<story><title>Google under investigation for ‘Thanksgiving Four’ firings, discouraging unions</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/09/google-under-investigation-from-nlrb.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>murph-almighty</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve thought about this a bit. I don&amp;#x27;t think we&amp;#x27;d get much public sympathy from a working conditions standpoint- generally if you&amp;#x27;re working for the right place you can arguably make more money than most of your non-engineer peers (look at a percentile breakdown of your annual income if you don&amp;#x27;t believe me).&lt;p&gt;I think the way a union like this could succeed is by fighting  Big Brother-esque projects and refusing to work on initiatives such as Project Butterfly. Sell it as &amp;quot;we refuse to work on technology that will objectively make you (the layman&amp;#x27;s) life worse&amp;quot;. Once we hit a critical mass we&amp;#x27;d have a much bigger say over what projects do and don&amp;#x27;t get built, and anyone who scabs is arguably on the wrong side of the moral coin or &amp;quot;enabling Big Brother&amp;#x2F;technocratic billionaires&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t to say that tech workers should be the ultimate moral arbiter, but having a non-financially driven check would at least help.</text></item><item><author>mrobot</author><text>We need a tech worker&amp;#x27;s union. And technology around communication and setting up strikes etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>_-o-_</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think that I&amp;#x27;ll ever have any sympathy for workers telling business what projects they are willing to work on. If you don&amp;#x27;t like the kind of work you&amp;#x27;re supposed to be doing - seek employment at different place.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google under investigation for ‘Thanksgiving Four’ firings, discouraging unions</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/09/google-under-investigation-from-nlrb.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>murph-almighty</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve thought about this a bit. I don&amp;#x27;t think we&amp;#x27;d get much public sympathy from a working conditions standpoint- generally if you&amp;#x27;re working for the right place you can arguably make more money than most of your non-engineer peers (look at a percentile breakdown of your annual income if you don&amp;#x27;t believe me).&lt;p&gt;I think the way a union like this could succeed is by fighting  Big Brother-esque projects and refusing to work on initiatives such as Project Butterfly. Sell it as &amp;quot;we refuse to work on technology that will objectively make you (the layman&amp;#x27;s) life worse&amp;quot;. Once we hit a critical mass we&amp;#x27;d have a much bigger say over what projects do and don&amp;#x27;t get built, and anyone who scabs is arguably on the wrong side of the moral coin or &amp;quot;enabling Big Brother&amp;#x2F;technocratic billionaires&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t to say that tech workers should be the ultimate moral arbiter, but having a non-financially driven check would at least help.</text></item><item><author>mrobot</author><text>We need a tech worker&amp;#x27;s union. And technology around communication and setting up strikes etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mindfulgeek</author><text>This. Developers are a very powerful party, but completely unorganized. Everything relies on software and not everyone can build it. We make things that make the world better, but we also make things that make the world a lot worse. If we could group together and have some kind of “do no harm” oath and protections around that, the world would be a better place.</text></comment>