This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
A Google spokesperson told Motherboard in a statement at the time of the unionization that it had “no objection to these Cognizant workers electing to form a union,” but that it would not bargain with them. “We are not a joint employer as we simply do not control their employment terms or working conditions—this matter is between the workers and their employer, Cognizant,” the spokesperson said.
NLRB seems to disagree. This will be an interesting case, I suspect ...
So Google, like Amazon, is trying to play the "they work for a subcontractor that only supports us, so it's their fault, not ours" card. I really want to see the NLRB smack this pattern down hard and set an example for all the other companies to try to avoid unionization by way of not directly hiring people.
NLRB changed their criteria for what is considered co-employment last month, widely broadening the definitions used to determine this status. Essentially, if a company has significant control (not just exclusive control) over any of a worker's employment status or conditions, then they are considered a co-employer now. It used to be that a company needed exclusive or overriding control over another company's employees to be considered a co-employer.
I'm certain we are going to see more lawsuits and legal challenges from employees because of this. I'm pretty certain there already are lawsuits from some other Google contractors over this exact thing; they are providing a case that Google is their co-employer due to the control they have over every aspect of their work.
That's excellent news, especially for the employees of Amazon subcontractors handling warehouse and delivery operations.
I want to, but I can't shake off the feeling that Google does have a point here: it's like requiring Amazon to bargain with DHL's drivers. It's kind of not their issue: they pay DHL for their services and DHL commissions their employees to do particular tasks.
The article became increasingly redundant as it continued. The crux seems to be Google isn't their employer. These workers work for a subcontractor, Cognizant. Cognizant performs services for YouTube Music.
Cognizant is refusing to bargain citing the ongoing relevant litigation* between its employees and Google.
Some of the employees are striking for 1 day.
It's redundant because there's basically a circular argument that G and C are using to not respond to the workers. Workers want to C negotiate with G on the terms of their work with G but C says they can't because they're just contracting with G. Then G says the workers can't negotiate with G because they work for C. Both companies point the finger at the other as to why they can't help and just give nothing back to the workers.
One idea of subcontractors is to split and delegate societal responsibility to others to appear to be clean. Surely the law is focused on Cognizant here, but the responsibility lies fully on Google, including their ability to intervene.
I'm very much pro-union, but meanwhile artists and creators who made that content in the first place are getting fucked by everyone
A YouTube creators' strike isn't an impossible notion. It'd just have to be led by a couple of big names, like a Mr. Beast type.
Mr Beast is the result of the trendy gen Z libertarian millionaire pipeline. He will never unionize nor support strikes.
There's been enough creators that have had enough problems with YouTube that maybe something could happen. I'm not putting money on it or anything but it wouldn't be that crazy.
Artists, techies, and socialists need to come together. To build a platform focused on sustainability ultimately. Devoid of profit for the sake of profit. And more focused on meeting the needs of their members. No overpriced CEO or board of directors. Or layers of redundant management. Once the service costs are covered. Anything after that could be split somewhat proportionally within strict limits.
What’s to stop every single corporation from leveraging third party contractor companies just to escape union bargaining? Cognizant seems like a company that basically exists for this reason. Both Amazon and Google play this game and it’s infuriating.
Nothing. It’s one of the alluring aspects of using third-parties. You pay a flat fee, people do work. You avoid all the overhead of HR, benefits, workers compensation and unemployment insurance. If you want someone gone there’s no process, you simply tell the third party that Joe doesn’t need to come back to work, ever, and you’re done.
Amazon and Google are not alone in this practice, nor is it exclusive to Fortune 500 companies.
I work as a contractor dev for fortune 500s. It's wide spread. Handful of full timers, padded with contractors.
Brain drain is a real problem, but it also means there's a culture of FTE being willing to jump through corporate hoops and on call hours, because they want to keep the FTE position instead of finding a new job every 1.5 years (in California where there are max contract lengths)
That's basically the current situation.
Dark Brandon and the NLRB are on that shit. No more malarkey.
Hopefully people turn out in 2024 and stop us going down the 1930s Germany route..... my mother recently moved to Pennsylvania from a deep red state, and was saying that due to Bidens "corruption", she didnt think she would vote in 2024. Upon further questioning, my hyper conservative fundemantalist Christian uncle had been sending her news.
Hope my arguments convinced her otherwise, she detests Trump & the Republicans. Her vote DOES matter now. Have her set up with a variety of news websites & Firefox/ublock origin etc, and not "Townhall" garbage.
This is what laws and regulations are for. If we had a functioning government...
People use YouTube Music?
I'll use it as long as they keep it bundled with YouTube Premium. The day they unbundle I'm out.
Yeah, if you do a fair amount of YouTube and want to support the creators without queuing up a bunch of ads it's a pretty good deal.
$10 a month to have basically every song ever and never have to worry about YouTube ads. Yes, I use it.
hah, this was me with Grooveshark.
and then I lost everything when it shut down.
and then me again with Google play music. "upload your music, we'll keep it for you"
and then I lost everything when it shut down.
"oh it's ok, you can just use [new service], it's better anyway"
it just isn't the same, you lose stuff everytime. I don't think it's worth it.
and then me again with Google play music. "upload your music, we'll keep it for you"
and then I lost everything when it shut down.
There was a long period where you could transfer your GPM uploads to YTM.
It worked perfectly for me - all my previously uploaded music is in my Library under "Uploads".
YouTube Music is a much better option than Spotify, in my opinion.
On top of the music you get ad-free YouTube.
I also upload any music I buy via Bandcamp or physical CD so I can listen to it anywhere. No one else offers that as far as I know.
Just make sure you use the unofficial YouTube Music desktop app (http://ytmdesktop.app/) if you're on a PC because using it in a browser sucks.
6 family members for $15 a month and no YouTube ads. Also that money was basically paid for by Google Rewards. The Web App is good too. I don't have to deal with CEF/Electron or any install really.
I don't use YouTube Music but I love using YouTube for my music. Tons of songs on there that just aren't on either YouTube music or other services like Spotify.
You can listen to just the music that's on YouTube via YouTube music. That's one of the main reasons why I'm using YouTube music.
Yes, and it's great!
/c/unions is worth subbing to.
What instance it on? I found two. So, for others,
(for kbin users)
(if it's on a different instance, I'll edit this comment.)
Time to stop using Gmail and YouTube. I had already avoided go░gle search for months now.
Over the last three or four months I had deleted all my FaceBook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram accounts. And this made me want to avoid go░gle search.
Been using DuckDuckGo for a month or two. It's mostly good enough for me.
DuckDuckGo is fine for some things, but if you want to do a search with a specific phrase in quotes, it doesn't recognize it. I hate having to go back to Google for some searches, but sometimes it's just better. I wish it wasn't, but it is.
DuckDuckGo's image search also leaves a lot to be desired.
Everybody's striking! LFG!
A Cognizant spokesperson told Motherboard in an email, “We have received the Alphabet Workers Union’s request for a Cognizant bargaining representative. The request put forward was for both Cognizant and Google to bargain. While we respect our associates’ rights to unionize, we firmly believe Cognizant is the sole employer of our associates. While the joint employer ruling remains unresolved, we cannot bargain at this time.”
“Google refuses to just admit that they are our employer, and then Cognizant is just using Google's legal appeals as a scapegoat,” Marschner said. “That, honestly, is exactly why we filed for joint employer status in the first place. We knew that if we just tried to engage in collective bargaining with Cognizant, that's exactly what they would do.”
wut
I get the technicality of all this, but this could be a watershed moment. Businesses like to contract people out to move liability and cut corners in their obligations to the workers. The bottom line is that its cheaper and easier to fire whatever contractors you don't like for any reason, and artificially push their salaries/wages down.
Look at Fedex Ground, Amazon drivers, etc. Google is now firmly in the role of the bad guy here, with Sundar Pichai making 220+ million dollars with much of it on the backs of layoffs and ethnically bankrupt business practices. I honestly think the ramifications of this in a positive way for the workers is tantamount to the formation of the UAW itself with their sitting strikes. They sat at the machines and forcibly halted production.
That needs to happen here, and all you scabs, fuck you. You can just piss off.
I just want to see more strikes. 🙂
Google: ~~Don't be evil.~~ PROFIT UBER ALLES!!!
I can't believe I'm saying it but but I'm with Google here. They are sub-cons so negotiation would surely go through their employer who is cognizant. I'm a sub-contractor, I'm not gonna go to the client and ask for a raise, I'm gonna go to my employer. Maybe it's different in different regions but if I asked the client for a raise in the uk they would probably just laugh at me.
According to the union, Cognizant has also refused to bargain, citing Google’s appeals as the reason for its delay.
