google's willingness to negotiate with them.

> We will ensure Alphabet acts ethically and in the best interests of society and the environment. We are responsible for the technology that we bring into the world, and recognize that its implications reach far beyond Alphabet. We will work with those affected by our technology to ensure that it serves the public good.

To be honest, this strikes me as an incredibly pretentious opinion from people who have drank too much of the Google Kool-Aid.

The dues are also 1% of total compensation, which includes bonuses and RSUs at Google. For the bulk of L3/L4 Googlers, this is $1800-$2600 per year. This is typical for union dues on a percentage income basis, but very high on an absolute basis where the average is apparently $400 per year. They constructed it to have 4-6x the funding per member of the average union.

Then their initiatives are focused on contractors, which don't really incentize employees to join, and larger public social justice where the union might lack sufficient teeth to effect change.

There isn't really enough self-interest to join, so your average Googler is probably better off taking the company match on a philanthropic contribution.

Unfortunately the rabid work from home demanding lobby has made it impossible to trust generic, unqualified statements about how people somehow ‘need’ to work from home.

Would these people have been unable to afford commuting if they had never had the chance of working from home due to Covid-19? It sounds rather unlikely.

https://archive.ph/M6U1q

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