Google’s CEO faces employee questions about layoffs — “Why has there been such an extraordinary effort to limit the internal visibility of layoffs announcements?”::During a recent TGIF all-hands meeting, Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed what sources describe as a growing morale crisis inside the company.
I’ve been in a tech career for approaching thirty years now mostly with larger tech and financial companies. For my parent’s and grandparents generation, you could reasonably expect lifetime employment at the same company. Work well and you’ll be treated well.
This started to change when I began working in the 90s and especially after the 2001 and 2008 recessions. And it’s gotten much worse since then.
Companies don’t want to treat all employees well anymore, just their top talent that they want to retain. Who cares what the rest think because they’re transient anyway and won’t be around for more than a few years. Build around your top people and view the others as interchangeable parts.
Don’t bother investing in the rest of your employees. Just hire when needed, fire those you don’t like, those who aren’t a good fit, and those who are too old. Firing is one of their top tools if they want a quick cost reduction to boost their stock price.
Maintaining the upper hand of the employee/employer power dynamic is much more desirable than properly treating the people who work for you. If the employees don’t like it, they know where the door is. They’re replaceable anyway. That’s why employees have lost the RTO battles.
As an older worker, I despise how cutthroat the corporate world is now. I feel like I’m about to be tossed out with the trash.
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Each and every one of us deserves a union.
linearchaos@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Each and every one of us deserves to work for a company that cares enough about its employees that they don’t need a union.
That failing, we need protection from the companies we work for and the only viable opportunity at this point are in fact unions.
erwan@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
That’s not how relations between employers and employees work.
It’s like saying you don’t need a democracy if the king cares enough about his subjects.
It might work for a time, but the power balance is such that you can’t rely on the goodwill of leaders alone.
Zink@programming.dev 3 months ago
Of course we all deserve that kind of employer! Unfortunately, the entire problem is that employers aren’t generally like that.
It’s like saying we shouldn’t need laws against murder if people would just stop the killing, or we shouldn’t have XYZ problems with youth if only the parents would do a good job, etc.
frezik@midwest.social 3 months ago
We should not base our decisions on the fact that a few companies are generous enough to treat their employees well. Those are exceptions, and will always be exceptions. Capitalism doesn’t reward you for doing it beyond some good PR.
Sometimes, those companies aren’t even as generous as it first appears, anyway.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 3 months ago
No thanks.
I’ve been a member of 3. They made for adversarial relationships between management and employees, with union leadership banking our fees. They cause other problems, like you can’t fire the slacker, so people abuse it, pushing the load onto us conscientious workers.
There are places for them, they aren’t good for tech.
chakan2@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Your relationship with management is always adversarial. They might put sugar and spice on it so you don’t see it, but they are not your friend.
You sound like you’ve never been laid off.
Son_of_dad@lemmy.world 3 months ago
This reads like a note from a Stockholm syndrome survivor
LeroyJenkins@lemmy.world 3 months ago
your unions are ass then if you see them that way. but you also don’t bring up any of the useful things unions probably did for you behind the scenes. provide legal protection? contract negotiations? COLLECTIVE BARGAINING? hello?
frankspurplewings@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Unions only work when union leadership is actually working for the betterment of the entire unit, rather than personal clout. I was in a union that ran well, protected employees, and had a great working relationship with management. Issues were handled efficiently and effectively with the contract in place. Then union leadership changed because a retiree rallied to become president, and the effective president stopped trying so hard because of it. So leadership changed and that union went downhill. Current leadership handles issues so poorly, nothing gets resolved and raises are not going to be as high as they could have been negotiated too. The current leadership values the provided lunches at the negotiation meetings over discussion of the actual topics, and working together to come to an agreement for everyone.
Another union I was a part of prior to that was for a big box wholesale store. I was sexually harassed in front of customers by another union member. The meetings were facilitated by management and the union. Management had my side on the issue, but the union advocated for the harasser due to years of service and seniority. They couldn’t even guarantee I wouldn’t work with him again. I eventually left that job, for multiple reasons, but a big one was that experience really broke me. I never felt comfortable working around that person and knowing that my voice would always be lesser compared to anyone who had just worked there longer.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 3 months ago
You’ll burn for this comment here.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
I’m in a union for my day job.
It’s big. It’s steeped in processes and safety checks, but it makes fewer mistakes and quietly wins.
Would recommend a union every day.