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Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

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Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#271
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities" is not a personal political opinion, it is the law.

Yes, you have a right to participate in unionization and politics. But you don't have a right to alter company software to spread your political message. There's a big difference between holding a "Vote X" sign on a street corner on your own time, and using your position as a developer to put up "Vote X" signs on your company's website.

There is also a big difference in saying "Vote for X" vs. "You are allowed to vote."

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#272
post #3

[flagged]

I'm not sure why this was flagged. It's moderately tangential, but within the variance I'd expect from a HN discussion. It's substantial enough to chew on. If it's about 'his orangeness', I don't think it's realistic to expect everyone on a forum predomenantly frequented by tech workers and west-coastals to be able to say Trump's name without spitting, and outside of that it's a fairly reasonable description current…

I agree. If anything, it's a lucid, realistic take. And the "orange man" jokes long pre-dated Trump's presidency, it's about the same level of offensive as an unflattering SNL impression.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#273
post #9
post #3

[flagged]

Trump went against several sacred cows: tech, CIA, FBI, corporate news, military machine constant wars. I don't suspect we'll see any public negativity from major politicians towards those for a couple more decades, if in my lifetime. Biden is a company man, through and through. He's a lifer. Expect more of the same ole, same ole that got Trump elected in the first place. He's the "too big to fail" first choice. I ho…

Trump went against several sacred cows: tech, CIA, FBI, corporate news, military machine constant wars.

Did he actually, or did he just blab about them on Twitter?

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck what she used the tool for. At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you.

This was an internal tool. How will a regression in that be "highly embarrassing ... to the company"?

Tool becomes external because a customer needed the functionality. Regression was silent until the customer found it. “Whoops, we couldn’t possibly have seen that coming”.

It happens.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it great when even something as huge and life-changing as a job is subject to a contract of adhesion with no negotiation allowed? I'm sure glad to live in such a free country with great worker rights. (Sarcasm intended.)

The person redlined a contract instead of spending +$2000/yr (out of a likely $250,000+ salary) on a second personal phone. Such short-sidedness is a bad trait in an employee. Second, their protest is laudable. But their decision was consciously: "the legal department of this $xxx billion company (that spends $xx million maintaining this employment contract template) will bend to my will, or I will {quit OR relent}".…

Agreed, this is not a factory job for a few dollars here and there.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#276

The whole thread here seems to revolve around whether or not Spiers should have been fired for what she did. And while I have a clear opinion on that and had fun sparring with y'all here about it, can we also talk about how unionization is actually something that we need to think about as a profession / group of professions? The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual n…

> The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual negotiations are, best I can tell, way in the past.

Are you kidding? Salaries have never been higher in tech. Senior engineers make more than $400k (sometimes way more) at Google and other large companies.

It is likely that engineers at FAANG companies would make less money if they join a union, because the union would level people out by negotiating a standard salary for workers at similar levels at all companies. I haven't seen anyone refute this.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it great when even something as huge and life-changing as a job is subject to a contract of adhesion with no negotiation allowed? I'm sure glad to live in such a free country with great worker rights. (Sarcasm intended.)

The person redlined a contract instead of spending +$2000/yr (out of a likely $250,000+ salary) on a second personal phone. Such short-sidedness is a bad trait in an employee. Second, their protest is laudable. But their decision was consciously: "the legal department of this $xxx billion company (that spends $xx million maintaining this employment contract template) will bend to my will, or I will {quit OR relent}".…

Honestly, that is the sort of solution I would expect the legal department to suggest as a counter-offer, with Google paying the difference. Having the legal department review contract changes is something I would expect to be standard for them, not a deal breaker. It is the reason for having the legal department there in the first place.

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#278
post #40

One thing that happens in SV is: * Employer says "hey, we have all these convenient corporate app, wouldn't it be nice to be able to check work messages and work docs on your mobile? Just install our app to "corp-ify" your phone" * Employer now views your mobile device as containing sensitive company IP and therefore they have the right to snoop on anything on your phone. If you install corp on your phone, Google vie…

On Android, the work profile is supposed to solve that problem: you only add your corp account and install corp apps in work profile, and it's (at least supposed to be) isolated from your personal, default profile on your phone. This is even explicitly stated in work profile enabling flow. The spy activities described in the article is not about actual personal activities on the phone. One is looking at other's corp…

iOS offers 'work profile' support for this as well, as of mid-2018. Specifics can be found on page 8 of https://www.apple.com/business/docs/resources/Managing_Devic...

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense? If you read the next sentence in the linked article, the NLRB disagrees: Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activiti…

The trick is that there's an auditable trail of things that she did. Notably, she bypassed restriction in our code change system which would've required review. The policy around bypassing that is explicitly to only be used in emergencies. Again, reasonable for her to be fired.

Is there anyone else that has every bypassed this step, but wasn't fired? What's the definition of an emergency?

Also it seems reasonable to me her complaint that this hurt her reputation, after all you're a Google employee and here you are smearing her in a public board. I know you're gonna say "I don't speak for my company", to which I will reply: It seems you're a Google employee, and you're speaking as a Google employee. It's distasteful that a Google employee find the need to accuse her in public like this. Is that a view shared by your co-workers? Do you all usually go in public boards to speak ill of past employees? To reveal why they were fired?

Re: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges

#280
We are in general long overdue for an overhaul of how corporations are run. The current model of hierarchical decision making and control parallels the monarchies and tyrannies of old. The worker is asked to be a corporate robot for 8 hours every day - think only corporate thoughts, perform only corporate actions. Except "corporate" here is defined as "whatever the people above in the hierarchy say". There is little fairness and justice inherent in such a system - the worker's productivity enriches the corporation without the worker having a say in how their contributions should be used.

The alternative is a democratically-run corporation, one in which everyone has a stake and can influence the direction of, e.g. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117729012338178557 . In an ideal world this model would be partly enforced by law and employees' speech regarding company politics would be as protected as their political speech in public. Yes, right now a wise CEO would listen to their employees like how a wise ruler listens to their subjects, but there is no requirement for that. Tyranny is not only allowed, but rewarded and employees' only recourse is leaving one life of serfdom for another. Obviously, the current situation is better than what it used to be, but corporations are still entirely structured for the enrichment of the ruling class at the expense of the working class. We can do better, maybe.

Even this very comment I am writing, I would not dare to write under my real name for fear of retribution. I am extremely thankful for the somewhat obscuring nature of pseudonymous internet communications, but the fact that I can only voice my thoughts in this format is somewhat of a problem itself.

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