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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.
That’s excellent news, especially for the employees of Amazon subcontractors handling warehouse and delivery operations.
Megacorps can get fucked. Pay your employees well or deal with the consequences.
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.
I’m on board with this idea, but I’m not sure where to start.
A lot of the basic pieces are in place. Torrenting/peer tube for distribution. Modern day royalty free codecs. Realistically the two biggest hurdles are how to monetize responsibly, and bringing people in. It’s something that in one shape or form will always require some small donation of time and resources. And it’s easier to convince someone to join a Ponzi scheme telling them you will make them wealthy. Than it is to get someone to join guaranteeing that you’ll never make them wealthy but you will try to make them secure in their lives.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Web site says $24 for 5 members. Is it different per location? How do you pay less?
Yeah, sorry that was bumped up recently though I was grandfathered for a long while. But that was the impetus for getting it back when it was just GPM.
It’s 6 actually (1+ 5 other members). My uncle basically paid for half of it.
It’s $22.99 for me now which includes YouTube Premium. Just YouTube Music (for 6) is $16.99. Individual $10.99 and Student $5.49.
I don’t use YouTube Music but I love using YouTube for my music. Tons of songs on there that just aren’t on either YouTube music or other services like Spotify.
You can listen to just the music that’s on YouTube via YouTube music. That’s one of the main reasons why I’m using YouTube music.
Yeah. You can search for and add any YouTube video to a playlist for YMusic. I do this all the time with various Indies, remixes, and foreign artists that are hard to find otherwise.
Yeah, I switced to YouTube music when Google Play music went away because that’s where I stored all of my music at. But The category is massive, especially for niche songs and you can choose to watch the video or just listen to the song, Also with a lot of the songs you can look at the lyrics in real time while the music’s playing and that’s kind of nice. Also ad free YT is nice.
Did they change it? The last time I tried it said a bunch of my songs weren’t available on YouTube music and I couldn’t use it cause of that.
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.
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.
Yes, and it’s great!
Only because I get both YT Premium and YT Music for cheap ($4/month).
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Same. India?
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Which region did you sign up in?
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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
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.
YouTube Premium is so cheap, man. ₱159 (close to $3) per month. I gave up and exported my Spotify data for YouTube.
I mean, ReVanced, but yes. No way I’d pay for that shit.
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.
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
Yeah it’s pretty good
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.
Is there a self-hosted alternative? Would love to do that.
Subsonic and airsonic work. They’re not “pretty” but they do the job and have decent mobile apps.
/c/unions is worth subbing to.
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.
If you need Google search results but don’t want to use google try SearXng or Startpage
If you’re getting Google results, you’re using Google lol
Not exactly. It’s a privacy respecting front end so your data isn’t being sent to Google
You don’t need to do the quote thing in DDG. You can literally just search the quote, and maybe the domain it was hosted on. You will find what you’re looking for. DDG even has business profile widgets like google search does. I don’t even miss google search at all.
I don’t think you understand what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a search phrase that is partially in quotes for an exact match and partially not for an inexact match. Google handles that, DDG does not.
Just curious what’s wrong with saying Google?
You must be new to Lemmy. Grab a tinfoil hat from the box by the door.
Funny how the term “tinfoil” persists even though it hasn’t been used in over 70 years.
Easier to say than “aluminium”
“Aluminum” at least has 1 less syllable. But I usually just say “foil.” What else would I be talking about in that context?
“Aluminum” at least has 1 less syllable. But I usually just say “foil.” What else would I be talking about in that context?
a·lu·mi·num
tin·foil
(Sorry for the ‘ackshully’, but couldn’t resist.)
ACKSHULLY, I was referring to “aluminum” as opposed to “aluminium.”
One less than aluminium
Nooo. Those might be tampered. They could be bugged. Or they could have holes in them. Or the tin might be fake. Make your own.
Not special enough
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/
Everybody’s striking! LFG!
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
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I just want to see more strikes. 🙂
Google:
Don’t be evil.PROFIT UBER ALLES!!!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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
