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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

#551

Post by givinguflac »

dmix wrote: post #458
givinguflac wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Benign law website”, “anti-union PR firm” tomato, potatoe.

In the English languages words are understood in the context they are used. In this case it was obviously about security and privacy. So it's a nice attempt at spin but much like other attempts at defending this behaviour that's all it really is. A whole lot of spin to justify it via the ends while glossing over the completely unprofessional means.

It's literally an internal tool for google employees to popup informational or warning messages on a per-site basis. The ends was exactly what the freaking tool was built for.

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

#553

Post by [deleted] »

gambiting wrote: post #261
hugi wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She went through the corporate approved process with her changes. Her only mistake here is being pro union while Google is decidedly anti-union and pro-worker-abuse.

I don't know how this works where you are, but when I'm asked to review code for someone, that's exactly what I do but also only what I do - I don't ask them if they have a design document for the change or approval from the features team. It's not my job to verify that.

[deleted]

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

#554

Post by matwood »

space_fountain wrote: post #334
Touche wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but California is an at-will state. Again, IANAL, but my educated understanding is that you can fire someone for any reason as long as the reason is not illegal. Lastly, IANAL.

But IANAL firing some one for telling their co-workers about their right to unionize is an illegal reason to fire someone. I'm not completely convinced that's what happened here but still

Technology makes a lot of these good intentioned laws hard to interpret. You cannot be fired for telling your co-workers that they are allowed to unionize. What if you work for a call center, commandeered an auto-dialer, and called every co-worker in the company with the same message? What about a popup on every page of an internal company website? Is someone allowed to stand up in the middle of the office with a megaphone and tell everyone they can unionize?

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

#555

Post by givinguflac »

noirbot wrote: post #355
givinguflac wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 advocac…

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but it sounds like you're saying telling people facts about reality they should know is advocacy, and advocacy is somehow inherently political? By extension of this logic teaching children math is a political act.

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

#556

Post by ummonk »

justinmchase wrote: post #274
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…

Wouldn't she have had to make a pull request? Since when can't a developer make a controlled change to code?

Yes, and needed the approval of two reviewers, which she got.

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

#557

Post by tantalor »

Kylekramer wrote: post #103

Lot of people are confusing "following standard procedures" with "immune from consequences". To be honest, looks like the employee got a few sympathetic people to sign off on an inappropriate use of a tool. According to the Verge, there are two other people who are also being disciplined.

That comment: "the company had fired someone last week for misusing the browser notification, and it had also disciplined two others as part of the incident"

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/17/21024472/google-employee...

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

#558

Post by ajross »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #542
ajross wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Asserting rights you don't have means breaking the law by definition, and it has always been that way - from civil rights movement to the revolution.

Sorry, what? They have the right to unionize. The whole issue at hand is that the employee put a notice of that legal right into an employer tool. What rights do these people not have that you're thinking of?

Look, the point here is that if you want to win a unionization fight (which is a legal victory, it will happen in courts and with contracts) you have to fight using legal tools. Pulling anarchist tricks like this just makes you feel better, it does nothing but make management's position stronger.

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

#559

Post by [deleted] »

School-Cotton wrote: post #92
Maxion wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#560

Post by jesuschristy »

givinguflac wrote: post #555
noirbot wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 advocac…

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but it sounds like you're saying telling people facts about reality they should know is advocacy, and advocacy is somehow inherently political? By extension of this logic teaching children math is a political act.

Would you be ok with her putting the 2nd amendment on there? Or perhaps a message on how to legally immigrate?
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