This Tweet suggest that these folks are employees of Cognizant, which provides services to Google:
https://twitter.com/busterfestus/status/1763610215402873000?...
If Google specifically cancelled the contract for this team from Cognizant because the team unionized it's fair to say that Google fired them. The only way it isn't fair to say that is if Cognizant fired them without Google's input. Knowing contracting companies though, I'm fairly sure that didn't happen. Cognizant wouldn't jeopardize their relationship with Google like that.
These Cognizant employees are going back on the bench and being paid for seven weeks until they can be reassigned to another contract. https://www.kxan.com/news/youtube-music-workers-laid-off-aft...
Cognizant, Google, and the workers all knew the contract was ending today. By their own admission they had been training other people to take over the work in anticipation of the end of the contract. This was theatre.
The title here says "laid off". This is definitely not the case if they're a third party whose contract was cancelled. If the Cognizant team unionised, it will have done so as part of Cognizant, I assume, so I'm still a bit confused.
"#OTD in 1922, The Soviet Union was Created! It remains one of mankind's greatest achievements."
Well, for a few decades there it probably was a great achievement for a few people at the very top. ;)
For the rank and file though... not so much. :(
Terrible, but great.
1922: ·Official founding of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
April 1922: ·Stalin elected General Secretary of the Communist Party
January 4, 1923: ·Lenin warns the Party to remove Stalin from his position of power.
January 21, 1924: ·Death of Lenin. Stalin survives the reading of the Testament by the Central Committee in May.
Or read Animal Farm.
The USA was a great achievement, but has been hijacked too, after a while.
The union states their terms. Google just says 'no'.
"Uh.. then we'll all quit!"
"ok"
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.
Seems to me like they didn't really have a viable end game.
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.
I sympathize with the workers, but they clearly overplayed their hand.
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).
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.
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.
Also, in the US, employers are required under the National Labor Relations Act to bargain in good faith with union membership. It is also illegal to fire employees for organizing into a union.
https://globalnews.ca/news/1776324/apple-google-join-tech-co...
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.
Google is not their employer
They don't know how to politely say "maybe don't use the phrase 'you guys'" - they just right away accuse you of assault. Who can work like that?
