Google Agrees To Meet With YouTubers Union Right Before Deadline

Last month, FairTube -- a collaboration between a group that calls itself the "YouTubers Union" and Europe's largest trade union, IG Metall -- sent Google a list of demands to achieve better working conditions. The letter gave YouTube with a deadline of August 23 to respond or else it would face "a shitstorm," according to Jorg Sprave, the founder of the YouTubers Union. On the last day, hours before the deadline, Google Germany sent a formal letter back to FairTube that said it had "a strong interest in the success and satisfaction of Youtube Creators" and "for this reason, we appreciate the recently expressed interest of the trade unions in supporting YouTube Creators." Motherboard reports: Sprave told Motherboard that Google wanted to "'discuss some fundamental questions about the future of work and won't negotiate our demands. Well, those demands will certainly play an important role anyway as they are designed to make sure that this 'future of work' will be transparent and fair for the workers." Christiane Benner, IG Metall's chairwoman, said in a statement "the pressure we have made together with the YouTubers Union on Google and YouTube, has paid off. We have succeeded to bring Google to the table."

FairTube's attempt to improve working conditions for YouTubers hinges on the GDPR, using the European Union regulation that ensures a person's right to access their personal data. With the GDPR, FairTube hopes to shine a light on how YouTube chooses which videos to prioritize or demonetize, and change YouTube's support system from an automated one to one staffed by humans. A Youtube spokesperson told Motherboard that "we explained to the union in great detail what YouTube is doing in terms of transparency and support for YouTubers. But we have also made clear that we are not going to negotiate their demands."

Labor tosses Google a Bosey

[rmdingler]

That's more Googly than you'd think.

In cricket, a googly is a type of deceptive delivery bowled by a right-arm leg spin bowler. In Australia, it is occasionally referred to as a wrong'un, Bosie or Bosey, the last two eponyms in honour of its inventor Bernard Bosanquet.

A right-armed leg spin bowler is the worst case scenario for Google, and grammarians, everywhere.

Re: Labor tosses Google a Bosey

[ArmoredDragon]

I think the moral of the story is to never engage in any revenue sharing or quid-pro-quo transactions involving money in areas where the laws can suddenly interpret that as being full time employment, even though no such agreement between the two parties was ever made.

Re:

[N3x)(]

Labor laws has to be all encompassing otherwise they lose all effectiveness. If one company can completely disregard all legislation due to it being "revenue sharing" or "quid-pro-quo transactions" then the system will break. Suddenly taxis are revenue sharing, delivery jobs are revenue sharing and so on. YouTube/Google aren't sharing the revenue. They depend upon content created by Youtubers to draw the eyes of consumers. Some outfits are drawing massive crowds to the plattform. I don't personally think

Re: Labor tosses Google a Bosey

[Van Duong]

What? No they obviously won't. Denmark doesn't have all-encompassing labor laws, stuff doesn't fall apart. Nothing has all-encompassing labor laws, most of history hasn't has encompassing labor laws. Literally the history of labor laws consists of workers fighting and getting incremental changes over time that help them.

YouTubers vs. YouTubers

[edi_guy]

My sense is that in a traditional union it is workers versus owners (management) But for YouTube, while there is admittedly the Google overlord, is it really a competition of YouTuber versus YouTuber. If you are a commercial airline pilot making vids, you are really competing with other YouTubers like Captain Joe, Mentour, DutchPilotGirl, etc.

If this union were given the keys to the YouTube recommended list, what are they going to do, screw over CaptainJoe for Mentour's benefit or vice versa? Both of wh

Re:YouTubers vs. YouTubers

[NicBenjamin]

That's not unusual. Anne Hathaway and Natalie Portman are in the same union.

It's a Craft Union. Those are quite common. American unions were originally all craft unions. Today building trades, and the arts are organized this way. In many European countries, including Germany where Fairtube is based, it's common for there to be a single union contract for all employees in an entire sector of the economy.

Re:YouTubers vs. YouTubers

[Undead Waffle]

You don't seem to understand the situation. Primarily it's about arbitrary demonetization and de-ranking based on extremely vague rules. They want clear rules, better transparency, and a better appeal process. They're working with a union to threaten lawsuits if YouTube doesn't do this.

I'm a little concerned the union may be using this opportunity to put themselves in a position of power over YouTube, but it would be good to see these problems solved.

Here is JoergSprave's original video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

And his follow-up videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

That's how unions work, people doing similar work join together even though they are nominally competing with each other. In practice working together is a benefit for all of them.

In the case of YouTube just look at how these similar channels often promote each other, with links or guest voice-over work and the like. YouTube is still in the growth phase, with people moving away from broadcast TV to streaming, so there are plenty of views to go around.

People underestimate how much work

[rsilvergun]

being a YouTuber is. Most streamers do a ton of prep before a stream. It's a performance. Prepared videos take gobs of research, editing and reshoots. And you never get a break, ever. If you take 2 weeks off you come back to 1/3rd your audience.

It's also tremendously stressful. Your revenue can fluctuate massively from one month to the next based on minor changes to YouTube's algorithms. And if you're an American good luck getting healthcare. More than one full time streamer I like had to give up and go work for a mega corp because of health problems even though they were making OK money. The cost of healthcare here is insane.

With all this it's not surprising Google has to listen to the top creators. Not everybody can put that much effort in, take that much risk and is healthy enough (or lives in a country with a good enough healthcare system) to make top notch videos of the sort people will spend hours watching.

Re:People underestimate how much work

[edi_guy]

This is all true of any independent business owner/operator and isn't any different from the sort of decisions every one of us makes when choosing a job/career. I can think of dozens of jobs I would prefer as well, but yeah, paying the bills (including healthcare) does have to factor into the equation. I can sympathize a bit on YouTubers on Google's algorithm changes, but many other workers handle similar variability out of their control. Farmers as one example. YouTubers shouldn't be given some sort of special status, though if they (German youTubers) think they can unionize, more power to them.

Re:

[jonbryce]

In the UK, there is a National Farmers' Union, so I'm not sure what your point is?

Re:

[hiroshimarrow]

And what are they gonna do? Go on strike and stream it on YouTube for their viewers to see?

Re: People underestimate how much work

[ArmoredDragon]

being a YouTuber is. Most streamers do a ton of prep before a stream. It's a performance.

Which means...what? They're entitled to something? That would be like saying a stand up comedian that isn't funny deserves a big paycheck just because he works hard at it, even though not enough people want to watch his performance to pay him what he thinks he's worth.

Marx's labor theory of value is a big load of shit for exactly this reason. If it isn't, then Marx thinks Mein Kampf is worth more than his own manifesto, which is just plain silly because they're both only worth exactly what people will pay f

Re:

[hjf]

Are you fucking stupid? Do you not understand their demands? I know, you're one of those fucking "hurr durr i don't need no union because union people are lazy and i'm not, CAPITALISM AMERICA FUCK YEAH" cunts, but FOR FUCK'S SAKE READ THE DEMANDS.

They want SOMEONE FROM YOUTUBE TO EXPLAIN WHY THEIR VIDEO WAS DEMONETIZED. Right now, your video is demonetized and DONE. No explanation.

But, as every other gun wielding imbecile, you will disregard what i say claiming that "hurr durr google owns youtube so they do

Re:

[caseih]

Nice one dragging both Marx and Hitler into this.

As to your question, yes they absolutely are entitled to something from Google. Google is making a ton of money off their backs. Google offered share some of that money with them, so that's why many of them make high-quality videos. All they want are clear rules on how this all is to be done, and and end to arbitrary changes of how Google pays them. That's fair.

Just because they could go "get real jobs" doesn't mean it's right for Google to screw them ove

Re: People underestimate how much work

[ArmoredDragon]

As to your question, yes they absolutely are entitled to something from Google. Google is making a ton of money off their backs.

I've developed software that people have sold for a profit. I've posted videos to YouTube that Google profits from. I don't see a dime from any of it. Why? Because I never asked for it, and I never published it under any particular terms or licensing. If it was something I wanted to profit from, I would have placed licensing restrictions on it.

You may as well say that every company in the world that uses Linux owes royalties to all of the kernel developers. That is just as valid as saying that YouTube owes

Re:People underestimate how much work

[rtb61]

Well, do all that work, why rely on Youtube. Honestly why would you ever believe that Google would not fuck you over at every single opportunity. You honestly think all that advertising revenue demonetise is about the content or serving ads and keeping the money. A dominant corporation loaded with lobbyists and actively trying to spy on every human being on the planet, with self evident monopolistic tendencies, that has been repeated caught out at trying to manipulate democracies across the entire planet to favour it's profits and power (actually actively trying to conduct planetary wide regime change, doing what the Russia government was accused of and well it seems illegally sanctioned for). Seriously, just why would you rely on them for anything, for a start https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duck... [duckduckgo.com] and of course never ever use youtube as your sole video distribution channel (you ARE NOT a youtube only idiot victims of marketing are, you are a content creator that uses youtube as just one of your content distribution channels).

Don't rely on Google seriously and this action probably only the start.

Re:People underestimate how much work

[tlhIngan]

being a YouTuber is. Most streamers do a ton of prep before a stream. It's a performance. Prepared videos take gobs of research, editing and reshoots. And you never get a break, ever. If you take 2 weeks off you come back to 1/3rd your audience.

It's also tremendously stressful. Your revenue can fluctuate massively from one month to the next based on minor changes to YouTube's algorithms. And if you're an American good luck getting healthcare. More than one full time streamer I like had to give up and go work for a mega corp because of health problems even though they were making OK money. The cost of healthcare here is insane.

So what, exactly?

Hint: It's a job. Welcome to the real world

Everything you said, applies to most working stiffs. People worrying about varying income? Check - lots of people worry about being fired, or not having any shifts, or wondering if they can pay their bills this month. Or if it's electricity or medication they pay for this month.

Yes, it's a lot of work. Get used to it. If you don't like it, get a "real" job. "Youtuber" is what it is - another job. It's not immune to the effects of the job market, and some people have to work multiple jobs. Just like regular working stiffs who work two or more jobs to make ends meet.

Re:

[Rick Zeman]

Yet they're electing to do this voluntarily. They aren't employees; they aren't even contractors. They're just ships passing in the night.
I'm no fan of anything Google since they started being evil, but they owe the "Union" nothing here beyond what they've already given.

Google should just tell them to piss off

[Retired ICS]

Google should just tell the Union to piss off. The so-called YouTube'ers are not employee's of Google, nor are they Google customers. The customers are the advertizers. The YouTube'ers are just a pack of ne'er do wells who have no skills nor product that they could actually sell to a paying customer -- which is why they give their shit to google for free.

Re:Google should just tell them to piss off

[mamba-mamba]

You are not alone in this judgement that they are not employees. I believe you are painting with far to broad a brush when you say that tey have no skills.

But in any event, IG Metall was prepared to argue in court in Germany that youtubers ARE de-facto employees. This threat was enough to at least get Google to talk to Joerg and IG Metall. So perhaps under German law, there is a case to be made. In any event, your estimation of the situation, unless you are a potential juror in Germany, is not so important. What matters is the merit of the case under German law.

Re:

[Antique Geekmeister]

> I believe you are painting with far to broad a brush when you say that tey have no skills.

Their level of skills is an interesting question. Does this include _any_ effective you-tube directors or producers? Or does it merely include the "bedroom advertisers", who broadcast from their mother's basement and expect their personal social and political opinions to gather an income?

Re:

[Cipheron]

The problem with declaring them employees, is that your employer gets to dictate what product you make. If you make a product the employer didn't tell you to make, the employer can in fact stop paying you. Youtubers are demanding to be able to make whatever they like, keep getting paid, and never get fired. They are NOT employees.

Re:

[jonbryce]

I think the point is that YouTube /are/ dictating what product they make, by demonetising and delisting videos they don't like.

Re:

[tomhath]

They can argue that point. But they also need to keep in mind that Google always has the right to say "Thank you, bye."

Re:

[mamba-mamba]

If IG Metall takes it to court and wins, the consequences for Google would be retroactive, meaning that Google might owe back pay and benefits for work that has already been done. I don't think Joerg wants to go to court, though. I think he wants to win concessions from youtube in the area of transparency predominantly.

Basically, Google's liability (if any) already exists. They cannot eliminate it just by ending relationships with content producers going forward.

Re:

[tomhath]

Google can't do anything about existing liability, if any. But they can argue that the youtubers agreed to the terms and conditions when they posted those videos, and they can decline any future work by those youtubers.

Re:Google should just tell them to piss off

[_Shorty-dammit]

You can't be this blind. One YouTuber I watch is a man with a mechanical engineering degree that makes videos where he explains the engineering behind many different things, usually to do with the automotive field. He's pretty successful at it, and it isn't like he wasn't successful in his engineer career already. He just found it more enjoyable and fulfilling to do what he's doing now, compared to working at one previous job at a forklift company doing engineering work for them. He's no ne'er do well. And he's got skills he is plenty capable of marketing successfully.

Another I watch is a man up here in Canada who retains a fair bit of anonymity, but seems as though he may be a millwright or something similar. He makes a ton of videos, typically tearing down power tools to see how they're constructed, which ones are built with quality and which ones are crap, where they're good or bad, etc. Occasionally he'll be showing how to construct this or that on the lathe or milling machine, or even a CNC milling machine he purchased with the intent of giving viewers a way to build their prototypes, etc. He's a successful guy at his real job. And he's a successful guy with his YouTube channel, too. Not to mention a family guy who loves his wife and kids, and enjoys having the kids in the workshop teaching them how to do this and that every now and then.

Both of these people are fine examples of people that are/were successful in other areas of life but decided to take a stab at making some money via videos on YouTube, and are doing quite well at it. And they're just two examples in a very large pond over there at YouTube. You really have no idea what you're talking about, nor the kind of dough that's available to grab if you play your cards right. Sorry.

As an aside: Just so you know, you're using apostrophes incorrectly.

Re:

[blind biker]

Another I watch is a man up here in Canada who retains a fair bit of anonymity, but seems as though he may be a millwright or something similar. He makes a ton of videos, typically tearing down power tools to see how they're constructed,

You're talking about Uncle Bumblefuck. Phrases like Cockford Ollie (ahem) come to mind.

Re:

[Mal-2]

Instructions unclear. Dick stuck in vise.

Re:

[c-A-d]

I read that in his voice.

Re:Google should just tell them to piss off

[thesupraman]

No the you tubers supply the damn product - the videos.
They do it for a range of reasons - but this particular group do it because youtube give them money in return.
No, they are not employees, but if enough of them stop - youtube loses eyeballs, which means it loses revenue.

Google may take a while to realise that, as they have buried their head in the sand for a long time with the assumption that the people they in effect sell will forever just continue to be there - however that is not necessarily a fact.

Good on these people.. however they need to consider their next step, and I would suggest that a combination of moving their content, and (sensible) legal challenges against google would be... interesting.

Re:

[phantomfive]

Nah,

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock"

These people do not work for YouTube

[plazman30]

YouTubers are not employees of YouTube. They make content for free bandwidth from Google. All these people are free at any moment to go stream somewhere else. These people should not be unionized. If they don't like YouTube's conditions, they should build their own streaming service to compete with YouTube.

In other words...

[slick7]

Google's AI, Deepmind took all of fourteen femtoseconds to say "Piss Off, we're outta time see you next year, meeting adjourned." Cold calculating logic has no need of stupid organic sentiments. This is the sibling of unquenchable thirst for profit at any cost.

Working conditions

[Daralantan]

attempt to improve working conditions for YouTubers

Stupid copyright strike shenanigans and random demonetization aside..... This just seems a weird wording. What do you mean, working conditions? As another person said, YouTube basically provides free storage and bandwidth for people. I used to run a website 20ish years ago and had to pay for storage space and bandwidth for videos. YouTube to me was awesome to be able to just toss the videos on and have as yet another back up.

Yes I know some "e-celebs" make their living off of YouTube, and lots of cra

YouTuber Union?

[fatboy]

<SNARK>What in the Democratic Socialism is a YouTuber Union? Is that where someone gives you a free platform to express yourself and you get upset because they didn't hold you hand or something?</SNARK>

Re:

[Mononymous]

The problem is that at some point they put ads on YouTube (I don't know, sometime after ad blockers were created) and then decided to pay the video uploaders a cut of the advertising money. What a stupid idea.

Pay attention to what happens next

[hdyoung]

Watch this play out VERY carefully. Now we get to see how genuine all this recent crap about corporate responsibility actually is. Here's a preview: it's window dressing through and through. No company EVER welcomed unions. Ever. Google will speak soft soothing words while actually fighting it tooth and nail.

Google is going to behave exactly the same as any other company facing unionization. They can't send in goons to beat people any more. Thank god for federal laws. If that was still legal, the cops i