Does firing employees for trying to unionize count as "being evil"?
Yes. No. Both. Depends on who you ask.
Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
21–30 of 44 posts
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#22Seems like a bit of a National Labor Relations Act violation. Bizzare how the more defensive a company gets the more it is likely to violate labor laws.
From the original Bloomberg article (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/google-fi...)
"To the contrary, our thorough investigation found the individuals were involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work. This includes searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs — repeating this conduct even after they were met with and reminded about our data security policies. This information, along with details of internal emails and inaccurate descriptions about Googlers’ work, was subsequently shared externally."
That would be grounds for termination in most countries.
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#23How come half the time I see a female engineer’s name it turns out to be a transgender person? Transgender people are less than 1% of the population... is it much higher in Silicon Valley?
Anecdotally speaking, I have met at least a hundred women who happened to be engineers, and none of them were trans. Then again, I don't work in Silicon Valley, lol.
Yes the same for me with people I’ve worked with. But when I see someone from a news article or similar seems like they are very commonly trans.
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#24Google did this to themselves when they invited and fostered this culture. It had its naive merits. But like many such attempts, what happens is these groups with good intentions get coöpted and controlled by others with bigger agendas-agendas which often are not in alignment with leadership. When the PLA got too strong Mao devised the Red Guards. He didn’t want another Menshevik - Bolshevik-like episode. Nor do comp…
Google is where it is now, because they started as good guys. Everyone loved them because they were fixing problems, but they started to change since they became pubic and quarterly earnings became important.
Actually Google is where it is now because they were the first to build a search engine that did not trust the webmaster and therefore succeeding where competitors were sucombing to the first scirmishes in the eternal SEO war.
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#25> For a meritocracy to work, it needs to engender a culture where there is an "obligation to dissent" Eric Schmidt, et al. "How Google Works", (pp 41-42)
So now with a ship full of passengers thinking they are headed to "bring your whole self to work" town, they are changing course, and are headed to "shut up or you'll be fired" town. I can imagine the passengers are not going to be happy about it.
As they say, it's their company and they can go anywhere they want. It's just hard to understand why they had to change course, and couldn't be the place they kept telling the kids out of college about. It doesn't seem like they are struggling to turn out profits.
I wonder what the original founders think of this? Are they happy about it. Is it the company they thought Google would be...
On the good side, it seems Rebecca already got some offers. At least other companies like people who stand up for their principles.
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#26Isn't that a dude?
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#27Seems like a bit of a National Labor Relations Act violation. Bizzare how the more defensive a company gets the more it is likely to violate labor laws.
From the original Bloomberg article ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/google-fi... ) "To the contrary, our thorough investigation found the individuals were involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work. This includes searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs — repeating this conduct even after they were met with and re…
The"unauthorized access" argument is tainted by the ambiguity of these new document access rules, or that they were introduced after hiring a "union busting" company, this article claims: https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/googles-next-moonshot-unio...
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#28Google did this to themselves when they invited and fostered this culture. It had its naive merits. But like many such attempts, what happens is these groups with good intentions get coöpted and controlled by others with bigger agendas-agendas which often are not in alignment with leadership. When the PLA got too strong Mao devised the Red Guards. He didn’t want another Menshevik - Bolshevik-like episode. Nor do comp…
lol this is absurd, they're fighting against rampant sexual harassment and a variety of other real workplace problems, not being mind controlled by nefarious bolsheviks
> rampant sexual harassment
Sounds like something straight from the Bolsheviks in an attempt to take down a larger entity purely for control.
The concept Google is worse than general society is out there. Try looking at the real world, of transport or construction or the service industry or cleaning or food harvesting. Pretty much anywhere but the industry of IT of which Google is exemplary.
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#29Does firing employees for trying to unionize count as "being evil"?
It very much depends on the jurisdiction.
I would say yes in most of the cases, but if there are insufficient union oversight processes, then unionization is a surefire way to close up shop due to the eventually inevitable waste/inefficiency.
Also, it's an interesting question of how much unionization helped or worsened the automotor industry's problems around 2008. (And even before.) And of course the real point is whether it helped the workers on the long term.
Plus, do unions support changing employment laws, do they advocate for better support for unemployed folks, or people wanting to switch jobs?
Re: Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
#30How come half the time I see a female engineer’s name it turns out to be a transgender person? Transgender people are less than 1% of the population... is it much higher in Silicon Valley?
News bias. News is drawn to controversy. Alas a lot of trans people have to live with that, because they are naturally edge cases for a lot of things.