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YouTube Music team laid off by Google while workers testified to Austin City Council about working conditions (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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YouTube Music team laid off by Google while workers testified to Austin City Council about working conditions::Some workers learned of the YouTube Music layoffs while testifying to the Austin city council about Google's refusal to negotiate with the union.

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[–] 17 points 2 years ago (25 children)

I mean, if you're a contractor and they haven't discussed extending more than a month ahead of time, expect your contract to end on its end date. That's just common sense.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (21 children)

    You assume the cognizant employees are privy to the contract terms.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (19 children)

    I would never sign a contract without knowing the details.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    Cognizant employees don’t sign a contract. They are W2 employees, who are “contracted out” to other companies. The contract is between Cognizant and the third party. The employee literally never sees it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (4 children)

    That's not true. When they sign to work with a client, they're given an initial end date. Worked with many of them throughout the years.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    I assure you, they are not. Unless it’s a one off project and not an ongoing project like YouTube music would be.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    And I assure you they are. We had dozens of contractors that were doing ongoing work, not project based. They were all given a contract with terms to sign that outlined the timeline. Sometimes they were extended, other times not.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I’ve worked for Cognizant. What you are describing is not the norm. Cognizant signs the contracts, the employees do not.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    Further, whenever employees ask about shitty details of their work environment Cognizant says “Oh, Google wants us to do that” but then whenever Google gets any pressure they just say “Oh, that is Cognizant’s choice to do with their contractors”.

    The whole system is specifically designed to crush tech workers under a boot and it is honestly kind of pathetic the tactic Google and Cognizant use is the same one parents use when they say “I don’t know, go ask your mother” and then mom tells you “I don’t know, go ask your father”.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They have a contract with their employer, though. The problem here is not contracting, it's this stupid at-will employment that allows this to happen

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    They are W2 employees. They have a contract insofar as any other W2 employer.

    Unless you mean the employer and the third party, in this case Google, which I absolutely agree with.

    And yeah, the at-will bs gets quite tiresome. People assume they are “safe” because they aren’t contracted, but when you’re contracted you can tie in early term fees and such, and you can still be fired at the drop of a hat.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Easy to say that if there is food already on your table.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    I can't believe it's controversial to say you should read a contract before you sign it.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    When most contracts are full of legalise, hundreds of pages long, and are required to be signed off on as quickly as possible so that you can get the job you may have already quit your previous one for, reading and understanding every word isn't always possible.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I've never seen an employment contact that complex and I've worked tons of contact gigs over my career, and been the hiring senior engineer on multiple others. They are not like that at all.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    The important part here is your signally that you do not side with workers. You are a class traitor. How you justify it does not matter.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Lol ok Hun. You tell me that when you need to pay bills and it's the only offer on the table, idiot.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I've worked at two employers who used the contractor loophole. At the first one, the length of the contract and extensions were never mentioned to me ever. The second one constantly played games with extension. At one point I was set to have my final week of employment, only for them to extend it over the weekend.

    I've been in the contractor shoes for way longer than I should have (which is zero), So as a hardfast rule, "expect your contract to end on its end date" simply doesn't hold up. Corps like to play games with it, and leave employees out of the loop.

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