I hope unionizing against these tech giants becomes fashionable. I worked at Adobe as a contractor and one of the recruiters for the contractor had called me and told me not to discuss my pay because I was being paid very well for the job (I wasn't and in fact was underpaid but I took the job to build a resume). I immediately asked my coworkers what they made and told them what I was getting. I also asked the recruiter to send that in writing. I got a call the next day from his manager saying to ignore and disregard what he said.
While they squashed the issue immediately, I suspect this practice is common and bullying people about sharing their wages in this industry is normal.
It goes a lot further than that. I had a very brief stint at a company that looked good on the surface but was toxic as hell underneath. As part of my employment agreement I had to sign an NDA stating I could not discuss my compensation with other employees. If memory serves there was an exception for HR and my manager but I wasn’t supposed to talk about it with anyone else. I honestly don’t know if conditions like that are legal in Ontario but I also didn’t have the resources to contest it.
I know that this isn't skilled labor at the level of systems or network administration, but $15/hr sounds low for data center techs swapping out hard drives. I'm sure it's all very scripted, but still, I'm surprised to learn that the grunt labor in the cages is making something resembling the Seattle minimum wage.
it is low. over the course of my career I have witnessed skilled people earn less and less, almost always for the sake of "shareholder value" (more generally called "profit" at smaller places) and it is sickening.
when I was very young, one could be promoted simply by demonstrating a willingness to learn and be better when others were not. now, if you are not doing at least that, you are not considered for a raise.
last year I got a perfect yearly evaluation, and a 0.6% raise, which equaled inflation for the same year.
a raise is supposed to be a raise. a reward. incentive to continue the good work.
it used to be that if you could perform well that you were rewarded. now, if you perform well, you stay afloat. that's it.
I really hate this planet because of things like this. if humans were a decent species, money would not work it's way toward people who already have more.
honestly, I can't wait to be done with this life. the black abyss is better than working harder than anyone else simply to keep your head above water.
Under the thin veneer of civilized society it's still the law of the jungle; while our civilization may have become advanced, our DNA hasn't caught up. We are programmed to blindly accumulate as much as possible, because for most of our evolutionary history scarcity and disaster was always just around the corner. In modern times, it translates into those who already hold positions of wealth and power going for even more, at the expensive of everyone else. This has in turn been amplified by technology and globalization.
Having said that, historically we're still at a "high point". It's a cold comfort, but still..
I think the labor has also required less skill over time or at least compared to other companies. Google has very uniform custom hardware. Usually they only produce a few configurations of a particular platform at any time, and there may only be 1 or 2 platforms in a building. They build the racks in assembly lines before they are shipped to datacenters. Software detects problems with hardware, often diagnoses the issue automatically, and schedules it for service.
I think they even used to have a patched kernel that would disable faulty RAM so that they wouldn't have to replace single DIMMs.
I think it follows a common pattern of replacing medium skilled labor with low skilled laborers augmented with very few high skilled laborers.
Also the biggest DCs are in low cost-of-living/cost-of-labor areas. E.g. South Carolina, Iowa, and Oklahoma have the federal minimum wage ($7.25).
20 years ago, the local pay for that type of work was $17.50 including benefits. This was in a not very high COL living area relative to Silicon Valley or the like. I look at the pay over there every few years and it has always gone down, while the benefits and career advancement have vanished.
It has always been a PITA to be the low person on the totem pole, but these days the pay isn't there, the benefits aren't there, and the treatment can be rather appalling.
According to Wikipedia, $15/hr full time amounts to the median wage in Berkeley County, South Carolina, and it is more than double that state's minimum wage.
This doesn't bode well for Google, but rather, is damming for what is supposed to be one of the richest places on Earth. Just image trying to live on less than $15/hour.
The story is full of the standard paradoxes: a) She's being paid 'reasonably' but probably not for such a rich company/area b) She's entitled to 'talk about comp' but people slamming the company publicly on Facebook posts are not going to last, it's reasonable that the company wold be upset buy that c) Google is full of actually quite nice people wanting to make a difference, there's a lot of moralizing about 'equity and diversity' but in their relentless pursuit of profit they create a 'tiered class system' of people, of completely secondary status and they grind them with every bit of the massive power they have.
Google is not rich because they 'nickle and dime' people, they're rich because they create a globally useful product, and have enormous market power.
Some things Google could do:
1) They're stinking rich. Pay good wages and give awesome benefit packages.
2) Don't intimate people but let them know if they're leaking information to the press or posting publicly that they're going to be let go.
3) Make every single person from CEO to the servers at lunch 'part of the company' and let them come to company events, and see the 'invited speakers' etc. if they want.
The reason they should do that is because their supposed to be 'good people' i.e. communitarians first. It's hypocritical to virtue signal publicly if they can't make their own beds.
An important distinction being that this was in South Carolina, not Seattle. And presumably Google's data center isn't in the middle of the expensive parts of South Carolina...
$15/hr is a living wage in the mountains of North Carolina where that datacenter is located. It is $30k/year. A house in that area costs about $100k. The median income in the area is $17/hr. Minimum wage is $7.25.
This is a good story for all to realize -- you CAN talk about your OWN pay to anyone you want. Every employer I know has tried to say "you can't do that" or "its in your contract" and I would rebuff and say the contract is illegal/non-binding as it goes against labor laws (in the US as per various labor laws and an executive order as recently as Obama). I get really annoyed w/ HR in firms -- their goal is to stop information from being shared to control things. On the flip side I do not agree that just because your colleague makes X that you deserve X. Pay never consistent and I have no problem with that part given we aren't clones of each other either.
Is that a US think? I've worked for employers in several European countries and have never heard an employer telling me not to discuss pay. Once a manager told me not to tell everyone about a pay raise as it was out of schedule and he didn't want lengthy discussions with other employees. But that was his personal request, not a request by HR. If I had wanted to discuss it I could've done without consequences, he made that clear as well.
It's still unusual to discuss pay in many companies but not because the employer prohibits it.
Is salary negation a common thing in Europe? Because in the US, it’s pervasive if you’re salaried (not hourly). The problem then becomes: if I negotiated, say, $75k/year, but my equally skilled coworker negotiated $85k/year, it doesn’t look good on the company. So the company just pushes you to not share at all. And it’s worked.
Wait, I'm confused reading this. It's really hard to make out which of the abusive behaviors here are Google's, and which are Modis'. I don't really understand the relationship between those two institutions. (I'm assuming there's plenty of fault on both sides here, but it would be nice to understand the specifics)
How much of her direct day to day life is set by Modis? I figure Google pays Modis and Modis pays her? (If so, how much of a cut is Modis keeping?) Did Google directly provide her water bottle, or did it need to go through Modis? It looks like the threatening email she received claiming that she couldn't discuss compensation came from a Modis manager, not a Google one? Which managers were in the room when she was fired for her Facebook post? (I'm assuming Google ones, since they're on-site?)
She wasn't working for Google, she was working for a contractor. Go to a different datacenter and it will be staffed by a different (local) contractor. Same thing for most of the building's maintenance staff. What makes it news-worthy is that the owner of that particular server-rack was a high-profile company. Had the same thing happened at a datacenter owned by a bank, nobody would have reported on it.
Google was involved in her employment. The Alphabet Worker's Union filed a complaint against both Google and Modis. There's no reason to assume that only one company was involved, who was responsible can be decided by the NLRB.
I would say Google is completely responsible as they choose to hire contractors for the purpose of mistreating and exploiting them. If Google replaced this contractor or hired their own employees then Google shouldn't be blamed, but as is they hire people to do this for them. It's their fault.
When I worked at Google, I worked in Platforms, which is the division that makes the servers that populate Google datacenters. They had a program where you could spend a week or two (can't remember exactly) in a datacenter, acting as a low-level tech like this woman. The idea was that you'd see the problems they'd encounter and design servers that were easier and safer to service. I regret that I left Google before I had a chance to do this.
I think they should re-target the program and make it mandatory for execs, and make them live on the $15/hr wage that they pay the techs for a few weeks.
Work at a burger place like In n' Out, and you get real benefits on top of your hourly wage.
Heck, when I was in college, my part-time Starbucks job gave me good health coverage and a bunch of other perks that my first few post-college tech jobs didn't. (This was mid-90's). FWIW.
"she worked in a Google data centre, she was actually employed by a subcontractor called Modis, part of a group of companies owned by another firm, Adecco.
That complex arrangement has become increasingly common at Google."
This complex arrangement is common in every large corporation. The two layers of contracting companies rarely have any contact with the workers who are fully controlled by managers at the paying company (Google in this case). However, everyone is very careful to officially document that no one at the company is the manager of the contracted employee. But they are.
That undersells Googles use of these staffing firms. Years ago I interviewed for an engineering job with the self driving car team at the newly built Google X office. At the end of the interview the manager informed me that if I were brought on I would technically be employed by a staffing firm (I think Adecco). Apparently everyone on the team had to start this way and people were moved to full time on a set schedule as slots opened up.
My point is you can't assume contractors at Google are independent service providers that happen to be working on site like when you call a plumber to your house. They can and do use this arrangement to keep labor costs low even when employees are working on the company's core business. Before it was Waymo I don't think anyone would have called it the Adecco self driving car project.
Yeah Adecco is used by every major software company. There was a big lawsuit though saying that you could only be contractors for 2 years if they were doing the same job as regular employees.
Readit News
While they squashed the issue immediately, I suspect this practice is common and bullying people about sharing their wages in this industry is normal.
Dead Comment
when I was very young, one could be promoted simply by demonstrating a willingness to learn and be better when others were not. now, if you are not doing at least that, you are not considered for a raise.
last year I got a perfect yearly evaluation, and a 0.6% raise, which equaled inflation for the same year.
a raise is supposed to be a raise. a reward. incentive to continue the good work.
it used to be that if you could perform well that you were rewarded. now, if you perform well, you stay afloat. that's it.
I really hate this planet because of things like this. if humans were a decent species, money would not work it's way toward people who already have more.
honestly, I can't wait to be done with this life. the black abyss is better than working harder than anyone else simply to keep your head above water.
Having said that, historically we're still at a "high point". It's a cold comfort, but still..
We are a decent species, that's why we've survived this long.
There is also more at play than just humans being "decent". I recommend this short (3min) video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k_FfS1kHfY
TL;DW it's almost a natural law that things accumulate in a pareto distribution.
I think they even used to have a patched kernel that would disable faulty RAM so that they wouldn't have to replace single DIMMs.
I think it follows a common pattern of replacing medium skilled labor with low skilled laborers augmented with very few high skilled laborers.
Also the biggest DCs are in low cost-of-living/cost-of-labor areas. E.g. South Carolina, Iowa, and Oklahoma have the federal minimum wage ($7.25).
It has always been a PITA to be the low person on the totem pole, but these days the pay isn't there, the benefits aren't there, and the treatment can be rather appalling.
The story is full of the standard paradoxes: a) She's being paid 'reasonably' but probably not for such a rich company/area b) She's entitled to 'talk about comp' but people slamming the company publicly on Facebook posts are not going to last, it's reasonable that the company wold be upset buy that c) Google is full of actually quite nice people wanting to make a difference, there's a lot of moralizing about 'equity and diversity' but in their relentless pursuit of profit they create a 'tiered class system' of people, of completely secondary status and they grind them with every bit of the massive power they have.
Google is not rich because they 'nickle and dime' people, they're rich because they create a globally useful product, and have enormous market power.
Some things Google could do:
1) They're stinking rich. Pay good wages and give awesome benefit packages.
2) Don't intimate people but let them know if they're leaking information to the press or posting publicly that they're going to be let go.
3) Make every single person from CEO to the servers at lunch 'part of the company' and let them come to company events, and see the 'invited speakers' etc. if they want.
The reason they should do that is because their supposed to be 'good people' i.e. communitarians first. It's hypocritical to virtue signal publicly if they can't make their own beds.
It's still unusual to discuss pay in many companies but not because the employer prohibits it.
How much of her direct day to day life is set by Modis? I figure Google pays Modis and Modis pays her? (If so, how much of a cut is Modis keeping?) Did Google directly provide her water bottle, or did it need to go through Modis? It looks like the threatening email she received claiming that she couldn't discuss compensation came from a Modis manager, not a Google one? Which managers were in the room when she was fired for her Facebook post? (I'm assuming Google ones, since they're on-site?)
Which is exactly by design. They can each blame the other and hope the employee doesn't complain.
She wasn't working for Google, she was working for a contractor. Go to a different datacenter and it will be staffed by a different (local) contractor. Same thing for most of the building's maintenance staff. What makes it news-worthy is that the owner of that particular server-rack was a high-profile company. Had the same thing happened at a datacenter owned by a bank, nobody would have reported on it.
So like even at best this is "Google contracted some dc operations to a company that violated labor relations law."
The more newsworthy part is that she was able to get recourse.
I think they should re-target the program and make it mandatory for execs, and make them live on the $15/hr wage that they pay the techs for a few weeks.
Heck, when I was in college, my part-time Starbucks job gave me good health coverage and a bunch of other perks that my first few post-college tech jobs didn't. (This was mid-90's). FWIW.
That complex arrangement has become increasingly common at Google."
This complex arrangement is common in every large corporation. The two layers of contracting companies rarely have any contact with the workers who are fully controlled by managers at the paying company (Google in this case). However, everyone is very careful to officially document that no one at the company is the manager of the contracted employee. But they are.
My point is you can't assume contractors at Google are independent service providers that happen to be working on site like when you call a plumber to your house. They can and do use this arrangement to keep labor costs low even when employees are working on the company's core business. Before it was Waymo I don't think anyone would have called it the Adecco self driving car project.