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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

#511

Post by relluic »

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.

She didn't abuse anything. She followed the standard process and she created the alert on the appropriate page (labor relations) to inform people of company policy: https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg

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

#512

Post by scarmig »

helen___keller wrote: post #265
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…

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…

The extension is intended to inform Googlers of applications that are not approved for corp data, not just generic "employee guidelines and company policies." This is so you don't e.g. upload PII into a random unsecured S3 bucket.

Yes, it's company policy, but this is more like running into a meeting and then interrupting it so you can start reciting NLRB policy than it is posting a flyer. Worse, it misappropriates a security tool in order to do that. And when it comes to intentional actions that violate or undermine security, Google, like most companies, takes a pretty hard line.

Disclosing that I'm a Googler, and speaking only on my own behalf, with no connection to anyone involved except the fact that the extension is running on my browser.

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

#513

Post by ajross »

tehjoker wrote: post #459
ajross wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 commi…

Workers need to be willing to break the law in order to win victories against the people that make the laws. Employers aren't even the law, this is such a small thing and is defensible. I don't see a reason to side with Google at all, if they really vociferously disagreed, they could ask her to remove the notification.

> Workers need to be willing to break the law in order to win victories against the people that make the laws.

Not if they want to win, they don't. Anarchism won nothing at the turn of the century. Organized (note the adjective!) Labor broke through when it became a political movement with representation in government.

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

#514

Post by ggggtez »

When I read this, and the other one, the only idea that I can come up with is that everyone is lying, at least a little bit.

It seems pretty unlikely that it would be within your job description to create notifications like this on specific websites, and from reading the blog post and the content here, it seems like these notifications are not meant for "company policies" whatever that means, or at the very least it doesn't make sense why a "security engineer" would have a job that notified employees about this.

So, the assumption therefore must be that this person knew they were going out of the norm, but assumed it was acceptable or protected speech.

That raises a good question: Is it the same thing as a message board? My gut instinct is... no, it really isn't.

This sounds like a tool that requires a specific level of authority to use (you need 2 approvals). Not just anyone can put notifications like this in the tool! So this isn't like a message board... this sounds like it was a person abusing their privileges.

Now, for me the next question is: does that mean they should be fired? Personally, I'd say... no. It shows bad judgement, but firing seems disproportionate. In that regard, even if it was a misguided attempt at using their organizing rights, there is an argument to be made that they shouldn't be fired for it (maybe warned, but not fired). So I think even though it sounds pretty fishy, I think there is likely still a possible case here for workers rights issues (though I am not a lawyer).

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

#515

Post by relluic »

glofish wrote: post #134
save_ferris wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What if the message was: "Make America Great Again". What if the message was: "H1B - go back to your country". would it still feel ok to you? etc it is grossly unprofessional to insert unrelated messaging and hijack a tool to push your agenda. "Going through standard protocols" in this case meant two other people approved the change - those two people also show serious unprofessionalism and bear responsibility as wel…

The part I found interesting was that the pop up was on a page specifically about labor rights: https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg

So it's not really inserting unrelated message. I feel like this is completely lost for some reason.

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

#517

Post by manfredo »

drakonka wrote: post #409

It feels weird for me to read comments in this thread debating about and assuming a simple note about unionization or organization by an employee whose job it was to do exactly this kind of thing is "not in good faith" or a "violation". In my mind this kind of thing has the same sentiment as _any_ policy notice. The world in which notifying people that they have the right to organize is a "violation" is a really mess…

There's a difference between leaving a "simple note" and abusing a security tool to spam employees. Google is tired of employees using their job as a political soapbox. Furthermore, it sets a precedent. Next week someone uses the same tool to argue against unionization. And now Google had to let them do it or they'll be seen as being impartial.

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

#518

Post by icebraining »

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #209
Touche wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prefixing this by saying I am not siding with Google (since people make assumptions). The standard approval process sounds like most merge review processes on any engineering team. There's a sort of assumed good-faith for this process. The fact that 2 coworkers were fine with your change doesn't mean it was made in good-faith and was within the bounds of normal types of changes. Any engineer with the freedom to make…

If all of them signed off then they all should be canned. Work is called work for a reason. Millennials struggle with this core concept.

Everywhere I've worked, "signing off" on the changes just meant we were OK with the technical implementation. Unless you were junior, you were trusted to have approval for the purpose of the change.

A change like this, which was linking to an official policy document, wouldn't have raised any eyebrows.

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

#519

Post by miguelmota »

The message in the popup was:

“Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”

which seems pretty reasonable since her job is literally to place notifications of what employees legally can and can’t do when visiting websites.

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

#520

Post by sodosopa »

helen___keller wrote: post #353
ramblerman wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 direc…

Ethically it’s wrong and it’s a violation of the trust put into IT workers. It wasn’t a judgement call it was a personal choice.
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