Microsoft workers demand it drop $480 million U.S. Army contract

[MagnusTheBrewer]

So how do unions, minimum wage, and labor laws work when the entire industry is then automated? You think your job isn't immune to that? You think the MS workers in this will be immune to that? When you do stupid shit like this - you just drive the wedge further. They have no basis to their argument, they just have mindless drivel because they are simply uneducated and incompetent fools.

Congrats! You have a truck drivers union! Demand more pay! Demand more! Except... oh wait, none of you are needed anymore.





But but the army shoots things and goes pew pew pew right?

Automation is an entirely different subject and unless it's going to happen within the lifespan of the contract, irrelevant. Have you ever heard of a concept called best business practices? Neither have corporations who blithely ignore concepts that would earn them more money.

 

[Bitek]

I am a pretty ... progressive globalist socialistish kind of dude... But if that was my company, sorry guys but be free to gtfo... I hire your talents not your opinions...

Which I think is the ultimate decision, however, the workers are also free to make demands before they cross that bridge.

Question is what happens if MGMT calls their bluff, would they actually quit, or is their talent unique/valuable enough that the company wouldn't risk a larger objective?

 

[Texashiker]

Do it, drop the contract for about a month.

Tell employees without contract they do not have jobs.

Fire everyone who asked for contract to be dropped.

Under prearranged agreement get contract back.

Hire new employees.

As someone here said a long time ago, "Freedom of speech does not mean free from consequences."

 

[1prophet]

Like Google with their "Don't be evil" motto that they liked to promote, liberal leaning progressive corporations love to talk about how they encourage their employees to partake in the latest social justice issues of the day, until it hits them in the pocket book, then they go all Koch conservative profit only matters on them.


Virtue signaling is easy for corporate America, so they can look like social justice heroes,

Paying living wages and all the other things our American spoiled social justice warriors take for granted, not so much

 

[cytg111]

Do it, drop the contract for about a month.

Tell employees without contract they do not have jobs.

Fire everyone who asked for contract to be dropped.

Under prearranged agreement get contract back.

Hire new employees.

As someone here said a long time ago, "Freedom of speech does not mean free from consequences."

Thats the conservative line here isnt it? Inflict them pain, that will show them. Pain = learning.
I am starting to "get" the right here... and i am feeling pity... am I normal?

 

[Vic]

Do it, drop the contract for about a month.

Tell employees without contract they do not have jobs.

Fire everyone who asked for contract to be dropped.

Under prearranged agreement get contract back.

Hire new employees.

As someone here said a long time ago, "Freedom of speech does not mean free from consequences."

Except that, because of the 1st amendment, those consequences of speech may not come from the government. So if the government broke the contract because of the speech of a few Microsoft employees, that would be against the 1a. But it Microsoft chose to take action against these employees for their speech, that would not be against the 1a. See how this works?

This issue IMO a silly thing to get worked over about. People say stupid shit all the time. If Microsoft wants to deal with it, fine. And if they don't, I honestly dare care either way.

 

[brandonbull]

These tech companies managed and staffed by "liberals" have zero problems going out of their way to help China and other oppressive governments.

 

[Moonbeam]

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

 

[Ajay]

with 94 workers signing a petition

Lol! 94 workers at M$ - management must be terrified 😱

 

[zinfamous]

The one where you accept the reality that we live in.

lol

 

[JSt0rm]

Liberals don't live in the real world. It is like these fools think that if we stop developing weapons to stay on the technological forefront, then the whole world will sing kumbaya and hug it out.

the inside of slows mind is all like...

 

[Sunburn74]

Microsoft OS's are used for front end GUI's in many military systems, much to my chagrin. So, they are a bit late. F'n I/A nightmares.

This is not a credible point. Window OS isn't being designed to maximize soldier lethality. The fact that thee military uses something doesn't make it a weapon. Soldiers use food, bottled water, toothpaste, and underwear. These are not weapons of war.

However microsoft is specifically designing these VR headsets to improve soldier lethality in combat. That for many workers creates a true ethical crisis because they signed up to fulfill a company vision of making the world a better place or whatever slogan the company sold them and I assure you that did not involve making soldiers improved killing machines.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

Clickbait article is clickbait. 94 employees?

LOL

MS employs almost 200000 folks.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

So how do unions, minimum wage, and labor laws work when the entire industry is then automated? You think your job isn't immune to that? You think the MS workers in this will be immune to that? When you do stupid shit like this - you just drive the wedge further. They have no basis to their argument, they just have mindless drivel because they are simply uneducated and incompetent fools.

Congrats! You have a truck drivers union! Demand more pay! Demand more! Except... oh wait, none of you are needed anymore.

Holy unrelated BS Batman! When everything is automated...will we still need bananas?

 

[Starbuck1975]

This is not a credible point. Window OS isn't being designed to maximize soldier lethality. The fact that thee military uses something doesn't make it a weapon. Soldiers use food, bottled water, toothpaste, and underwear. These are not weapons of war.

However microsoft is specifically designing these VR headsets to improve soldier lethality in combat. That for many workers creates a true ethical crisis because they signed up to fulfill a company vision of making the world a better place or whatever slogan the company sold them and I assure you that did not involve making soldiers improved killing machines.

You can’t win wars without logistics. All the ammo, hardware, intelligence briefings and everything else required to deploy a soldier into combat...Microsoft products touch all of those things.

Similarly, VR could be used to help minimize civilian casualties by training soldiers in rules of engagement. It is incredibly costly to hire civilian actors and setup realistic urban environments to effectively train soldiers for this purpose, easily handled by VR.

 

[Bitek]

Clickbait article is clickbait. 94 employees?

LOL

MS employs almost 200000 folks.

Imo this is the critical paragraph from the article:

"One Microsoft worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unclear whether any of the lead petitioners’ work was part of the Army contract. Another said several organizers work in the company’s cloud computing division, which is competing with rivals Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services to gain more government work."

Really depends who the employees are. If it's a spattering of peaceniks from random parts of the company, then there is no leverage.

If it's a major section of the product development team directly contributing... Then there is a problem.

If mgmt refuses to change plans, obviously they then have little recourse other than hacking the offending military system and exploding Nadela's house with a storm of popcorn.
It's a moral imperative.

 

[Sunburn74]

You can’t win wars without logistics. All the ammo, hardware, intelligence briefings and everything else required to deploy a soldier into combat...Microsoft products touch all of those things.

Similarly, VR could be used to help minimize civilian casualties by training soldiers in rules of engagement. It is incredibly costly to hire civilian actors and setup realistic urban environments to effectively train soldiers for this purpose, easily handled by VR.

Military use of an item doesn't mean that the company is designing it for that or even condones it's use. The use of windows OS for military hardware is no different than the use of Hanes underwear or bottled water for military purposes. Its a military repurposement of a civilian product and you cannot stop the military from using civilian products in whatever way they want. Hanes and the bottled water companies should sleep easy at night as should Microsoft in this regard.

It's also hard to judge the ethics of trying to prevent civilian deaths with the use of weapons of war or war in general. That gets into extremely gray and subjective areas that are very complicated in indeed (how do you judge net benefit vs harm and the value of life?)

And I'm not saying bullets shouldn't be designed either or weapons of war shouldn't be designed. If you work for a bullet manufacturer, they tell you upfront we are designing bullets. But if you work for a company that makes say kitchen knives for cooking who sold you on mottos of cooking and nutrition and etc and now they want to specifically make knives that are used on the battlefield for combat to rip a guy in half, those employees should be reasonably upset.