More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

Why shouldn't workplaces be more democratic? We got rid of kings everywhere else, why should we keep them around just because they're signing our paychecks?

Once you resign you do indeed quit.

But when you say you are going to resign at a future date, especially when you say you are going to resign at a future date only if certain conditions occur but will not resign if they don't... then you haven't resigned yet.

That's not special to employments. Similar applies to contracts in general, where a party tells the other party that at some future date, and/or under some condition, they are committing to exercise some clause in the contract. It's almost as if the message is a courtesy notice, an advance warning, of what the first party is going to do. They haven't done it.

In 'at will' locations the effect is much the same as quitting the same day because the company has the power to 'let you go' without giving a reason anyway - although the company must still comply with the contract, discrimination law, its normal operating procedure etc.

But even though the effect is much the same as quitting immediately - you are let go and employment ends - for anything where the difference between 'resigned' and 'terminated' matters, for example rights to government support, or loss-of-job insurance payouts, the company deciding to terminate early is a 'termination'.

Because in my country you can't be fired for using the work email for that.

Communicating with other workers using their work email is absolutely allowed, courts ruled about it several times [1].

I usually receive trade unions (there are several of them) communications on my work email from the unions' work email, because they have been authorized by the company to send them.

In this case she wrote directly to workers using work email, but having no union or labor protection laws it doesn't make any difference whether she could or couldn't, she could be fired anyway without having to provide any reason.

In countries where there are strong laws protecting workers she would have written to the union members and they would have done the same thing: write directly to the workers.

Of course she did it at Google so it is different, but here the strict procedures to call a strike are only necessary if a public service that requires continuity risk to be interrupted, otherwise unions are only required to alert the company that the strike is going to happen, but have no requirement whatsoever on how to organise it.

Which sound logical to me,strong protection means IMO freedom to collectively counter the actions of the company, if that's not allowed the protection is not strong.

[1] Court of Catania, Labor Section, February 2, 2009 "The RSU employee can send trade union communications by e-mail to the employees of the company during their working hours and to their company e-mail address using his personal e-mail address"

However it’s also true that they can simply be a reflection of an otherwise unworkable situation.

In a regular employment situation, I think that if you get to the point of wanting to issue an ultimatums, it is just an indication that the company is not a good fit for you any longer. On an individual level it’s better to recognize the signal and leave without burning bridges.

However if you role is ‘ethicist’, it is fundamentally your responsibility not to turn a blind eye to or be complicit in unethical processes, so giving an ultimatum may have been the only option available to retain integrity.

I don’t think we can declare these to be ‘missteps’ given her role. Perhaps Google is simply not capable of being ethical, and is going to fire people who challenge that. What would not be a ‘misstep’ under these circumstances?