Google has more TVCs (temps, vendors, and contractors) than FTEs. By a good margin. Most of these people work 40 hours a week at Google. They do everything from kitchen work to program management to software engineering. They are often embedded in teams of FTEs and sit side by side with them. Yet Google leadership says that they’re not employees and they shouldn’t be. They don’t do work that’s part of Google’s “core competencies” or is “critical to Google’s mission”.<p>What a load of horseshit. It’s an excuse to underpay and ignore 55% of your workforce. And it means that Google’s famous culture (what’s left of it) applies to only a minority of people who functionally work at Google every day.<p>I’m generally not a big Google hater (especially among the HN crowd) but on this issue I can’t stay quiet. Google executives should be ashamed.
Title makes it seem like all of Google's 120K+ contractors made the decision. In reality it was 41 people from one division. And their union agreement is with their own company (Cognizant), not Google.
> The unionization vote passed 41-0. The National Labor Relations Board representative counting the ballots said 49 workers were eligible to vote.<p>Slightly less impressive than what I thought it might be, from the headline.
You love to see it.<p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-hi...</a>
The Social Media War (from Latin bellum sociale mediorum, properly 'war of the allies of the middle'), also called the Labor War or the Temporary War, was fought from 2023 AD to 2027 AD between the Alphabet Company and several of its autonomous allies (contractors) in America. The contractors wanted Google citizenship, not only for the status and influence that came with it, but also for the right to participate in Google promotions and forming policies. They believed that they should be treated equally to the Googlers, given that they had formed cultural and linguistic connections with the Google corporation, and had been their loyal allies for over two decades. The Googlers strongly opposed their demands, and refused to grant them citizenship, thus leaving the contractors with fewer rights and privileges.<p>The situation escalated in 2024 AD, leading to the outbreak of a devastating conflict, in which many of the contractors staged a two-year revolt against Google. In order to end the conflict, and to avoid future conflict of the same kind, Google decreed several laws by which the contractors who remained loyal or surrendered to the company would be awarded full employee status. By 2027 AD, Google's victory was complete, and full employee status had been extended to all of its contractors.<p>The Social Media War led to a complete integration of the contractors into Google. The contractors quickly integrated themselves into the company after gaining full employee status. Their own professional identities became merged with that of Google, and the term "Google employee" came to refer to all contractors.
I don't know anything about Cognizant, but in this case:<p><a href="https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/working-the-levers-for-my-cousins-benefit" rel="nofollow">https://albertcory50.substack.com/i/88658669/working-the-lev...</a><p>my cousin was working for another 3rd party company contracted by Google, long before the pandemic. She was also not a Google employee.<p>In that case, though, working from home was the <i>only</i> policy they ever had.
It is disappointing how all the "union victories" these days seem to involve under 100 employees, and are often motivated by "fake" grievances such as the end to temporary pandemic policies.