Google Flat-Out Refuses to Bargain With Workers, Prompting YouTube Music Strike
Google Flat-Out Refuses to Bargain With Workers, Prompting YouTube Music Strike
In an email obtained by Motherboard, Google tells YouTube Music workers it will "not be participating in collective bargaining."
A Google spokesperson told Motherboard in a statement at the time of the unionization that it had “no objection to these Cognizant workers electing to form a union,” but that it would not bargain with them. “We are not a joint employer as we simply do not control their employment terms or working conditions—this matter is between the workers and their employer, Cognizant,” the spokesperson said.
NLRB seems to disagree. This will be an interesting case, I suspect ...
So Google, like Amazon, is trying to play the "they work for a subcontractor that only supports us, so it's their fault, not ours" card. I really want to see the NLRB smack this pattern down hard and set an example for all the other companies to try to avoid unionization by way of not directly hiring people.
NLRB changed their criteria for what is considered co-employment last month, widely broadening the definitions used to determine this status. Essentially, if a company has significant control (not just exclusive control) over any of a worker's employment status or conditions, then they are considered a co-employer now. It used to be that a company needed exclusive or overriding control over another company's employees to be considered a co-employer.
I'm certain we are going to see more lawsuits and legal challenges from employees because of this. I'm pretty certain there already are lawsuits from some other Google contractors over this exact thing; they are providing a case that Google is their co-employer due to the control they have over every aspect of their work.
Doesn't appear so, seems Google is okay with them unionizing. According to a ruling from a while back Google is required to bargain with the union just as much as cognizant is but it appears cognizant is the one which is unwilling to bargain with the workers. Google's track record with workers leads me to believe that they have no issue with workers unionizing.
Megacorps can get fucked. Pay your employees well or deal with the consequences.
I want to, but I can't shake off the feeling that Google does have a point here: it's like requiring Amazon to bargain with DHL's drivers. It's kind of not their issue: they pay DHL for their services and DHL commissions their employees to do particular tasks.
Yes, I think that's the reasonable argument Google's lawyers and PR will use - but your example kind of demonstrates why that argument falls flat. The service DHL is providing to Amazon is logistics and shipping. This is an established, well-regulated industry all its own.
Meanwhile, at Google, this contractor's services are listed in the article:
ensuring music content is available and approved for YouTube Music’s 80 million subscribers worldwide
That sounds an awful lot like running the service to me. These employees perform key YouTube-specific work on an ongoing basis. For all intents and purposes, they work for Google, in Google's offices, on Google's systems, but their paycheck comes from Cognizant. The services being rendered aren't on the level of "you make the widget and we'll transport it to stores around the country because we're a shipping company". This is more like "we employ people for you, but provide a flimsy air gap so you don't have to treat them like actual employees. We sell legally plausible deniability as a service."
NLRB contact details If workers provide a service, they should be allowed to bargain collectively to be adequately paid for that service. Full stop.
Google will simply find a different contractor company. Problem solved.
I'm very much pro-union, but meanwhile artists and creators who made that content in the first place are getting fucked by everyone
Artists, techies, and socialists need to come together. To build a platform focused on sustainability ultimately. Devoid of profit for the sake of profit. And more focused on meeting the needs of their members. No overpriced CEO or board of directors. Or layers of redundant management. Once the service costs are covered. Anything after that could be split somewhat proportionally within strict limits.
This is a good thread and good comment to throw this up on:
https://youtu.be/PJSTFzhs1O4?si=3SalhKn7wN6dgUpP
Benn Jordan, perhaps better known as "The Flashbulb" as an EDM artist, has an excellent YouTube channel. This video dives into some details on how we could get artists paid, and stop getting our art jerked around by corporations. For less than we pay to not get free healthcare healthcare, you could have access to all copyright content, ad free, and artists would be better compensated.
It's an idea worth spreading.
Anyone able to chime in on fileshare or w/e the crypto is that gives artists a cut per play? Has been a while since I've heard of it.
The article became increasingly redundant as it continued. The crux seems to be Google isn't their employer. These workers work for a subcontractor, Cognizant. Cognizant performs services for YouTube Music.
Cognizant is refusing to bargain citing the ongoing relevant litigation* between its employees and Google.
- I'm not sure what the legal process is called for union claims.
Some of the employees are striking for 1 day.
It's redundant because there's basically a circular argument that G and C are using to not respond to the workers. Workers want to C negotiate with G on the terms of their work with G but C says they can't because they're just contracting with G. Then G says the workers can't negotiate with G because they work for C. Both companies point the finger at the other as to why they can't help and just give nothing back to the workers.
The article is confusing but it sounds like the union wants both C and G at the table, but C and G both agree that C should be the employer and G doesn't need to join the talks. So C is saying, if you really want G to join, you'll have to wait until the appeals are finished.
I'm guessing the union doesn't want to negotiate with C, have C go to G with the terms and G refuse and just causing endless delays in a game of telephone bargaining.
Seems fairly obvious that they need to negotiate with their direct employer.
One idea of subcontractors is to split and delegate societal responsibility to others to appear to be clean. Surely the law is focused on Cognizant here, but the responsibility lies fully on Google, including their ability to intervene.
What’s to stop every single corporation from leveraging third party contractor companies just to escape union bargaining? Cognizant seems like a company that basically exists for this reason. Both Amazon and Google play this game and it’s infuriating.
Nothing. It’s one of the alluring aspects of using third-parties. You pay a flat fee, people do work. You avoid all the overhead of HR, benefits, workers compensation and unemployment insurance. If you want someone gone there’s no process, you simply tell the third party that Joe doesn’t need to come back to work, ever, and you’re done.
Amazon and Google are not alone in this practice, nor is it exclusive to Fortune 500 companies.
I work as a contractor dev for fortune 500s. It's wide spread. Handful of full timers, padded with contractors.
Brain drain is a real problem, but it also means there's a culture of FTE being willing to jump through corporate hoops and on call hours, because they want to keep the FTE position instead of finding a new job every 1.5 years (in California where there are max contract lengths)
Worst case you pay out what is left on the contract, but since you drove costs down it is cheaper than firing a regular worker!
That's basically the current situation.
Dark Brandon and the NLRB are on that shit. No more malarkey.
Hopefully people turn out in 2024 and stop us going down the 1930s Germany route..... my mother recently moved to Pennsylvania from a deep red state, and was saying that due to Bidens "corruption", she didnt think she would vote in 2024. Upon further questioning, my hyper conservative fundemantalist Christian uncle had been sending her news.
Hope my arguments convinced her otherwise, she detests Trump & the Republicans. Her vote DOES matter now. Have her set up with a variety of news websites & Firefox/ublock origin etc, and not "Townhall" garbage.
This is what I like to see.
This is what laws and regulations are for. If we had a functioning government...
Nothing (yet). Yup, this model insulates corporations of all kinds from bargaining, costs (like healthcare), liability, and much more. Check out this episode from the Pitchfork Economics podcast https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vUFBZNTY2NzY3ODY3NA/episode/M2JmMzVlNGMtMDk2NC0xMWVlLWFjMGUtYzc3Mzc0OTZlODFi?ep=14
Nothing, and they do just that. No labor laws apply to contractors and it's practically the only way some of them can earn a decent wage, so striking is futile - they'll just switch to other contractors.
Well, now you have contract bargaining with your contracting company, and those companies aren't immune from their workers becoming disgruntled and unionizing.
People use YouTube Music?
I'll use it as long as they keep it bundled with YouTube Premium. The day they unbundle I'm out.
Yeah, if you do a fair amount of YouTube and want to support the creators without queuing up a bunch of ads it's a pretty good deal.
$10 a month to have basically every song ever and never have to worry about YouTube ads. Yes, I use it.
hah, this was me with Grooveshark.
and then I lost everything when it shut down.
and then me again with Google play music. "upload your music, we'll keep it for you"
and then I lost everything when it shut down.
"oh it's ok, you can just use [new service], it's better anyway"
it just isn't the same, you lose stuff everytime. I don't think it's worth it.
Right? It's awesome.
I also get to Download videos for my flights or commute. I'm also in a big house. Family plan for 5 of us is ridiculous value to me.
Your mileage may vary coming up in December. The $10 crew in the US will see a 40% increase at or near the end of the year. Grandfathering is going away.
This brings the cost of Google's video/music service to match Amazon's video/music service. Are those services of the same quality?
Soundcloud ($10) Is the real competitor to YT-Music in my book. Both benefit from user-generated and user-uploaded content. While there is crossover, I have found more tracks on Soundcloud that aren't on YT than the other way around.
YouTube Music is a much better option than Spotify, in my opinion.
On top of the music you get ad-free YouTube.
I also upload any music I buy via Bandcamp or physical CD so I can listen to it anywhere. No one else offers that as far as I know.
Just make sure you use the unofficial YouTube Music desktop app (http://ytmdesktop.app/) if you're on a PC because using it in a browser sucks.
6 family members for $15 a month and no YouTube ads. Also that money was basically paid for by Google Rewards. The Web App is good too. I don't have to deal with CEF/Electron or any install really.
For me, every other music app is missing alot of the songs I want to listen to (Cover songs, and remixes are the big 2) and they are only available on yt music.
Same + foreign artists. Lots of J-Rock artists that are hard to find on Western music services, let alone other countries. Only stuff like K-Pop I can find consistently on Western music services just because of how in demand it is.
Soundcloud might be an alternative worth looking into. For the music I tend to search for, I find I'm more likely to find it on Soundcloud, and it can take years to migrate from SC to YTM.
While YTM and SC were both $10, putting up with the worse platform was a reasonable price for no YT ads. Now that the grandfathering is ending and the price is jumping to $14, for US folks, I'm feeling the pressure to migrate.
Yes, and it's great!
Totally. I was already in the ecosystem so it was only natural I go to Music when it was available. Is it better than Spotify? Shrug. Just different.
Spotify has invested significant $$ in upgrading their platform.
YTM lets you access user-uploaded content. With that comes more in the way of remixes and Indy artists. The platform itself is pretty dogshit, though.
YouTube Premium is so cheap, man. ₱159 (close to $3) per month. I gave up and exported my Spotify data for YouTube.
Yeah, I just don't pay for it lmao. Apps like InnerTune are great, rips them as mp3s and can use YouTube music radio system and lyrics.
I do because I pay next to nothing for a family membership, I can access YouTube covers and music normally unaccessible in my region (yeah, that happens!) and it works with Android Auto which my father needs (otherwise I would simply use Revanced). Also could never learn Spotify, it's so counter-intuitive to me
Revanced, yeah. Still sucks when you're looking for an album and all of the songs are from the official channel except for one that some schlub uploaded which repeats the previous track as an intro, has the levels maxed across all channels and sounds like it was recorded with a USB lapel mic in a paper bag
A lot of FOSS music streaming apps (like ViMusic) use YT Music because you can access it for free. Doesn't make them any tho.
I mean, ReVanced, but yes. No way I'd pay for that shit.
Yeah it's pretty good
Ever since Google destroyed Google Music i switched to Spotifly because at the time YouTube music couldn't tell the difference between memes and music plus alot of my playlist was unavailable
YouTube Music is the enshitttified version of Google Play Music.
YTM: you have a vague hint of network reception, just wait for me to fail loading what I want to load before I consider letting you play your downloaded music.
Which was an enshittified version of Songza. Google lost me for music a loooong time ago.
God I loved Sonza. The best place I ever found to discover new music. RIP Songza
Could you explain why you don't like it?
I actually love the fact that all of the underground, unknown, not officially published music I've liked on YouTube is there with all my other music, including the stuff I've uploaded myself.
Put a large collection of albums into your "Library".
Now try to pull up a list of a single artist's albums within your Library.
The "Library" management is so remedial that it's basically a joke. It can't measure up to iTunes from 20 years ago. It's completely unusable for a serious music collection.
It may be fine for people that just listen to singles and playlists, but every other music service can do that too, while also offering complete functionality elsewhere.
YouTube Music is a half-baked, half-complete product. It's inexplicable that it exists when they literally just needed to do nothing but rebrand Google Play Music.
Is there a self-hosted alternative? Would love to do that.
Subsonic-based alternatives are good too. Navidrome and gonic, for instance.
Subsonic and airsonic work. They're not "pretty" but they do the job and have decent mobile apps.
/c/unions is worth subbing to.
What instance it on? I found two. So, for others,
(for kbin users)
(if it's on a different instance, I'll edit this comment.)
Time to stop using Gmail and YouTube. I had already avoided go░gle search for months now.
Over the last three or four months I had deleted all my FaceBook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram accounts. And this made me want to avoid go░gle search.
DuckDuckGo is fine for some things, but if you want to do a search with a specific phrase in quotes, it doesn't recognize it. I hate having to go back to Google for some searches, but sometimes it's just better. I wish it wasn't, but it is.
DuckDuckGo's image search also leaves a lot to be desired.
I use duckduckgo but just throw in the google bang if I need specific functionality. Usually DDG is fine for me usually but it's convenient to be able to switch quickly.
Start your own email server!! Download all of your favorite channels! Sub to your fav youtubers patreons! If you need music, use Spotify until you amass a collection of digital/physical music! Use FireFox! Google does not need to have any grip on our digital lifestyles.
Here's some alternative recommendations: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/
A Cognizant spokesperson told Motherboard in an email, “We have received the Alphabet Workers Union’s request for a Cognizant bargaining representative. The request put forward was for both Cognizant and Google to bargain. While we respect our associates’ rights to unionize, we firmly believe Cognizant is the sole employer of our associates. While the joint employer ruling remains unresolved, we cannot bargain at this time.”
“Google refuses to just admit that they are our employer, and then Cognizant is just using Google's legal appeals as a scapegoat,” Marschner said. “That, honestly, is exactly why we filed for joint employer status in the first place. We knew that if we just tried to engage in collective bargaining with Cognizant, that's exactly what they would do.”
wut
Google has a shell company, Cognizant, that hires and subcontracts people to Google. When the workers unionize, they're unionizing against cognizant, not Google. The workers are trying to say otherwise, will more than likely need a court case to sort it out.
This isn't right. Cognizant are a well known systems integrator. In Australia alone recently they bought out some of the best local SIs just to get presence - contino and Servian, with a rumoured third (versent) on the way..
Theyre a body shop looking to grow their born in the cloud generstion of engineers.
Everybody's striking! LFG!
Google:
Don't be evil.PROFIT UBER ALLES!!!I get the technicality of all this, but this could be a watershed moment. Businesses like to contract people out to move liability and cut corners in their obligations to the workers. The bottom line is that its cheaper and easier to fire whatever contractors you don't like for any reason, and artificially push their salaries/wages down.
Look at Fedex Ground, Amazon drivers, etc. Google is now firmly in the role of the bad guy here, with Sundar Pichai making 220+ million dollars with much of it on the backs of layoffs and ethnically bankrupt business practices. I honestly think the ramifications of this in a positive way for the workers is tantamount to the formation of the UAW itself with their sitting strikes. They sat at the machines and forcibly halted production.
That needs to happen here, and all you scabs, fuck you. You can just piss off.
I just want to see more strikes. 🙂
I can't believe I'm saying it but but I'm with Google here. They are sub-cons so negotiation would surely go through their employer who is cognizant. I'm a sub-contractor, I'm not gonna go to the client and ask for a raise, I'm gonna go to my employer. Maybe it's different in different regions but if I asked the client for a raise in the uk they would probably just laugh at me.
According to the union, Cognizant has also refused to bargain, citing Google’s appeals as the reason for its delay.
Outsourcing in Europe is heavily scrutinised and regulated due to companies kept choosing to depend on third party agencies do they don't have to do with strikes and unions.
Yeah thinking about it more, you're definitely right. I've only ever been a W-2 employee (United States) so I know nothing about this kind of thing. If they are employees of another company, they should bargain with them instead, and force them (via strike if required) to negotiate a new contract with Google. I'm very pro worker and support striking to get results but you have to make sure you're targeting the right business to get the results you want.
You missed the plot. They found a loophole and are probably conspiring to halt the Union. One company says they have to wait for the other to negotiate, the other company says they won't negotiate because they are not their employees. The whole process enters into a permanent delay, workers get fucked by both companies for months. This is a tale as old as unions have existed. It's one of the reasons why in most sane countries, unrestricted outsourcing is not allowed and outsourcing in general is heavily regulated. It's one of the most common tools companies use to abuse workers and avoid responsibilities.
You are 100% correct, so it is especially funny seeing that almost 1/4 of the people downvoted you for no good reason. Holy fuck this site has a huge percentage of utterly clueless Lemmings.
could they put bring the dislike count back on the demands? and make so video posters can't delete comments, so we can call bullshit when needed? that would be nice
No they have bigger priorities, like retroactively demonitizing and removing videos that used to be just fine under the new ruse of "making everything more kid friendly" when we all know it's to make it more advertiser friendly
If only there were an app... suited for kids that google could use... One that would give them the limitations and safety they want from people and not ruin the whole site while still chasing those kid viewers.
If only such a thing existed.
make so video posters can’t delete comments
That would be a complete trainwreck. There are already loads of spam accounts but it would be so much worse if creators couldn't filter them out.
As somebody who's been boycotting big media for years, I can't be happier to see the copyright industry slowly backstabbing itself once and over again
Yea, no...the headline is wrong on this one. These guys are contractors. Google will just nuke Cognizant's contract and call it a day.
Those guys aren't particularly good in my experience and are just warm bodies to do things that should be automated anyway.
Google will simply go to another big contract firm and call it a day.
The NLRB ruled that the nature of their work makes them employees of both Cognizant and Google, despite whatever those companies try to classify them as, and that both are required to negotiate with the union. Google is now just flat-out refusing to respect that decision.
That's cool n all...but what happens when Google drops the contract?
I was a "contractor" for JnJ. Which ok, is a different company but it's the same premise. The reason they contract the work out is so they can avoid giving benefits and cut costs for an essential job. All so when something like this happens they can just pass the buck off to the contracting company saying it's not their responsibility for the working conditions they set.