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by SpicyLemonZest 2020 days ago
As a manager, Gebru wouldn't have been allowed into a union.
1 comments

Is she really a manager? In factories the foreman was considered part of the Union rank and file. PMs and other developer leadership could be integrated into a union.

Basically if you can be promoted up into a position it can be a union job. If you need a business degree to do it though then it’s non union.

I don't know exactly what her job responsibilities were, but it's not the case as a rule that any position you can be promoted to is a union job. Anyone who has independent authority to "hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action" is by law a supervisor, and they can't join an NLRA-protected union because supervisors aren't protected by the NLRA. As far as I know, all Google managers have the power to assign, reward, and discipline their reports.
If they can only do it for specific purposes and their actions are reviewed then it’s possible they could gain union memberships.

For example foremen hire, train, supervise and evaluate workers. Yet they have a union.

I can’t say for certain if it’s a protected union but it is a large and existent one in the US.

> Is she really a manager?

Yes.

> In factories the foreman was considered part of the Union rank and file.

She's not a foreman.

> Basically if you can be promoted up into a position it can be a union job.

That's not how the NLRA works; in plenty of workplaces people can, even if they rarely do, promote without limit and most management positions don't require business degrees, but that doesn't make all those positions NLRA-protected.