The resolution passed by the Austin City Council mentions not only Google, but also Cognizant.<p>This Tweet suggest that these folks are employees of Cognizant, which provides services to Google:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/busterfestus/status/1763610215402873000?t=f9izjVy0W3tzxN-gcw2fJg&s=19" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/busterfestus/status/1763610215402873000?...</a>
The whole concept of collective bargaining kinda evaporates when the collective is small enough, and the company large enough, that the company is be able to not give a duck about the entire collective and their collective actions. In this case they can just fire them all on the spot ("can" as in are able to, not as in have a legal right to) and it evidently doesn't cause any large enough issues for them.<p>I sympathize with the workers, but they clearly overplayed their hand.
The more I think about this the less I understand what the employees were trying to accomplish. Let's say that somehow they somehow get the government (whichever level of it) to force Google to sit at the table with them.<p>The union states their terms. Google just says 'no'.<p>"Uh.. then we'll all quit!"<p>"ok"<p>I guess they could go on a strike so Google would still be on the hook for paying them? A strike has to be disruptive to the company to have any effect though... they'd all just be made redundant and let go anyway.<p>Seems to me like they didn't really have a viable end game.
To everyone claiming that the Google engineers just make too much money to unionize. You seem to have a very short memory.<p><a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/1776324/apple-google-join-tech-companies-in-415-million-settlement-of-wage-lawsuit/" rel="nofollow">https://globalnews.ca/news/1776324/apple-google-join-tech-co...</a><p>There was a tacit agreement between big tech to engage in wage suppression and no poaching agreements. This is why unions exist -- to protect workers and their rights. It doesn't matter what kind of wages are in play.
From the posters stream. Is the poster ironic?<p>"#OTD in 1922, The Soviet Union was Created! It remains one of mankind's greatest achievements."
In a business with so many opportunities, it makes little sense to organize. I've met a few Software Engineers here in the US who talked about unionization, including some who were actually in one of the minor Software Engineering unions, but they were invariably among the bottom performers.<p>For the top 50%, unionization would mean lower wages and benefits; for lower income workers in fields without well-established pay-for-performance policies, that's a different story.
Older workers will have to face this more often. Younger generation, coddled on campuses and not used to be told "no" to will cause absolute havoc in the workplace.<p>They don't know how to politely say "maybe don't use the phrase 'you guys'" - they just right away accuse you of <i>assault</i>. Who can work like that?<p><a href="https://www.thecoddling.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecoddling.com/</a>
What's unclear here is what exactly these people were told by Cognizant and Google when their employment at Cognizant started, and when their work at Google started. Also if this work is still being done by other employees.<p>If you don't have a closed shop, you need everyone to join the union, including potential future workers (and they won't agree to that unless they get paid, either by having jobs somewhere, or being paid to be in the bench).<p>A union has to be big. That's why AFL-CIO is a huge conglomerate and SEIU and Teamsters too, even though they separated back into 3, each still large.<p>Nowadays an information workers union especially has to be international, since there is little value to a specific location.
Multinational companies call for multinational unions. Citizens across the world should stand up to force their national governments to form international labor agreements.
Is it actually required that an employer “come to the table” at all? Presumably they could say no, and if employees don’t like it they go on strike, but then wouldn’t they all be let go anyway?