Evil YouTube Music Situation 

Laying people off while they’re attempting to unionize should be a federal crime punishable by a multi-billion dollar fine.

Google having a real hard time with the whole "Don't be evil" thing

Man that opening clip was fucking devastating damn

I worked for RU-vid TV for 4 months on the same floor as this team. Because this team was unionizing, our department was cut and dismantled. No evidence of my team unionizing and they still cut our department. I support this group of individuals wholeheartedly and everything they have done.

people love to clown anthony but there is nobody with this pull in the music industry who is willing to take these convos regularly and just fight for workers rights it’s so fucking cool

A multi billion dollar company trying to bust unions??? 😮😮

I am a youtube premium/ music user and after hearing this I'm going to cancel my subscription.

IT workers are seen as privileged in the global north but being from India I can tell you the Cognizant/Infosys/Wipro/TCS are barely skirting the definition of slavery towards their employees. The sooner IT folks realize, the better. UNIONIZE!!!!

Requiring industry experience as well as a degree to be contracted out to Google only to make fucking $19/hr is absolutely insane

These guys have been killing it. YT Music has improved drastically in the past year. And instead of rewarding their hard efforts, the multi-billion dollar monopolist corporation fires them in defiance of the government. I think it's past time for some good ol' fashion trust-busting.

Actually just an attempt to publicly humiliate someone. Pure callousness.

It’s so confusing to me the way people just believe and trust companies over workers. In a news story about this situations comment section has so many people that are like making fun of them or making a thousand excuses for the firing.

I quit Cognizant in 2019. My client was 3M. They gave me $19/hr for maintaining like 20 legacy applications. I confided in one of my offshore counterparts in India, and he told me he makes the equivalent of $6,000/year out of Chennai and he was better at it than I was. Cognizant's entire business model is arbitrage the cost of labor in India. If the Indian workers unionized, whoo boy.

literally every music streaming service is shady nowadays, it’s time we all go back to SoundCloud

As a software engineer that has dealt with the "contractor" BS before: It sounds crazy, but contractors do literally everything a FTE does but they have less rights as a worker. That is the difference: It is a slightly crappier job. For example at Nike, you go into the office, you go to all of the meetings, you get all of the same assignments. It is the same job. The big difference is you can't use the gym. They do this because they HAVE to have differentiation or else they are just FTEs. It is illegal but who is going to devote years of their life to fight a petty lawsuit with Google? Very few people.

I just googled "youtube music" and the "news" filter doesn't appear. That's... wow.

Hearing that woman approach that man to say that they had all been laid off literally made me pause the video in pure shock. Very few things have ever made me stop while watching a RU-vid video. I’m utterly shocked and disgusted by this.

Cancelled my youtube subscription. Also sent a strongly worded email to google. Its not much but 🤷🏾‍♂️

This doesn't surprise me at all. YTM is a half-baked attempt to get a slice of the Music Streaming pie, and they clearly did not get the support to actually get this going as a full plan. Yet another Fuck Google point tbh. This is disgusting.

It says a lot about corporations that they feel so threatened by unionization. And further it makes it clear that we should definitely ALL unionize. The corps have way too much power and the only way as Americans to get what’s owed to labor, is by creating a Union. Please support labor in our country by supporting Unions! Also thankyou Mr. Fantano for giving these guys a larger and louder voice, you’re a true patriot my friend. ❤

My band's drummer just left that team in February and recounted all the union busting tactics employed by Cognizant to demoralize the RU-vid Music team. This is close to home as most members of my band, including myself, my partner, and many friends were in the same industry working as contractors to tech giants. The disparity between us and full time Facebook or Google employees was always disgusting. A lot of the RU-vid Music analysts make up the Austin music scene. I recommend supporting them by listening to their music: Redbud Kind Keith Lady Chops and the Goddamn Jam Secret Siren

entertainment as a whole is in a shitty state from the game industry to film to music

this is super important and im glad youre bringing this to the attention of a wider audience. the sweater scares me, but the message is what matters.

Love to see a platform like yours being used to spread how big business is destroying us. Would love to see more pieces like this. Thank you.

Wait... I just got to the part where he shared his salary. $19/hr????? Seriously? That's only a few dollars more than a good restaurant job. I don't care if it's not coding they deserve way much more than that.

A few comments I have from this video: 1. Google hires companies OUTSIDE of CA to do this because CA would never let this fly. CA has something called the ABC rule and if a contractor does not meet all 3 requirements they are an employee. From the conversation today I see MULTIPLE reasons why if they were in CA they would all be getting unemployment and Google would be at odds with the CA Department of Labor. 2. HUGE RED FLAG: - They both indicated that GOOGLE CONTROLS the workflow, audits, how its done, etc. - A contractor in the true form controls their own schedule, when and how the work gets done. Does NOT appear this is happening. 3. TX is employer friendly and does NOT mandate any benefits for team members. CA requires sick time, vacation time, paid medical leave etc.... So again another reason Google goes outside of CA to enlist the help of other state companies to get their "contractors/subcontractors". They are doing this to SKIRT THE REQUIREMENTS in CA (why? BIG BANK) 4. Now that the NLRB has ruled that they are SHARED EMPLOYEES, go to the Department of Labor and file unemployment claims and site the NLRB ruling. Demand unemployment as a shared employee! 5. Call the US Department of Labor and advise again of the NLRB ruling and ask them about launching an investigation into Google's practices for all employees in all states as I'm pretty sure they probably have some other teams hired by other companies in other states where team members are getting screwed over by the big companies like Google. Would be fun to see Google be made of an example of "What not to do to your contractors/subcontractors or "employees". Maybe they can be FORCED to do the right thing since they clearly have no intention or interest in doing the right thing.

This is straight up class warfare. I hate it

Thank you for bringing the team on to speak on this issue

As someone who works under one, fucking hate indefinitely renewed contracts. It basically a loophole that allows them to lay me off no reason needed, no matter how long I've been working there. which is illegal for a normal employee in the UK.

Damn every music streaming service is evil. Time to go to band camp I guess. Edit: was not aware of the band camp situation 💀

I just want to point out that its not just Tech where subcontractors get screwed. I used to work full time doing courier work as a subcontractor and they are just as evil. When it's convenient to them, they treat us like employees. When its inconvenient to them, we're subcontractors, and we don't actually work for them. Eventually I got tired of their shit and got a full time job in IT. Now I only work for the courier douchebags every other weekend. Once I made it clear to them that they were no longer my priority, they gave my route to someone else and cut the pay for that route by 1/3.

starbucks workers united member here! holy shit, that is probably the most disgusting way i’ve ever seen a corporation act in lieu of workers unionizing. i hope google and alphabet are held accountable for their actions and they get their contract. union strong, yall!

My job also offers no paid sick leave. Unless you use PTO, it’s actually a point against you. And if you rack up X amount of points, you’re fired. Guess you can’t be sick anymore.

A lot of companies do that with their IT and have been doing it for years. I had a contact position at 3M that was renewed yearly that lasted NINE years. No health care. No benefits. This needs to change.

Probably one of the stupidest things I've seen happen. They stood up in public to badmouth their contractor. What did they think would happen? They worked for an outsise agency and Google couldn't be bothered with the hassle so terminated their agreement with Cognisant. 1000's of agencies out there to fill the void. Well done, you played yourselves. 😂😂😂

Unionize everything ✊️

I can't believe you're covering this, I was watching as it happened, and this team got screwed so bad. RU-vid/Google (whomever also reached out to the city) just straight up fired them when they spoke out about an unfair situation, then during the process tried to get them arrested and humiliate them. RU-vid(of course) just doesn't wasn't everyone to find out how unfathomably greedy they are, but it's pretty obvious. We don't have many other routes to try an host/direct traffic somewhere else though.

Is this why I'm seeing the same few songs and the shorts created with them crammed into my algorithm every other video or so? Not even subtle anymore

I used to work a data analyst job for a major telecom company in Canada and it was the exact same situation as this - endless work that was annually subcontracted through a third party to keep labour costs low and to deter people from joining the union. I absolutely feel the frustration. Solidarity!! ✊

Firing an entire group in the middle of a town hall is just about the stupidest thing Google could have done 😭 evil bastards

You sound like the disappointed substitute teacher that in all his years of teaching has not seen something this horrific, and you're goddamn right

How hard is it to just give the workers who actually do the legwork just a slice of the gargantuan profits these companies make?! It’s mind-boggling. People are just asking to survive. Thanks for shining a light on this, @fantano

Not to defend the tech giant, but frankly this just seems like a bad idea to me. They were working for Cognizant, which had a contract with Google with a known termination date/clause. They attempted to unionize against Google, why Google and not Cognizant I don't know, under that kind of contract, which they knew has to be renewed, and working on a product pretty low on Google's list of priorities. They have zero bargaining power, when it comes to the work they did on the platform, I'm not saying this to demean their work, but people seem to think they were developers/worked on the tech side of things, but it sounds like data entry/content moderation, which is important work, but if you'd told me that's 19/hour, I'd say yeah sounds about right. I just need to make this clear, I am 100% pro-union and workers rights, I give zero shits about Google. I empathize with people losing their income, but this is bizarre, it feels like they just shot themselves in the foot by trying to unionize in a situation where it makes 0 sense to. I don't even understand why they would be asking.. Austin City Council?? to do something about it, they have no power nor interest in this situation. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm all for big companies getting fucked and people getting paid, but I don't get this, dunno what they expected to happen. I already know people are going to call me out for defending Google, but hear what I'm saying, I like unions a lot, love seeing it happen at big companies, but this specific one doesn't make sense to me.

Ugh, this is so heartbreaking. I dropped Spotify for YT Music because of all the mistreatment of the artists. I'm not naive to think YT was stain free, but I thought it would be better than continuing to perpetuate Spotify's near monopoly. It can be a copout, but this feels like like a good time to say that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

Cancelling my subscription right now

I literally thought that intro clip was a skit bc that's so insane

Thank you for covering this and getting the workers' voices on here

Everyone remember that, alongside supporting the workers being laid off and unionize, pirating will always be morally correct, and finding other ways to disable ways for youtube and other platforms from getting ad revenue is the correct decision. Companies are not your friends

Snazzy sweater, bud.

that clip physically hurt to watch. I hope they end up successfully building a union, if possible.

Ugh I've been one of those "big tech contract workers" before and they're absolutely right, this is way more common than people might realize & it sucks. Hugely successful tech companies using "contract work" as an excuse to pay people far less than they deserve. Good for the YT Music workers for fighting the good fight, they have my full support. And thank you for making an informative video about this to help them set the record straight on this "but they were contract workers" thing!

I also work as a contractor on a google project. Its wild how quickly big cuts come to our team when certain workers start getting bent outta shape over management or benefits. We also are pit against another team across the country from us regularly despite the fact they are actual googlers making over twice our salary and have much better facilities than us. Yet we frequently out perform them even while blatantly being sabotaged. Its a shit show

That opening clip at that committee meeting was horrendous. Companies continue to company, but holy shit. Also unfortunate given I switched over from Spotify to YT Music last year. Glad there was a way to donate to help these folks out. Wish them the best however they choose to move forward.

This is illegal. By that I mean Google will have to pay a nominal fine for this

finally, after being a super late adopter to music streaming, i decided that going with YTM was the most natural. im on youtube all day and YTM was a nearly flawless extension of that. ive tuned my algorithm to the point where ytm is showing me new music that i love almost every time. its sad to see these clearly passionate and talented people's efforts change lives like mine for the better, only to have a company bulldoze the whole thing.........................

It sounds so far that the courts have been in their favor. Not sure what a good result here is since they don't have a job to negotiate for. Hope to best to them!

Billion dollar corporations and Exploiting contractors to the bleeding edge of what’s legal. You can’t name a tighter duo

They need to file a ULP! The NLRA should protect them from retaliation for organizing. The NLRB decision that Google was also their employer would ensure the act is applicable to them

Me: "Hm I wonder what flannel melon is qearing today" Fantano: 👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️

They were working for an outside agency. There are thousands of agencies out there who's employees would love to be paid $20 an hour. Google did not want to handle a messy situation with their contractor so terminated their contract. Google has every right to offer contracts to any companies they like. They have a right to terminate those same contracts if there are any breaches.

thanks for covering labour issues in music anthony. ur the goat

Makes me glad I've been stocking up on vinyls and cd's

On a positive note, absolutely love that sweater (would look great on Mr. Rogers) On the negative, somehow RU-vid Music wants to be as evil as Spotify...😡

Google has been laying off a lot of workers over the last year and this just gave them another excuse to let them go. I have a friend who works there and he's the only one left on his team of 30 workers. All the tech companies overhired during the pandemic and are now 'optimizing.'

I'm hoping to see a resurgence in the CD format for listening to music after this

Back in the 90s and early 2000s I work for AT&t through a company called convergys in Florida and it's exactly the same story. Nothing changes because these people have all the power. If only there was something that didn't care how rich you were that all humans could fear equally

This needs to be on everyone's front page. This is the kind of journalism we need more of.

Big Firms using and abusing the Workers in U.S. is "Business as usual". . .

Ive had RU-vid premium and RU-vid music for years it's unfortunate but this literally every corporation in America when they guted all are unions in the 80's only companies that still have them were almost grandfathered in and if you try to get one today to Unionize it's instant termination.

Thanks for sharing, Anthony. Grateful to see you bringing stuff like this to light

I’ve never heard of a consultant at a big 3, big 4 or WITCH consultancy pushing to unionize at their client instead of their direct employer. even if it’s legal bc of the joint ownership NLRB ruling, I couldn’t imagine any other outcome than ending the contract

Anthony's a good dude for bringing this further into the light and giving these guys a platform to speak on

The way they've been treated is nothing short of disgusting. Thanks for sharing this Fantano.

I’m so proud of these folks and what they accomplished. The work it takes to stand up for yourselves, your coworkers, and your community by exercising your rights is unfair and exhausting, and there’s a chance things will go this way. But your spirit and courage is infectious. Keep fighting, y’all. Thanks for highlighting this, Anthony!

RU-vid: “pweaseeeee we’re just a small widdle company buy premiuuuuuummmmm” Also RU-vid:

This is much better than seeing the story on Instagram. Just an acre of boot lickers in the comments

It's pretty clear to me that youtube would want to silence this attempt at unionization rather than set a positive precedent for other Google employees to try to unionize. As a union member myself, I find this to be completely disgusting and harmful to our country and the economy at large...

Thanks for using your platform for a good cause, Anthony.

ughhhh this is mind numbing - these companies want to profit off of society and dont want to contribute to it - your product is not the contribution ffs

Edit: They weren't renewed which means Cognizant probably already knew this was happening and didn't feel the need to give them heads up to look for new jobs. At least with my old company they told us a month out. Cognizant probably didn't want people leaving early. Smh The more I learn about this the more I understand why Google dropped them. They were being too much of a headache, period. Google's only responsibility is to drop a bag of money and a to-do list in front of Cognizant, and Cognizant is supposed to handle everything else. Idk all the specific details of the contract, but that's usually how it goes with subs. When you have the contractors dragging your name into things that aren't your responsibility, it's annoying. It's entirely possible that there's another sub on the contract with all the benefits they were looking for, and they're perfectly happy. The number one rule of being a contractor is don't forget you're just a contractor. It doesn't matter how many times they invite you to the company events. 😂

How do you not have your own label to some degree at this point

I actually used to work on this team when we first started in 2019 for Cognizant. My pay didn’t change once over three years during the pandemic. I had to work 3 jobs to pay for my rent, and I ended up leaving the job for these types of reasons.

As a former software engineer contractor, in my experience the point of being a contractor is for companies to offload the typical responsibilities they have to you in exchange they typically paid contractors substantially more than FTE's. Being a contractor is very commonly not a reliable long term career position. obvs this is my experience.. where I live.

Ever since they bought and strangled Songza I haven't bothered to even remember RU-vid Music existed. They gutted one of the most innovative music streaming apps from the very start and haven't looked back.

Well this hits home a bit. I also work for Google on their search engine as a sub contractor. In January, we received communication that our contract was not renewed. Our last day is March 19th. Like the people in the interview, our contract has been going on with them for years and this came as a complete shock to the company I work for.

I am a YT Music subscriber because I use the music for my own underpaid no-benefits "independent contractor" job: gig delivery. We are all underpaid and abused. We all need union protections. We all need legal protections. All of the tech executives need to be held accountable for their mass wage theft, not to mention the suffering, hurt, and actual human casualties at their feet. Thank you for covering this.

Many people rightfully talking about Anthony's cardigan but here I'm peepin that one guy's Black Midi Cavalcade shirt

Thanks so much for using your platform to get the word out about this and give these guys a chance to talk

Thank you so much for covering labor in the music business and giving your platform to these workers. BASED.

Why are companies with the level of success that Google has working SO HARD to be able to pay their employees unfair wages?

Thanks for speaking on this

we genuinley need to instill laws that ban old people from holding positions of power regardless of wether it’s in government or large corporations like google. the greed and lack of empathy and care for their employees is truly baffling

Google as a company not being able to provide paid sick leave is pathetic lmao. That's a low bar/standard for a company giant like google that isn't some local skimpy business.

Where i live, this would be considered retaliation, and very illegal. They would be penalized for both the ignoring the initial ruling as well as the retaliation

Wow that’s devastating. I feel so incredibly bad for them. I feel so bad for the tech industry in general. So many layoffs last year and more are coming this year. But I’ve got to say, with how many layoffs companies like Google have been having lately, organizing a huge strike, at a time of layoffs in the industry, wasn’t the best move. I know they needed better pay and deserved it but this just made it so easy for them to say well we are making cuts somewhere we might as well pick this contract of people who are on strike.

I get this devastating for the workers but the nature of being a sub contractor is that your employment is never guaranteed and most the time your pay is more to make up for this. Surely their are sub unions specific for sub contractors no?

thank you for hosting this conversation anthony. unions deserve our advocacy and support!!

the fact that they had the same haircut at that clip confused me that it had something to do with appearance

Thanks for covering this!

So what I’m hearing is “I got really comfortable at my temp sub-contracting job”. I’ve worked in quite a few industries and as shitty as it is, companies seek labor that is inexpensive and reliable, in seeking a union while not under the company umbrella breaks both of those requisites. I’ve heard the “this is a sub-contracting position and may not be extended past ‘xyz’ time” be wary of those positions and only take them if you understand it’s not a guarantee.