Google to Make Security Guards Employees, Rather Than Contractors

I think this is a good move.<p>I understand the tax incentives&#x2F;accounting behind it, but I still feel it&#x27;s kind of shady to hire &quot;contractors&quot; for positions that are indefinite. I think contractors should be for the time you need a bunch of hands or brains to get something done for a few months, but using contractors for years on end is just abuse of the system and demeaning for the person.<p>Who do you think is going to be more loyal and do a better job with your security, someone who always feels like an outsider, or someone who is protecting &quot;their&quot; own company?

Note - that this sort of thing usually lasts while a company is profitable. Once things get tight (if they do), then everything is back on the table, and Security Guards, Cleaners, Kitchen Staff, Groundskeepers - basically anybody who doesn&#x27;t have proprietary knowledge, training, or skills is replaced with a contractor.<p>I remember when my University (SFU) fired all their cleaning staff - some of whom had been working their for 20+ years and replaced them with contractors (who (ironically?) actually did a much better job for a <i>lot</i> less money) - students went on a mini strike, but, at the same time, the University was being forced to raise tuition to cover the bills - so they were trying to find every way they could save money possible.

It gives them more control over who they hire, it makes it harder (if not impossible) for the SEIU from unionize them, assuming they have to sign the employment agreement it allows them to install surveillance on any of their computers, and it will probably make for a much better experience for employees.<p>One of the saddest things they did during my time there was switch the TechStop folks from employees to contractors and that was, in my opinion of course, a huge mistake. Having these folks be contractors totally changed the dynamic with respect to the other employees.

I&#x27;m actually quite surprised by this.<p>Having worked as a contractor for Google, my impression is that they consider being an employee at Google as a brand in and by itself.<p>My contract stated several times that I was not a Googler, and I was not hired by Google and I was not allowed to say &quot;I work for Google&quot;and if I start a company I am definitely not allowed to send out a press release saying &quot;Ex-googler makes new start-up to solve ...&quot;

&gt; The August think tank report found that the median hourly wage is $14 an hour for security guards in Santa Clara County – home to Google and scores of other tech companies. By contrast, the median wage for software developers is roughly $63 an hour.<p>Obviously - $14&#x2F;hour is quite low and there&#x27;s a certain increased level of security that comes with paying guards more (it won&#x27;t be so easily for them to consider <i>alternative</i> income sources), but does anyone really think that that gap needs to be closed completely? I think they&#x27;d be hard pressed to demonstrate that a security guards warrants equal pay with a software developer.

I worked as a contractor at Google last year as a software engineer. All of the people I interacted with who were non technical contractors, like security guards, office supplies, etc. seemed to have a great attitude and acted like they appreciated their jobs. Same comment applies to almost all of the technical contractors I met.<p>Unless companies need to lock in key employees, using contractors makes a lot of sense, and with the affordable health care act, one of the big reasons for wanting to be an employee vanishes. I have worked as an independent consultant for 15+ years, so I am biased in favor of flexible working arrangements.<p>BTW, I hope the current contracted security guards get some preference in being hired as employees.

This wasn&#x27;t mentioned in the article but this will also mean they can ride the shuttle for free (the IRS considers this a benefit with some specified dollar amount). I&#x27;m glad the security guards won&#x27;t have to choose between driving or paying the &quot;gbus fare&quot;.

The article says &quot;more than 200 security guards&quot;. Any clue about how this compare to the number of security guards working as contractors for Google? I&#x27;m curious about whether &quot;Security Guards&quot; in the title means &quot;all security guards&quot;, or &quot;a small proportion of security guards, as an experiment&quot;.

I see many comments here be like &quot;security is important for google, so paying guards more is a wise move&quot;. That isn&#x27;t really true. If you want to keep something safe the real question isn&#x27;t if your employee wants to abuse you, but if he <i>can</i>. Security is about being sure that damage that can be made by every single person you entrusted with access to something is reasonably low. Because if somebody can blow you up, him being your own employee and not a contractor, or paying him nice wage doesn&#x27;t guarantee enough. Consider Snowden.<p>Now about wages. I&#x27;m not sure why I&#x27;m saying such obvious things on HN, but there&#x27;s some visible ignorance in comments on that topic. Developers aren&#x27;t paid more than cleaners because being developer is somehow better by itself. Wages are dictated by market, so the question is if you can find somebody who can do the same work while being paid less. Of course I don&#x27;t know what specific purpose will serve these security guys hired by google, but if we&#x27;re talking about something like sitting all day long watching nobody enters using other tools than his NFC card then answer is definitely yes, finding a guy who can do <i>that</i> is easier than finding a guy who can write efficient js or something like that.<p>I <i>do</i> think that hiring your own security staff is convenient (and I&#x27;m a bit surprised it wasn&#x27;t the case before — I suppose it isn&#x27;t like they are founding their own Blackwater), but it doesn&#x27;t seem to be as important as some journalists are implying and sure it isn&#x27;t about social equality.

Coincidentally until this week I never saw the security people in the lift (we share a building). This week I have seen them many times inside and outside wearing Google Security logoed shirts.

Given the importance of security and worry over theft of intellectual property by accessing servers on-site, etc., I am really surprised that hi-tech firms (Google, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, ...) don&#x27;t hire their own security. Also, for people that store data on Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon servers, I&#x27;d want security to be vetted by the firm (Google, etc.) that is accountable for providing the secure service.<p>Incidentally, this also holds true for hospitals, etc. that have secure medical data.

Maybe it was to preempt something like this. Seattle City council calling out Amazon to treat its security guards better and to let them unionize. <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2014/seattle-city-council-amazon-security-guards/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.geekwire.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;seattle-city-council-amazon-sec...</a>

Given how security conscious Google is, I&#x27;m surprised the security personnel were ever outsourced.

I am very glad to hear this, google employs (or <i>ahem</i> contracts) some very good security personnel. I do wonder though if the current security personnel will be converted to full employees or if they will be sent back to the contracting company ...

I wonder if they get to use 20% of their time providing security for their personal projects.<p>(b&#x27;dom ksh)

The <i>median</i> salary for software engineers is $130k??!? At Google or in all of SV???

I guess the EEOC is finally breathing down their necks. Funny how long companies like google can get away with it....<p>Vote it down if you like: it&#x27;s the obvious reason Google is hiring its security guards.

We have had our security guards as employees (not contractors) since the beginning. Not sure how this is news and how this isn&#x27;t the norm.

Doesn&#x27;t this reduce their ability for overtime pay in certain situations?

Good move I&#x27;ve seen some really bad contractors

Google&#x27;s getting its own army. ;-)

I wonder if Google has caught a contractor that was working for NSA.

I&#x27;ve always wondered why we outsource cleaning and janitorial staff? It&#x27;s so unnecessary and cruel. Make them part of the team.

That&#x27;s strange. Google will have to go into bussines of security services. Why they just don&#x27;t negotiate with the contracted security company better terms for the employees working for Google?

&gt;&gt;SIS told The Journal the change was a business move on its part. “The decision to end this contractual relationship was made by SIS as part of its normal business operations and then conveyed to Google,” said SIS Chief Financial Officer Tom Seltz in an email.<p>Um, so who made the choice SIS or Google?