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by lovich
2741 days ago
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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 |
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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!