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Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

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Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#91

Post by georgefrick »

iwantagrinder wrote: post #22
kawfey wrote: post #18

Bad headline. It should read "Engineer fired her for abusing privileged access to modify an internal security tool." That's a pretty dumb way to notify co-workers of their right to organize, but I guess it's a really good way to get fired and draw up a big media stink about it.

Did you not read the part where she did, where she followed the process by the book and it was approved? Or did you just have your mind made up to decide to side with Google instead?

Did you come to the comments to discuss this, or just spam your empty response at everyone?

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#92

Post by School-Cotton »

Maxion wrote: post #64
CodeMage wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read what the extension is for?

It feels like a lot of astro-turfing going on here. Why would any sane person be against unions?

I'm sane, and don't want to join a union (I'm not against them in general; there are certainly fields where they make sense). I don't know if your question was serious, but in case it was: I don't feel like my employer is a rival or an enemy; I feel like they are a partner in our mutual goal to make a lot of money. I've never worked at Google, but I've worked at similarly famous large companies, making several times more than any reasonable person would think the average programmer was worth.

To the extent that unions would make the company able to make profit less efficiently, for example by making it harder to fire poor employees, it would have been against my own interests.

I also totally never felt that there was a power imbalance between me and my employer. I got to work whenever I wanted, worked on whatever I wanted, left whenever I wanted, and when I got burned out and started disliking the job, I quite easily found a job somewhere else. Again, probably different for non-software-engineers, but it's not hard to understand why many of us feel no draw to unions.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#93

Post by kawfey »

save_ferris wrote: post #38
kawfey wrote: post #18

Bad headline. It should read "Engineer fired her for abusing privileged access to modify an internal security tool." That's a pretty dumb way to notify co-workers of their right to organize, but I guess it's a really good way to get fired and draw up a big media stink about it.

Wrong. She went through the standard review process to get the notification change out. Read the article.

> We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that it was “a serious violation.”

See my other comment reply.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#94

Post by felideon »

kache_ wrote: post #7

>Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.” You should get fired…

According to Spiers[1], modifying software that runs on every employee's computer was her -job-.

[1] https://medium.com/@ksspiers/google-fires-another-worker-for...

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#95

Post by ixtli »

scarface74 wrote: post #56
Maxion wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly a little surprised (and worried) about all the commenters who argue Google is in the right here.

Of course Google is right. She happened to get two coworkers to approve what she was doing. If I got a manager who I was friends with to approve my purchase of a fully decked out $53K Mac Pro so I could finally use Slack at a decent speed when I am working from home, wouldn’t you think there was something fishy?

Since you can’t spend 53000 dollars on a Mac laptop last I checked, yes! However the whole purpose of a managerial hierarchy is to establish a responsibility chain so at very least I would expect the manager to also get fired.

Google doesn’t care about these antics. They, like all employers, don’t want their employees to have meaningful bargaining power.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#96

Post by raiyu »

sidcool wrote: post #65
cj wrote: post #5

> Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.” So basically, the Go…

Spiers, 21, said she went through the standard approval process, which requires two co-workers to greenlight changes, before updating the Chrome browser extension.

Spiers wasn't fired for adding code, Spiers was fired for using a pop-up and that simply isn't the Google way.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#97

Post by evrydayhustling »

CodeMage wrote: post #41
mytailorisrich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spiers, 21, said she went through the standard approval process, which requires two co-workers to greenlight changes, before updating the Chrome browser extension That sounds like code review approvals, not actual project/management approval of the 'feature'. We have the same: Cannot commit any code change unless 2 other team members have reviewed it. That has nothing to do with having actual project/management app…

Did you read what the extension is for?

For anyone else who didn't get that far the first time:

> Spiers' pop-up message was inserted into a tool that notifies employees of privacy and security concerns about using non-Google tools and services, like warning employees not to upload proprietary information to Dropbox, Spiers said. The tool is managed by the platform security team, for which Spiers worked for almost two years as a security engineer.

So, seems like the bulletin was pretty far outside the intended function and should have required more than a code review. I wonder what will happen to the people who accepted the patch?

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#98

Post by BoorishBears »

Maxion wrote: post #64
CodeMage wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read what the extension is for?

It feels like a lot of astro-turfing going on here. Why would any sane person be against unions?

You can be against her actions and for unions.

To me this sounds like someone snuck a PR that does questionable things into the code base.

Sure you can say that's a failing of the PR process, but it doesn't mean putting up the PR in the first place shouldn't be punishable.

"Following the process" doesn't absolve you from the fact you initiated the process with questionable intents.

Honestly, I would not want to work with someone who'd do that, and would be surprised if that wasn't a fireable offense.

I value the fact I don't have to scour PRs for covert (or honestly, even overt) attempts to stick political messages into our codebase.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#99

Post by zozbot234 »

CodeMage wrote: post #41
mytailorisrich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spiers, 21, said she went through the standard approval process, which requires two co-workers to greenlight changes, before updating the Chrome browser extension That sounds like code review approvals, not actual project/management approval of the 'feature'. We have the same: Cannot commit any code change unless 2 other team members have reviewed it. That has nothing to do with having actual project/management app…

Did you read what the extension is for?

The extension was specifically designed to notify Google employees about problematic reliance on non-Google services. Seems like her warning fits that use case. How is "warning about Dropbox" any different from "warning about X management consulting firm"?

Edit: Her warning literally said: "Do not violate NLRB notice. Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities." (see screenshot in article, bottom right.) This is something that Google is already obligated to acknowledge under labor law. They're simply shooting the messenger.

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