[njstraub608]

This really isn't that outrageous, at most of the F500 companies I've consulted at they all have massive contractor workforces (including consultants) that don't have the same benefits as anyone else and are generally treated like second-class citizens. News like this that directs outrage at a specific company is just clickbait bullshit written by an amateur who doesn't understand how the broader workforce operates.

[pesmhey]

Given the undercurrent of class warfare in today's politics and economics, it makes some sense that this is news. By the way, you do yourself no favors:

This really isn't that outrageous

are generally treated like second-class citizens

I think I understand the sentiment here, that in the context of the workforce, it's ethical to treat people in certain roles like second-class citizens because they'd ideally be able to transition from full-time to contractor, and vice versa, based on their needs. Or maybe I'm wrong here, you tell me. But one thing is certain: step outside of yourself for a minute, and read those two comments in series. You really don't think there will be outrage when people are treated like second-class citizens? Like, ever? It seems to be a human constant, across history, that people don't like to be treated as lesser-than, and will muster up a lot of outrage if they are.

I mean, to be really honest, I feel like I'm trying to convince you that the sky is blue.

[Kalium]

You're absolutely right. It's wildly unethical to treat people as second-class citizens for no reason at all. This just might not be a scenario where there is no reason.

There's actually a rather complex wrinkle here. Failing to treat contractors as sufficiently different from employees can incur liability as if they are employees. This is not speculation, and has bitten large software companies - https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-...

In order to treat contractors as equal with employees, any company would have to essentially make them employees. While I'm absolutely certain this would be better for many people! I'm also certain that some would wind up unemployed. Not to mention that some people prefer contracting for their own reasons.

Perhaps there's cause for a careful examination of some subtlety here?

[pesmhey]

It's definitely complex. Thanks for the link to Microsoft's trouble in this area. It seems somewhat similar, based on this line:

Microsoft’s problem was that it failed to treat them like ICs — that is, like people running their own independent businesses. Instead, Microsoft integrated the workers into its workforce: They often worked on teams along with regular employees, sharing the same supervisors, performing identical functions and working the same core hours. Because Microsoft required that they work on site, they received admittance card keys, office equipment and supplies from the company.

From the information made public in the grievance letter, it seems that a significant portion of Google's TVCs (their name for ICs) would fall into this bin - workers doing the same work at a different level of compensation.

It'll be interesting to see this unfold as time goes on. People were out for blood even back in the 90s, and Bill Gates didn't even set out to create a walled garden for Ivy leaguers (and Stanford). Seems like Google may find itself at the forefront of another national conversation, this time about the growing class divide.

[Kalium]

It definitely seems like a different name for the same arrangement at first blush!

Looking at it a bit, Google is using a different structure than Microsoft did. Microsoft had direct contracts with ICs. Google has contracts with vendors or contracting agencies, and TVCs are employees or contractors with those companies. I realize this seems like a distinction without difference, but in legal terms I suspect it's probably very different.

It's certainly a common arrangement for a company to have a series of teams that they contract out to other companies. I know some people in Sofia who make locally-spectacular wages doing this that they would struggle to access other ways.

As for a "conversation", I'd rather Teh Grauniad had no part of it. You can't have a conversation if you're wearing earplugs and using a megaphone, and that's really their MO.

[pesmhey]

Totally agree, that distinction will be important. Personally, I think it’s a distinction in letter and not in spirit.

Had to look up Teh Grauniad, thanks for the laugh!

[AndrewKemendo]

The problem here is characterizing people as "second class citizens" as a blanket statement based on their work arrangement.

For all you know the subcontractor gives way better work arrangements and benefits than they would get as a Google FTE. It may not be likely in the specific case of Google but it's unknown.

For example, maybe I don't want to move to CA full time and I'd rather have some other benefit that Google doesn't have, like a flexible living or work arrangement. So the contract company has those perks, and I only do the Google contract for 4 months. Why should I prefer Google benefits over that? That's not a second class citizen.

Because Google is required to abide by the same contract law as every other company they have to abide in the same way.

So it's just wrong to characterize it that way and you can't have a different set of laws for Google than you have for every other company.

[HillaryBriss]

You're right -- if the discussion were about a "typical" large corporation.

But this is Google, the company that was not supposed to be typical, wasn't supposed to engage in penny-pinching corporate bean counting, wasn't supposed to reward a perpetrator of sexual harassment -- wasn't supposed to be "evil."

Google is a standard-bearer for the leading edge, prosperous, tech economy. It's the heart of the sector that is supposed to be saving us, creating abundant high-paying jobs for the people. It's the company of glorious benefits, 10% projects and enlightened employees. And California, that bright and shining star of democracy, that leading-edge progressive state, has pinned its hopes for the future (and its tax revenue and employment growth) on the likes of Google. Google is the one corporate monopoly we can all love.

But cracks are appearing. More and more we see that Google is a hell of a lot like a typical corporation. Our hopes for a prosperous enlightened, well-employed, tax-revenue rich future are dashed against the rocks of common corporate reality. And it's ugly.

That's the story here.

[CydeWeys]

> For all you know the subcontractor gives way better work arrangements and benefits than they would get as a Google FTE. It may not be likely in the specific case of Google but it's unknown.

This is pretty much never the case, and certainly isn't the case here. This hypothesis strains credulity.

[pesmhey]

Yeah, I agree with your sentiment. Also, this is absolutely correct in the context of this conversation:

you can't have a different set of laws for Google than you have for every other company.

While I agree with the sentiment, the reality is a bit different. This issue seems to be prompted mostly by contractors who are doing the same work for less pay, basically. Like, sure, in a walkout, you’re going to get a lot of support staff, cleaning staff, etc., but in the day-to-day, it seems like this issue has been made into a big deal because you might have a team of 15 people, where 8 are contractors, doing the same work, and being payed less. This helps the company’s bottom line immensely, where you don’t have to give equity to half of the people doing real work.

Again, I get your sentiment, but I don’t think that it captures the reality of what goes on.

[Latteland]

You don't have to move to cali to work for google, and no one is getting better pay as a contractor at google or probably anywhere else, no one has better benefits. It would be shocking if this was the case.

[AndrewKemendo]

This is exactly right.

I think what we're seeing in tech broadly is that a lot of idealistic people with great intentions are starting to run into the "real world" outputs of business and law without fully groking what is behind it.

All they see is this person is treated different than that person and want to fix an apparent inequity. Thats commendable to some degree and we need that as a voice if there is something that should be changed, but I think better informed, more experienced people should put the brakes on this stuff becoming overblown. Otherwise we risk real concerns being ignored because people see crying Wolf too often.

[lovich]

Is it crying wolf? Treating people as lesser so that you can make more money is generally considered ethically bad, even if its legally ok. The fact that fortune 500 companies, who are already not acting ethically or morally, engage in this activity does not mean that its incorrect for people to want to stop it

[AndrewKemendo]

It's incorrect to characterize this as "treating people as lesser" in a blanket fashion by virtue of their work agreement.

In some cases that might be the sentiment, in others it might not be.

I think the primary disconnect here is that Google's amenities and benefits look lavish when compared to a subcontracted companies, but Google is held to the same rules as other companies with less lavish benefits.

So for example let's say I work for company x and we have normal corporate benefits. If we take a consulting contract with a small company or startup with no employee benefits, our 401k and health care benefits look great in comparison. So I don't care if I don't get a swag bag after a good production push. If the same company contracts with Google, then the 401k and health look paltry in comparison.

So it seems like people want different rules for these major companies, which is not how the law works.

[lovich]

The primary disconnect is that the group of people in this thread who think it is fine, seem to think that the contractors are all software engineers who are in demand enough to have actual good arrangements with their contracting firms, and would pass a smell test for being an actual contractor. It would be difficult to find a problem with this arrangement as both sides are gaining a benefit beyond earning just enough to live

The majority of the contractors at the large tech firms are all the low paid jobs that aren't in software like custodial staff, cafeteria workers, physical security guards, etc. For those contractors, the contracting firm is effectively a legal fiction to say they aren't employees of a company like google even when they go to work their every day, take orders from google management, and they are usually let go by the contracting firm once google stops employing them. The contracting firms get around costs for layoffs by just closing up shop and reopening under a new LLC or other entity.

The fact that these people are being treated as lesser by the rich tech firms, solely for the benefit of rich tech firms, is what is making people upset at this arrangement

[HeyLaughingBoy]

But you are assuming that they are being treated as "lesser" when in my experience, they're simply treated as "not employees."

I was at my last job for over 15 years. For almost all of those 15 years, I saw the same van from a local electrical contractor in the parking lot pretty much every day. The same electrician was on site daily doing one installation or maintenance job or the other.

Now, I would imagine that the same guy was there every day because he knew our systems and the people he was working for/with very well so there was no benefit to us or the contracting company to send out a different electrician every day.

This is pretty much the same situation you describe, but there is no reason for the company to have electricians on staff, so it's contracted out. Likewise, the cafeteria staff, the security and the mailroom/office staff were all employees of Sodexho, Ricoh and some unknown security company.

Hell, even the tiny 6-person company that I started my career with, had an outside person come in twice a week to clean the place. It was a welcome change to the employees to having to do it ourselves. Should we have kept someone on staff simply to keep the office clean? No, that's what contractors are for!

[lovich]

When they work for a single client, everyday, at the client's direction, then they are an employee in fact if not by law. Treating them differently is a way for the real employer to save money and remove risk, its not just paying someone to show up for a few hours to clean when they are also cleaning other clients offices

[eli_gottlieb]

>It's incorrect to characterize this as "treating people as lesser" in a blanket fashion by virtue of their work agreement.

It's really not. The work agreement is precisely what expresses how you are treating people. If the work agreement provides less to the worker, the worker is being treated as lesser.

[closeparen]

Do you treat your plumber the same as your parents-in-law when they visit your home?

Sometimes people decide to become family for life. Sometimes they associate for as long as necessary to complete a transaction. Sometimes something in between.

[tboyd47]

Agreed. Not to mention the fact that companies do this to protect themselves from what happened to Microsoft [0], not out of some evil desire to create an underclass of workers.

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-...

[CPLX]

The concepts of commonplace and outrageous are not exclusive to one another.

[asveikau]

I have worked at such companies too. But I must state: "Everybody does it" doesn't make it not outrageous.

Every F500 company does it because they're cowards who don't want to pay the full cost of labor. Let's not praise cowardly behavior or make excuses for them.

[dgudkov]

>they all have massive contractor workforces (including consultants) that don't have the same benefits as anyone else

I can't tell for many F500 companies, but IT contractors in large Canadian banks in Toronto are typically paid at a significantly higher hourly rate (sometimes 70-100% higher) than equivalent FTEs. It outweighs the lack of FTE benefits up to the point where some FTEs deliberately switch to contracting.

I guess the labor market here has been able to balance demand/supply and pricing.

[eli_gottlieb]

A lot of us don't like "how the broader workforce operates", and since Google is basically a monopolist/oligpolist, they make a fine target.

[mondoshawan]

They're the wrong target, though. If you don't like it, fix the laws!

[miketery]

Fixing laws starts with awareness. This is it, were more aware and discussing as a result.

[gambler]

The article doesn't make you aware of the industry norms around Temps/Contractors, or reasons behind those norms. It just presents a bunch of factoids and insinuates ill intent.

Believe me, I'm not writing this because I like Google or the way IT hiring works right now. I'm writing this because I dislike bad journalism.

Many of the things the article complains about are entirely normal practices if you have contractors/temps. In fact, you can get legally punished if you don't do some of those things. The real question is why there are so many of CVTs (nearly half) at Google.

[jrhurst]

Obviously you got to be quite and not complain and then magically fix the laws. Quitely. Shhh.

[eli_gottlieb]

Because obviously sending polite petitions to change.org is how class struggle works /s.