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Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

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Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#11

Post by quaunaut »

tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

Thanks for that explanation, it was both thorough and frankly, illuminating in a way that I wasn't expecting.

Do you think if he had kept his original memo to those acceptable points(the hostile attitude toward conservative views), that they might have gone forward with it? Or would it have still been too difficult to prove with the case?

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#13

Post by orblivion »

tptacek wrote: post #4
orionblastar wrote: post #3

Political views and opinions are not protected from discrimination. Sad but true, you can be fired for your beliefs.

No, that is the opposite of what the NLRB found. It's not quite as simple as political affiliation being protected (although in California it might be), but rather that under the NLRA, you can't be fired for the act of organizing to improve workplace conditions. The Advice Memo explicitly states in several places that had the Damore memo not advocated in favor of stereotypes against women --- something that is itself…

I suppose he could have ignored the question of the distribution of men and the distribution of women, and just focused on his suggestions on how to make a more productive and enjoyable situation for more "agreeable" (that's a technical term) personality types.

But this is all in context of Google's focus on trying to improve the gender disparity, and his memo is directly in reference to that, if one would only accept his claims about the different genders' distributions. But merely making these claims is deemed unacceptable. Google can make whatever claims they want, but his hands are tied if he wants to make these suggestions.

All of this is basically to imply that a set of beliefs that a lot of people have (conservatives, mainstream psychologists(!!!)) is basically beyond the pale, and it seems like a troubling situation to me.

Please let me know if I misunderstood something here.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#14

Post by mirko22 »

hbosch wrote: post #12
orionblastar wrote: post #3

Political views and opinions are not protected from discrimination. Sad but true, you can be fired for your beliefs.

"Women are genetically inferior to men" is not political view, and as an opinion it creates a hostile work environment.

but of course that is not what memo said...

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#15

Post by avs733 »

tptacek wrote: post #4
orionblastar wrote: post #3

Political views and opinions are not protected from discrimination. Sad but true, you can be fired for your beliefs.

No, that is the opposite of what the NLRB found. It's not quite as simple as political affiliation being protected (although in California it might be), but rather that under the NLRA, you can't be fired for the act of organizing to improve workplace conditions. The Advice Memo explicitly states in several places that had the Damore memo not advocated in favor of stereotypes against women --- something that is itself…

Simplified: He actively advocated for discrimination against a protected class (women). There was no way the NLRB was going to find that to be protected action.

The ramifications if they had would be that if someone creates a discriminatory workplace a company could be sued by both the victim and the violator. Under such a rule, both people's rights would be 'violated'. The point of rights is to protect you, its not to enable you to violate the rights of others.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#16

Post by ggggtez »

quaunaut wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

Thanks for that explanation, it was both thorough and frankly, illuminating in a way that I wasn't expecting. Do you think if he had kept his original memo to those acceptable points(the hostile attitude toward conservative views), that they might have gone forward with it? Or would it have still been too difficult to prove with the case?

I dunno, if you believe the legal teams, the only reason he was fired at all is because of those points. Maybe you believe it or maybe you don't, but in some alternate universe he didn't say those things, and didn't get fired at all.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#17

Post by fnord77 »

tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

> is that if the memo had been exclusively about how SFBA tech discriminates against conservatives and could in a number of ways be made more accommodating to them, Damore would had been protected from retaliation.

But then this whole thing would be nothing, maybe a minor labor dispute. So this boils down to his bigoted views.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#18

Post by tptacek »

quaunaut wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

Thanks for that explanation, it was both thorough and frankly, illuminating in a way that I wasn't expecting. Do you think if he had kept his original memo to those acceptable points(the hostile attitude toward conservative views), that they might have gone forward with it? Or would it have still been too difficult to prove with the case?

Yes. I'm summarizing not the Bloomberg article but the Advice Memo itself, which is on NLRB's case website (you can just go read it).

It's a little fuzzy because the Advice Memo asserts up front that it's assuming arguendo that the memo, in both its protected and unprotected components, constituted protected concerted action. So it's possible that NLRB never really reached the question of whether this kind of organizing truly constitutes organizing for "mutual aid and protection" under the definitions of the NLRA; it didn't have to, because whether or not you're organizing under the NLRA, the memo says there's pretty extensive case history saying you can't do it to work against federal anti-discrimination law.

The NLRA does not eliminate employment at-will! You can get fired for all sorts of dumb superficial reasons. You just can't be fired for exercising your specific rights to concerted action for improved workplace conditions under the NLRA.

But before you go flex this particular right --- and really people should start doing this, like, a lot --- go talk to a labor lawyer and dot your 't's.

This turns out to be pretty easy to do: you can just contact @michelleimiller at Coworker.org, who facilitates this kind of stuff.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#19

Post by guyzero »

tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

"Damore's memo was about organizing against discrimination of conservative viewpoints --- a phenomenon that is almost certainly real in SFBA tech!"

Only if you equate sexism and racism with conservatism.

Re: Fired Google Engineer Loses Diversity Memo Challenge

#20

Post by sidlls »

tptacek wrote: post #2

The first thing everyone needs to know about this is what the case was about, because it implicates one of the most powerful and least known rights tech company employees have. According to Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA, employees can't generally be disciplined for exercising the rights provided under Section 7 of the NLRA. These rights are commonly understood to be about unionizing (ie, you can't be fired for trying r…

Having "conservative viewpoints" is not a protected class.
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