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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

#611

Post by joshuamorton »

tanilama wrote: post #457
ramraj07 wrote: post #76

I was initially tempted to side with Google, a code review process is not just rigorous enough for catching features being sneaked in. However, it looks like the sole purpose of the extension is to warn employees about security issues in websites, and this engineer coopted that to show a union forming message. The final paragraph suggests that there's legal precedence for doing this: “You’re allowed to put posters up…

But everyone's laptop is NO public place, and this extension is installed under the endorsement and requirement of the company. For someone who doesn't agree with her message, this is best case to shove a message down your throat, worst case a security breach to their computer.

How is it possible to disagree with the message "You as an employee have a right to engage in protected concerted activity?"

This is just a legal fact.

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

#612

Post by ixtli »

scarface74 wrote: post #146
ixtli wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, there have been plenty of stories about toxic managers in tech companies. If your manager said it was okay to hit on your coworker does that absolve your responsibility to have good judgement? And as far as having “bargaining power” they are tech workers at Google. If they have even a modicum of skills they have the ultimate power - they can walk away and get another job. Heck, I’ve worked at a bunch of no name…

A single employee walking away has no power to change the status quo at google. A lot of them, however, do. That's what google and all employers wants to crush before it has a chance to coalesce.

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

#613

Post by lostmsu »

geofft wrote: post #604
scarmig wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to this. But the fact that it's a security tool being misused is what I think made for the very harsh reaction. Two scenarios: A) Rogue employee messages a bunch of internal email lists about having the right to organize B) Rogue employee configures a security extension to issue a popup saying "Happy Birthday Sundar!" every time an employee visits google.com on June 10. I am confident that A) wouldn't…

> I am confident that B) would at the least earn the employee a reprimand and plausibly get them fired. Yikes! That sounds like a dangerous place to work. If an employee with legitimate, assigned access to such a tool makes a change through normal procedures (not bypassing required code review or anything) and it's still a fireable mistake - well, I'm glad I don't work there.

You are making plenty of assumptions here.

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

#614

Post by rumanator »

SilasX wrote: post #567
scarmig wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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. True, but it seems kind of shady to come down harder on an employee based on the content of the interruption, and that content notifying of the right to organize. Like, imagine there's a documentation page for http cookies. Consider two scenarios: A) Rogue…

> True, but it seems kind of shady to come down harder on an employee based on the content of the interruption

If you hijack the company's PR to inject your own personal opinion I'm pretty sure you'd be fired from any company.

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

#615

Post by geofft »

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…

> So basically, the Google employee added arbitrary javascript

This is a little disingenuous. She's a software engineer who works on this extension. "Injecting arbitrary JavaScript" is her job.

If she bypassed code review, introduced a vulnerability, abused a known weakness to violate policy (e.g. logged into an account with signing keys to deploy manually when it's usually automated), etc. then you'd have a case. If she did her job and followed all policies about review and the only question is the content of the notification, then the way she sent it is an unfair criticism. It reeks of CFAA-style stretching of the truth about authorized access, and we as hackers shouldn't stand for it.

I wrote a command-line tool at work to automatically add a bunch of party parrots to a Slack message. This tool runs with your personal credentials, and web-scrapes your Slack access token in order to run. As a normal UNIX tool it also has access to your homedir etc. The credentials it uses can also read your private Slack DMs, access data that you can get to but I am legally forbidden from seeing, etc. - but it does none of those things. I installed it to a bin directory in everyone's path, without code review, because we have a system that explicitly allows this and it is often useful. Our security team raised a general ticket to the effect of, hm, maybe code review should be required before you stick code in everyone's PATH. Nobody is thinking of firing me for "injecting arbitrary Python" or "stealing credentials" or anything because nothing I did was against either policy or convention, even though you can make it sound horrid if you choose.

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

#616

Post by jdauriemma »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #585
jdauriemma wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define "their system" in plain language? Are you referring to unionization in particular, or are you framing a broader narrative?

I’m referring to unionization, since this is the topic of the post, but also the broader idea of top-down market regulation that includes provisions for workers rights and taxation of externalities, driven by generally left-leaning, anti-capitalist sentiment. In general, it seems Europeans expect more of their government than Americans do. Historically, Americans have tended to be more distrustful of their government…

Unionization is the topic of the post, but workers' rights are not ontologically related to statism. There are plenty of libertarian socialists and plenty of authoritarian capitalists. Some of your points are non sequitur as a result. To this point, though:

"I’m arguing that it shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that the US has produced more innovation and economic capital than European countries, partially because the regulatory environment is friendlier and more encouraging of risk."

I tend to agree, but that's not really what's at stake for businesses facing organized labor. After WWII, the (capitalist) USA controlled about half of the world's wealth and was home to a robust labor movement. In many ways the American labor movement between ca. 1850 and 1960 was hugely influential in the Western world, including and especially Western Europe. During that time, American businesses produced an astonishing amount of inventions. For these historical reasons, I think the narrative about America's relationship to organized labor is far more complex than you've asserted, unless we're supposed to pretend that American history only dates back to the Reagan administration.

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

#617

Post by stale2002 »

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?

The biggest reason is because union laws would force other people to join the union, if it got established.

I believe that you should be able to join whatever professional organization that you want.

But the moment that you try and force me to join that professional organization, with legal provisions that would cause me to lose my job if I refuse, is the moment that I go to war against you.

I will retaliate. I will fight back. Because I no longer have any sympathy for you, if you are going to cause me to lose my job because I refused to join your special club.

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

#618

Post by saghm »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #412
xenophonf wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth is being notified of your legal rights "advocacy"?

So this individual could have posted the 2nd Amendment in there and it wouldn't be advocacy? /s

I think the difference is that Google is a lot less likely to infringe on employees' right to bear arms than they are their right to organize, especially given that this message literally appeared on a website of a firm Google hired specifically to suppress organization

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

#619

Post by rumanator »

helen___keller wrote: post #321
ramblerman wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

> It wasn't her thoughts it was company policy

FTA, your personal assertion is quite wrong. Her line of work was security and at most she was tasked with posting content regarding privacy and security concerns regarding non-Google tools and services.

Her personal political views and opinions don't pass off as InfoSec topics.

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

#620

Post by helen___keller »

wolco wrote: post #609
helen___keller wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/13/googles-settlement-on-speech...

"National Labor Relations Board is requiring Google to post a list of employee rights at its headquarters". Requiring Google to post a list at hq doesn't cover other locations and/or browser notification when visiting certain sites.

I know but I was trying to answer your question

> did she add a company policy or guideline by adding what she added? I wouldn't classify a union drive as a company policy.

The answer is that it's a policy that must be posted (just not necesarily there). It wasn't a union drive.

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