Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 772 posts

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

#341

Post by gwillen »

cj wrote: post #324
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that the parent post was downvoted, because AFAICT it's a valid comparison. Is there something I'm missing?

In the context of starting a job at Google, I highly doubt you sign your employment contracts the day you show up for work. Typically employment contracts are signed and settled well before you enter the building as an employee. I would be surprised if the OP’s anecdote regarding the Googler pulled on the 1st day is in line with reality. Edit: apparently I’m wrong, the downvotes were deserved! I run hiring at my comp…

I was hired right out of school by Google in 2007. I was absolutely presented with various contract documents on day 1 to sign. In fact, I was not even given paper copies of them; I was supposed to click my agreement in an intranet signing tool.

(I couldn't say what fraction of my employment paperwork was handled in this way, but things like IP assignment were definitely included.)

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

#342

Post by gowld »

MereInterest wrote: post #203
jedberg wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not. Legal doesn't want to deal with everyone having a different employment contract. Google has always leaned towards being ok with a ton of false negatives to avoid false positives. They'd rather give up 10 good hires than make one bad one. This is just an extension of that. They don't want any exceptions and they aren't willing to make any.

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.)

What would "negotiation allowed" mean? Negotiation includes saying "no". The remedy for that is labor law, not some right to negotiate.

An interesting labor law challenge is "one side repeatedly making assertions that don't accord with contract, and I rely on those assertions, or the other side should be punished for making statements that suggest bad faith."

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

#343

Post by inetknght »

jayd16 wrote: post #227
inetknght wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't misunderstand. A deposition won't care whether things are separated by a software wall. A deposition will want everything on the device. So it's better to just not mix the two at all.

Does a deposition care when you say you didn't use your personal phone for work? Why wouldn't they ask for your so-called personal phone?

IANAL. I just have some knowledge/experience.

A deposition about a work related issue may ask to see all devices that you use in connection with your employer. So yes, a deposition will care when you say you didn't use your personal phone for work if you can prove it by it not being on any device list found with work-related services.

A device list can be obtained (usually easily, sometimes with a court order) through many services you use. G Suite, Github, Microsoft Account, Slack, Reddit, etc... these all track what devices have logged into them with your account. Signal and Telegram have your phone number. And of course any email sent has a list of addresses to which it was sent. So make sure your personal devices aren't found to be communicating with coworkers or vendors and you'll have a valid argument for "I didn't use my personal device for work".

Whether it will stick will largely depend on how good the lawyers are because that's just one way your device can be in scope for a deposition. Another way would be if any messages from coworkers are sent to/from your personal email or phone number then that can also bring your devices into the scope of a deposition. It might depend on whether the content or context of the messages suggests that they're related to the subject of the deposition and that the conversation had been moved (eg, an attempt to hide it). Again, it largely depends on the quality of the lawyers involved.

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

#344

Post by bichiliad »

drstewart wrote: post #339
hiddencost wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no. Nope. Google has been suppressing wages progressively for years. They made an illegal no poach agreement with their peers that led to one of the largest settlements in history. Just this past cycle they pushed down compensation for top performers. There was an internal slide deck someone found where they laid out plans to reduce pay by slowing down promo to senior levels. A union would mean the ability to neg…

Uh, no. Nope. http://levels.fyi will prove you wrong.

The fact that google is suppressing wages today won't show up on levels.fyi today. It will show up 5 years from now, and by then it'll be a lot harder to unionize.

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

#345

Post by gowld »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #335
MereInterest wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google already will pay for you to have a separate corporate phone (the hardware and the data plan).

Not universally.

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

#346

Post by olliej »

qmarchi wrote: post #257
YokoZar wrote: post #151

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.

She got approval from her manager and passed a code review.

What more was she meant to do?

She didn't bypass anything.

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

#347

Post by olliej »

neura wrote: post #129
VikingCoder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wait, how was this literal incident not highly embarrassing to the company? "Our internal security team has been known to put up unapproved messages in popups that only apply to specific partners/vendors". Doesn't even matter what the content was in that context. When you do consider the content/context, then we need to consider that this vendor/partner (IRI) was likely offended by the implications and the relationsh…

You mean a change that passed code review and for which she was given an ok by her manager?

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

#348

Post by austincheney »

ditonal wrote: 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…

Who is dumb enough to install employer spyware on their phone? If the company mandates such insanity then simply don’t bring your phone to work. The only way this could make any sense is if they provide you the phone AND pay for the service plan.

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

#349

Post by gowld »

MereInterest wrote: post #298
throwaway667555 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some details of an offer & acceptance of employment are trivial and not worth spoiling good will. Me: "Hey manager, can I make an expense report for this work phone?" No matter the response, I'm ok with it, because I make Google money, and that's policy. I should work towards becoming management if I want that to change. But I probably have better things to do than such a trivial disagreement. I wish corporations wer…

I think I'd agree that it is a weird spoiling of goodwill, but would put this one entirely as Google's fault. Requesting a minor change to a contract the first time you see it is the expected behavior, not an outlier. That's the entire point of contracts, in order to come to a meeting of the minds. This is the equivalent of haggling at a flea market, and being thrown out as a result.

It's the equivalent of haggling of the flea market, and being told to give back the goods you are holding because there is no agreement on the price.

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

#350

Post by bigbob2 »

sneak wrote: post #248
MereInterest wrote: post #203

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.)

If you don't like the way Google does business, you are free to not do business with them, either as an employee or customer. I don't understand your snark.

In this day and age I'm not really sure you are free not to do business with them.
Post reply on HN