Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Who reports about the vote to unionize at HCL/Google in Pittsburgh?

I find it interesting to see who reports about it and who does not.
Googling (thank you Google) shows the following pieces (incomplete as I don't have unlimited time to devote to the search)
The USW press release
in Wired, by Paris Martineau
in Bloomberg News, by Mark Bergen and Josh Eidelson
Shirrin Ghaffary in Vox/Recode
Sarah Todd, for Quartz at Work where I also ddiscovered how Kickstarter is firing organizers, in this article on Slate by April Glaser.
Colin Lecher in The Verge
Pittsburgh NPR station, before the vote, by Kathleen Davis.
In the Washington Post,article by Greg Bensinger and Nitasha Tiku (one worker is quoted as saying "For him, the biggest concern was paid time off', although "Google, in April, said it would require contractor firms it works with to offer paid sick and parental leave, as well as improved health care and minimum pay of $15 per hour." But how soon should that be implemented and what were the minimal requirements, how many days etc. 
Very detailed article by Brian Conway for VICE/Motherboard section: he notes that "Martin Luther King Day and Presidents Day are paid holidays for Google workers, but not HCL contractors. As a result, several HCL contractors said they must use personal days on those holidays, as they aren’t allowed in the office without Google employees present." We faced exactly the same discrimination at Lionbridge/Microsoft. Brian also mentions that "Several contractors said they are prohibited from discussing their salaries with each other": we had the same issue with Lionbridge but few people seem to know such a prohibition is illegal. They had to change their policy after the NLRB found out while investigating one of our charges.

No comments:

Post a Comment