Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges • Hacker News Board

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

#761

Post by jldugger » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

benhurmarcel wrote: post #677

jldugger wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you bring a personal laptop to work?

Sometimes your work computer is so locked down that some work tasks are made much easier by having a machine you have full access to. For example we needed to program an Arduino-type board, but that's not possible with our work laptops (no admin rights, USB ports disabled, etc); we never found a solution other than a personal laptop. Or a colleague needed to run a supplier's simulation tool that needed admin rights,…

> Sometimes your work computer is so locked down that some work tasks are made much easier by having a machine you have full access to.

This is not very persuasive. What you really have there is two work laptops.

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

#762

Post by jldugger » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #618

jldugger wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you bring a personal laptop to work?

I sometimes need to do time critical things, or use sites or services, and I'm never giving personal credentials of any kind to client/employer hardware. My personal laptop comes everywhere with me. Doesn't yours?

Nope. I find the personal phone sufficient. If corporate IT wants to know when I'm browsing linkedin, im fine with that.

Also, corporate has given itself the right to search any and all devices on me while at work, so that's double incentive to leave the home laptop at home.

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

#763

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #479

madeofpalk wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is there already is a single "mob of power", and that’s the employer. If your employer decides it’s anti-immigrant, that’s bad for you. Unions are an attempt to create a "mob" to counter the "mob" of the employer.

This part is true. The employer does have more power than most employees. However, the employer isn't permitted the kind of cross-company monopsony that unions are permitted to form. Employers would like to try this and have done so (Apple+Google famous anti-poach being an example). Anti-poaching agreements are illegal and when they take place they've been slapped down. However, unions have no such restriction. A Goo…

> However, the employer isn't permitted the kind of cross-company monopsony that unions are permitted to form.

Sure they are. That's just called industry practice. Multiple corporations can decide that certain policies towards workers all favor them, even without a formalized agreement (clandestine or not). They can even all choose to enshrine these policies through lobbying groups and PACs.

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

#764

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #728

AshWolfy wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you could get involved in the labor movement to make sure that doesnt happen, after all unions are democratic. Unions turning against immigration is very unlikely, even relatively conservative unions like the teamsters are on board now today being pro immigration is being pro union and being anti immigration is being anti union

What is your opinion as to the likelihood of your union adopting the poison pill that I mentioned above? Do you personally find it convincing that unions that are anti-xenophobic should have poison pills that protect against them becoming vehicles for xenophobia?

Your obsession with a poison pill is quite bewildering, because you're constructing an elaborately implausible scenario where:

1. union power is increased (let alone maximized to pre-70s levels) in the United States

2. the software industry is unionized

3. the unions turn hard right and start adopting 19th century attitudes towards immigrants

In this wildly fantastical situation, would you even say that a poison pill could even do anything against such a reactionary wave? If American society had somehow gone so xenophobic, unions would probably be the last thing we would have to worry about in such a dystopia. Not to mention that any legal fig leaf like your poison pill would be no more protective than a parasol in a tempest.

By-the-by, I would suspect that the essential elements of your vaunted "poison pill" is already part of the bylaws and charters of most modern unions. Take the SEIU constitution for instance: https://d3jpbvtfqku4tu.cloudfront.net/img/constitution-2016....

> We believe our strength comes from our unity, and that we must not be divided by forces of discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age, physical ability, sexual orientation, or immigration status.

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

#765

Post by esrauch » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #205

Miner49er wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, hard to say, one could certainly make an argument that it did fall under that though. It would need to be decided in court.

How could that message, on that site, fall into the scope of the plugin? I could maybe see if it was a site that employees were actually using it to perform concerted activities. If the firm was hired by the company, then they can't also represent the workers. Thus, what could employees do on that site for concerted activities? I would also guess the plugin only covers prohibited use and does not cover allowed uses (…

Is it even the case that you are legally protected when you inform you coworkers that they have constitutional rights? I would have assumed only informing them of workplace rights specifically would be protected.

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

#766

Post by gwillen » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 8:06 AM UTC

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…

As one of the people who gave a counterexample, let me just say that I don't support people downvoting you, and I would much rather live in your reality than this one. (Thank you for treating your employees better than most.)

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

#767

Post by giantg2 » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #765

giantg2 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could that message, on that site, fall into the scope of the plugin? I could maybe see if it was a site that employees were actually using it to perform concerted activities. If the firm was hired by the company, then they can't also represent the workers. Thus, what could employees do on that site for concerted activities? I would also guess the plugin only covers prohibited use and does not cover allowed uses (…

Is it even the case that you are legally protected when you inform you coworkers that they have constitutional rights? I would have assumed only informing them of workplace rights specifically would be protected.

Only if it's a concerted effort to improve the workplace and even then it depends on how it is accomplished.

The message merely stated that employees have the right to organize. Without additional context, I don't see how that is a concerted effort to improve the workplace. There would have to be a "unionize to improve health coverage, or wages, etc" type message. Otherwise, I could just stand at my desk all day and tell people as they walk by that they have the right to free speech, to own a gun, and protections from unreasonable searches, etc. It's not a concerted effort to make the workplace better, so it doesn't matter if I'm telling people about their rights (not to mention I would not be doing my job while on the clock).

Using a plugin to communicate that message is likely a subversion of it's intended purpose and would be inappropriate - similar to if she were maintaining the company intranet site and posted a banner with that information. They aren't mediums for individual communication (such as email or chat apps) but rather for company-to-employee messaging and for the sole use of the company. In this case, she misused company-to-employee infrastructure outside of its scope for her own communication purposes.

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

#768

Post by thw0rted » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

mleonhard wrote: post #424

ChuckMcM wrote: post #191

True story, a person I know who was offered a job at Google got the employment agreement (prior to arriving which was pretty standard at the time) and read that bit about "allowing Google to protect it's IP by installing a rootkit" and they red lined it to change it "May only access Google related information and no personal information." When they showed up HR started with "But that isn't how we use it, we would nev…

I guess the person didn't really want the job. If they wanted it, they could have just gotten a company phone and laptop, used them only for work, and kept them in the office. Company devices are occasionally stolen for their internal data: emails, docs, code, and config. This data can be useful to investors and competitors. Companies hire expensive people to limit the amount of data exposed in theft incidents. Under…

This is why I'm so surprised that other commenters are surprised. If you've ever worked for a Big Serious Company (especially the defense sector, but increasingly just about everywhere), they have an IT Security department, and that IT Security department has a data loss prevention plan. Part of that plan is endpoint protection software, and that endpoint protection software has to be a rootkit, by any reasonable definition of the word.

I guess the crux of the problem is that the modified/redlined language might have made sense to the GP's friend at the time, and the HR person might have thought it made sense, but you can't tell the DLP software "no personal information" -- if there's an incident and the company needs to perform a forensic investigation, they can't be responsible for determining what they're "allowed" to look at. As other commenters have said, if you don't want your employer seeing your personal data, don't put that data on the same device as your employer's data.

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

#769

Post by thw0rted » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

tareqak wrote: post #226

ChuckMcM wrote: post #191

True story, a person I know who was offered a job at Google got the employment agreement (prior to arriving which was pretty standard at the time) and read that bit about "allowing Google to protect it's IP by installing a rootkit" and they red lined it to change it "May only access Google related information and no personal information." When they showed up HR started with "But that isn't how we use it, we would nev…

I wonder if Google legal department's hires also have that clause in their contract.

I don't have any knowledge of the matter but I can say with absolute confidence that yes, of course Google's legal department employees have corporate management software on their (corporate) devices, because Google's IT security department is not run by a bunch of volunteers working for the middle school PTA.

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

#770

Post by thw0rted » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #413

I'm confused, what exactly is the allegation of illegal spying? The article just says: > Google violated US labor laws by spying on workers who were organizing employee protests, then firing two of them, according to a complaint to be filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today. And then talks about the circumstances around the firing of those employees. > “This week the NLRB issued a complaint on my beh…

I also didn't understand, because the article doesn't actually mention Google's "spying" or explain it at all. It does link to the NLRB complaint, though. It's a real slog to read through but I think the actual salient points are:

* Management "viewed an employee slide production in support of the union drive" (§7), no details but I'd assume that they somehow accessed it without an invitation?

* The firing was nominally because the employee looked at another employee's calendar, but the claim is that this rule is selectively enforced (§11b)

So the only "spying" I can figure out is if, say, one of the claimants made a Google Slides presentation about the union, then one of their bosses went poking around in the employee's Drive (?) and reading their presentations without explicit permission. If the boss abused privileged access to read what was supposed to be a "private" document, I could see how that's illegal "spying". (Although, hey, maybe don't use your employer's software to make your union presentation?)