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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

#731

Post by dang »

acollins1331 wrote: post #39
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…

You either can't read or you're a shill. Sucks you can't delete HN comments huh.

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#732

Post by choppaface »

scarmig wrote: post #512
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…

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…

"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"

How is this like "running into a meeting"?? Do Googlers visit the IRI website every day? Is this pop-up really a distraction to core work for engineering?

Your party line here makes the change sound like Nest shutting down the house [1] but according to the evidence it looks more like that recruiting thing that gives you a pop-up for google.com/foobar when you enter certain search queries.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY

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

#733

Post by krageon »

kawfey wrote: post #119
krageon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't political. It's about unionising.

Unionizing is inherently political. https://jacobinmag.com/2018/07/unions-collective-bargaining-...

It's really not, and the fact that you believe you have a part of the political spectrum that disagrees in good faith is something that is really wrong with whatever society you live in.

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

#734

Post by macspoofing »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #689
macspoofing wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I don't see how Google isn't in the right here. The approval process for this security tool was designed to minimize red-tape and maximize contributions because the goal was security, and the assumption was that the lax process wouldn't be abused. The clear intent of th…

> Certainly though if someone started putting in notes at the top of some of the pages to push a political agenda that would be an abuse of the process, wouldn't you say? Just to be clear: the message she communicated wasn't about some divisive social issue, it was warning employees to not break federal labor law . https://miro.medium.com/max/2000/0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg

>Just to be clear

Then be clear. We both know what she was doing, why be obtuse?

This was an activist power-play. Every article that is written about this lists the action as activism. Again, why pretend otherwise?

But if you want more clarification: it's not her job as a SECURITY ENGINEER to send warnings about federal statue compliance through a security tool. I also have yet to have anybody demonstrate that Google was breaking any federal law, and I highly doubt they would. They have entire departments that deal with legal complience.

And you linked to a labour consulting company website, which I take is where this actvist decided to helpfully issue threats to senior management through the security tool she was tasked with maintaining so they think twice about contracting them.

This is a such a clear violation on her part that I am flabbergasted that you would actually defend the move. She deserved to be fired for her arrogant stunt. You don't get to dictate compliance policy (as an early 20-something tech-sister, who knows nothing) to a company employing 50,000 people.

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

#735

Post by drewbug01 »

fargle wrote: post #721
drewbug01 wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By any measure she's not an engineer. Please explain why she's not an engineer; and please take care to include discussion of why anyone is an arbiter of the "engineer" title in a field which is largely unregulated and not credentialed. Otherwise the most charitable reading of your comment is something like "ticmasta thinks security engineers are not real engineers," and the less charitable reading is something lik…

> in a field which is largely unregulated and not credentialed. That IS why (engineers are credentialed and regulated). And where you got misogynistic is a mystery - simply using someones pronoun of choice in conjunction with something negative isn't implying anything.

Not software/devops/security engineers in the US, as I’m sure you’re aware. You and I can claim to be software “engineers” in the US and no one can reasonably tell us we’re wrong. And the domain of conversation is restricted to the US, because that’s where she worked.

The misogyny comes from the fact that this tends to only come up whenever a woman engineer is in the news. Nobody comments on HN threads saying “but he isn’t even an engineer”.

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

#737

Post by geofft »

fargle wrote: post #716
geofft wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disputing that, but that still really doesn't seem like a fireable offense. I'm objecting to the fact that she got fired for it after (presumably) making the change through appropriate channels. There are always appropriate channels to roll back a good-faith change, too. If you could concisely and cogently explain why this change is a bad idea in an HN comment, surely someone can do that in response to the ch…

Even in california, it's the companies choice what a "fireable" offense is, not the employee, nor what social media thinks "seems fireable". If you violate any company policy, or even if google does not think you are performing, you can quite legally be fired. There is very little chance of any recourse. Don't misunderstand, it's not that I'm really trying to defend google. This is to serve as a reality check and war…

> Even in california, it's the companies choice what a "fireable" offense is, not the employee, nor what social media thinks "seems fireable". If you violate any company policy, or even if google does not think you are performing, you can quite legally be fired. There is very little chance of any recourse.

I don't disagree with that either. I'm just saying that, if this is the company's choice of fireable offense if the company actually considers it normal to exercise the right to dismiss an employee (which they legally do have) for this sort of mistake, I'm glad I don't work there.

As I mentioned in another comment, I recently did something at work that you could spin in an equally sinister way, if you want. My company would be within its rights to fire me for it. My employer would be within its rights to fire me for sneezing at the wrong time, or even for no reason at all. I choose to continue working at this company because I trust that, despite their legal ability, they have no intention of actually doing so. If I ever lost that trust, I would leave.

(In fact, my employer and Google's also have very similar employment agreements about ownership of outside IP / personal open source, but I had reasons to trust my employer to act more reasonably than Google, which was part of why I chose my current employer when deciding about it and Google. In practice that trust has turned out to be well-placed, and there's now a thread on the front page about how Google loves to follow the letter of the employment agreement and arbitrarily deny IARC requests.)

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

#738

Post by kalleboo »

neonate wrote: post #648
quotemstr wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the first time either. Just before the walkout, a group of employees force-changed everyone's desktop background to an advertisement for the walkout. That particular change, while obnoxious, was harmless --- but that change could have been anything , including very difficult to detect spyware. It's essential that company-wide code and configuration changes occur only with official approval and process. Emo…

Is that true? Amazing if so. I had not heard this before.

She mentioned it herself in the Medium post

> This kind of code change happens all the time. We frequently add things to make our jobs easier or even to just share hobbies or interests. For example, someone changed the default desktop wallpaper during the walkout last year so that the Linux penguin was holding a protest sign. The company has never reacted aggressively in response to a notification such as this in the past. It’s always been a celebrated part of the culture

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

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

#739

Post by mindcrime »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #697
mindcrime wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why add one more variable to the equation? Eschew additional complexity. As long as I live in a "right to work" state and there is plenty of demand for the kind of work I do, I'd rather deal with companies on a one-to-one basis. If company treats me unfairly, I quit and go somewhere else. And while the company may not be "on your side", companies are still bound by market forces, on both sides of the equati…

If that was actually true, employee abuse would be essentially non existent, especially in large successful companies, and unions would have little reason to exist. Its not true.

> Its not true.

Real life isn't that simple. These things aren't binary, "it's true" or "it's false". There is a continuum along which things vary. The extent to which companies are compelled by market forces to treat their employees well is obviously something that varies by sector / geography / profession / etc.

I'm not saying that nobody is justified in joining a union, or that unions have no reason to exist. I'm just saying that relative to my combination of the above factors, I do not find any appeal in the idea of joining a union, when you balance it against the associated negatives.

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

#740

Post by SilasX »

fargle wrote: post #718
SilasX wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed -- so under my rubric, if Google were consistently firing people for all off-topic messages slipped into the security UX, then that would be a non-political firing. But if they came down harder on "oh don't forget NLRB" than "Happy Birthday, Sundar", then that seems political and "fired for notifying co-workers..." seems accurate. (I don't know enough of the history of Google's firings and this kind of violati…

It doesn't matter if it's "political" or not. It's completely 100% google management's choice whether the punishment for a serious (or tiny) rule infraction is anything from no action at all to firing. There is no rule that says it has to be consistent either. You can't fire a worker for organizing, or on the basis of sex, race, etc. But you CAN fire whoever you want for breaking even the most minor rules or even jus…

No, courts are run by humans and patched the "pretense" hack a long time ago.
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