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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

#351

Post by sequoia »

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…

> But injecting javascript

Come now. It's a browser extension, it's written in JavaScript, and knowingly installed by employees. No "injecting" went on here, let's not try to make this sound more nefarious than it was (not very). Fireable? Perhaps. But not because of a security concern.

(edit: reading more, it's clear that the only thing that makes this "fireable" in google's view is that it promotes union organizing that they oppose. Any other such message would probably not cause firing unless it caused a PR problem, and perhaps not even then.)

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

#352

Post by panpanna »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #310
panpanna wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this does not mean higher-ups approved her messages, it does show that she did it by the book. If the higher ups felt this message was inappropriate and should be removed they could follow the same procedure instead of firing the engineer

Edit: I agree.

I know, I am agreeing with you :)

But alot of people in the comments claim that she more or less hacked the system.

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

#353

Post by helen___keller »

ramblerman wrote: post #345
helen___keller wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't her thoughts it was company policy, or to be specific it's required by law that this notice to be posted in the workplace. It's was her personal judgment that it should be posted in a chrome add-on rather than only by poster like is typical in most workplaces. But assuming her job was to maintain an add-on that informs employees of company policy, and assuming her job typically lets her act with personal ju…

Being in charge of the infrastructure does not mean you are in charge of the content. Those are well defined roles. Specially in a company of that size. She didn’t just make a judgement call. She went way outside her role imo.

I don't really know enough to agree or disagree with you.

She claims she's in a role to make judgment calls on adding content - and that this was reinforced by her previous stellar performance reviews, which made her confident in her judgment - but I don't personally have enough info to know if that's the truth. She very well could be stretching the truth that maybe every other addition she's made was under the direction of HR or product, in which case she is definitely out of line here - it would take the input of a Googler on her team to know for sure.

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

#354

Post by ajross »

ramblerman wrote: post #300
helen___keller wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with this at first, but according to her medium post ( https://medium.com/@ksspiers/google-fires-another-worker-for... ) "Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web" If this is true and her job is literally to create javascript notifications of company policy, then I think it's entire…

Really? So if I hire you to email out my monthly company statement it’s reasonable that you add some of your own thoughts to said email.

Yes, really. How about the converse: what if Google used it's ability to control employees' email to send messages on their behalf arguing against unionization?

Part of the right of free speech is correctness of attribution. Trying to speak as someone else, using someone else's communication channels isn't speech, it's fraud.

And I say that as (at least within the spectrum of folks on this site) a full on pinko commie unionizer. If this is the truth of the story, this just wasn't OK, and was a very reasonable firing offense.

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

#355

Post by noirbot »

givinguflac wrote: post #208
gbronner wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost irrespective of the website that it was triggered on, it represents a huge waste of her time, as well as that of the hapless employees forced to click through her automatically-created popups. It also weaponizes the internal browser to advocate for political causes. It shows such stunningly bad judgement that they are entirely justified in firing her.

IMHO its absurd to think stating a law/fact is advocating a political cause, unless you consider the law a political cause? In which case, wow.

I mean, I know I'd be highly annoyed if I got a "Don't post copyrighted material" popup every time I visited Stack Overflow. It's the law, but it doesn't mean I want an addon nagging me about my legal obligations.

In the same way, I know I have a right to vote, but I definitely felt it was annoying when I had a coworker who would regularly spam us to remind us to vote. It's not necessarily Political, but it's advocacy. I only have so much mental bandwidth - hijacking it to have my read a message of your choosing is cause advocacy whether I agree with it or not.

Advocating a certain level of involvement/mindfulness of specific issues is political - Most of the difference between folks in the same party/ideology is just in if they think about or prioritize certain issues over others. Do you care more about Union Rights or the Environment? International Wars or domestic policing? Pushing people towards one over the other is political even if they already agree with you on the underlying issue.

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

#356

Post by SolaceQuantum »

wolco wrote: post #197
GVIrish wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree, it sounds a lot like a code review, but at Google that was also the approval standard for deploying such an extension. I don't really see how Google could be in the right here though. If they have an internal program for creating alerts/extensions for specific websites, and Spiers followed the normal procedure for adding such an extension, there doesn't seem to be a problem. The only problem is Google bein…

You added your personal code to a browser extension.. I can't see how google is in the wrong. Unless google allows anyone to change this extension for personal reasons and they only flagged her. Could someone change it to let everyone know they are selling cookies or accepting donations to their church.

From what I understand this is actually how google communicates policies and the like via their employees, for which it is legally required to notify such employees via electronic medium if electronic medium is the primary communiation factor. This is based off of the engineer's medium article though.

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

#357

Post by ct0 »

krisroadruck wrote: post #70
ct0 wrote: post #12

According to their linkedin, they graduated highschool in 2015.

I just don't get the internet anymore. You're avoiding using gendered pronouns but needlessly displaying ageism?

You must be missing the point of the internet. I don't see a problem here; Only you made graduation year and age the proxy.

Why would the engineer reveal their HS graduation year if they didn't want the world to know it? I considered that they must have had little experience considering their graduation year and the average or even above average experience of those graduating the same year.

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

#358

Post by SiempreViernes »

TravHatesMe wrote: post #273
vintermann wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bite the hand that feeds you? Why the struggle, why the strain? Why make trouble, why make scenes? Why go against the grain, why swim upstream? It ain't, it ain't, it ain't no use You're bound, you're bound, you're bound to lose What's done, what's done, what's done is done That's the way the river runs So why get wet? Why break a sweat? Why waste your precious breath? Why beat your handsome brow? Nothing changes…

I like this. Where is it from? In response to it: You can't apply this to everything, you need to pick you battles. There might be better means to an end.

Unionising is a pretty good means to improve your working conditions though.

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

#359

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

claudeganon wrote: post #332
School-Cotton wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let me turn the question around. Imagine I was a generally happy mid-level software engineer, making $400k/yr at Google. How would a union help me?

By giving you greater control and direction over the nature of the company, the kind of work they do, and who they work with, to check executive power from engaging in short-sighted or immoral behavior, to provide you with an alternate route for addressing workplace discrimination or harassment, just to begin.

A union doesn't give me, personally, any control or direction or checks on executive power. Union leaders have those powers. And it's not obvious to me why the union leaders would be any more aligned with my interests than management is.

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

#360

Post by javajosh »

jefftk wrote: post #275
javajosh wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the purview of a code review? Is it only about making sure the code meets technical standards, or are reviewers expected to comment holistically?

Reviewers are supposed to review holistically, and in cases where something raises larger questions (do we actually have approval for this change?) they shouldn't approve until those questions are resolved. In this case I suspect the reviewers were supportive of the protest, and so approved it even though their authority didn't cover this kind of change. I don't think any of these people should have been fired, but "…

>Reviewers are supposed to review holistically

That sounds about right. So why doesn't Google fire the reviewers? If they don't, then they are inconsistently applying the standard. If they do, then they are punishing a coordinated employee action.

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