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A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

nytimes.com

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Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#511

Post by otikik »

incompatible wrote: post #471
godmode2019 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that's not true? Islam for example is a religion, that you can not leave.

I've heard that the Catholic Church considers baptism into the church to be for life, and can make it quite difficult for anybody to remove themselves from official registers. I don't know if there are any equivalent registers in Islam that you'd have trouble deregistering from. Obviously, there are plenty of people around who consider themselves ex-Muslims or ex-Catholics, regardless of any such considerations. Like…

There’s a procedure (apostasy). That doesn’t mean they make it easy or that all the small village priests are even aware that it exists.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#512

Post by glenstein »

jollybean wrote: post #463
throwoutway wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One person? Paranoid? The author linked to a ton of external evidence, articles, and even podcasts about the cult. It’s not like the author is making up potential fiction

Podcasts about a weird group are not 'evidence', and they certainly are not evidence that some Google employees are nefarious or did anything wrong. Has there been an investigation, charges? What happened? When? To whom? Objectively. You are using the word 'evidence' when there isn't really any yet - I'm indicating 'we don't really know' a lot about this. 'The Leaders Spent Money on Lavish Things' is worse than evide…

>Were they harassing him? Doing nefarious things? Acting unprofessionally towards others?

They are alleged to have engaged in nepotistic hiring practices, for which the director of GDS had been successfully sued once already.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#513

Post by irtigor »

Beldin wrote: post #504
bseidensticker wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's literally what they said.

I'm not a native speaker; I thought proselytising = evangelising work. Did I get that exactly the wrong way around?

"Aside from" means "except for"... He said that most of them don't attempt to convert people's religion (proselytism) with Jehovah's witnesses being the exception.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#514

Post by rsynnott »

abeppu wrote: post #274

So, if the author was fired for the reasons they believe, that's pretty bad behavior. But if he had not been fired, what was management supposed to have done about the cult members working for this department? Yes, the cult's leader sounds like a pretty awful person, but he wasn't working there. What were the cult members doing in their work in the department that was clearly wrong? It's suggested that there was favo…

The alleged wine-buying is clearly corrupt if true, and in most large organizations it would result in, at least, disciplinary action.

Also, if as alleged, 12 people out of 25 were from some random small town, _any_ random small town, that probably means something is going very wrong in hiring.

The alleged cult is arguably kind of irrelevant; it's the alleged corruption that should raise eyebrows.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#515

Post by Beldin »

irtigor wrote: post #513
Beldin wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a native speaker; I thought proselytising = evangelising work. Did I get that exactly the wrong way around?

"Aside from" means "except for"... He said that most of them don't attempt to convert people's religion (proselytism) with Jehovah's witnesses being the exception.

Parse error on my side apparently: I read the "- aside from X, they do Y,... -" that "they" referred to X.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#516

Post by zaphar »

thomasahle wrote: post #356
zaphar wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power of a Union is entirely in it's ability to negotiate with the company. Your typical union you hear on the news has the power it has because of the contract their members entered into with the Company. In the case of AWU they have not negotiated a contract with Google and as a result have no legal recourse. They only power they have is PR activity.

> The power of a Union is entirely in it's ability to negotiate with the company. I often hear this misunderstanding in the US. Of course it's a within the power of a union to hire lawyers who can help defend its members against the cooperation within the rules of the law. In fact, to highly paid employees like tech workers, this kind of legal support is much more valuable than wage negotiation. Having somebody you c…

Sure, any organized group can hire a lawyer to defend it's members. We are basically saying the same thing. But that is not where the power of a Union comes from. If it were then any class action against a company by it's employees would be a "union".

Unions have power because they can negotiate as a group. Those negotiations allow them to do things like get an employment contract for all their members in a company which then affords those members legal rights they would not have under regular employment. If your union doesn't have that legal contract and does not have a practical way to negotiate one then your union only has the power of a larger voice than a single individual and no more legal rights than a single individual at the company does.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#517

Post by zaphar »

whimsicalism wrote: post #328
zaphar wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a real union. They just don't have a union contract with Google so it's a real union without teeth.

It is not recognized or registered with the NLRB, they don't merely not have a contract - they do not have the legal right to negotiate a contract either.

The technical term is a "minority union" all unions start as minority unions. It's the first part of a union's lifecycle. To register with the NRLB they need to reach a certain percentage of employees. 30% I believe is the correct number at which elections can be held. After a successful election then the NLRB can certify your Union as a collective bargaining representative. Collective bargaining is an NRLB process so you are right that until they reach the correct benchmark of members, hold an election, and get registered they can't participate in collective bargaining.

Minority Unions are still unions though. They are just new ones that have just started their lifecycle. They are a union but one without teeth.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#518

Post by trasz »

otikik wrote: post #511
incompatible wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that the Catholic Church considers baptism into the church to be for life, and can make it quite difficult for anybody to remove themselves from official registers. I don't know if there are any equivalent registers in Islam that you'd have trouble deregistering from. Obviously, there are plenty of people around who consider themselves ex-Muslims or ex-Catholics, regardless of any such considerations. Like…

There’s a procedure (apostasy). That doesn’t mean they make it easy or that all the small village priests are even aware that it exists.

According to Church themselves, apostasy does not make one leave the Church.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#519

Post by anon291 »

incompatible wrote: post #471
godmode2019 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that's not true? Islam for example is a religion, that you can not leave.

I've heard that the Catholic Church considers baptism into the church to be for life, and can make it quite difficult for anybody to remove themselves from official registers. I don't know if there are any equivalent registers in Islam that you'd have trouble deregistering from. Obviously, there are plenty of people around who consider themselves ex-Muslims or ex-Catholics, regardless of any such considerations. Like…

The difference is that Islam proscribes death for apostates very clearly in its laws, whereas catholicism does not. You're on a list, like a birth certificate. In general, you cannot force another person to erase their memory of you, but certainly not killing you would be good.

It's rare in the US, but it does happen in other parts of the world (killed for being apostates).

Not going to comment on anything else, just pointing out the obvious difference in kind here. Death is orders of magnitude worse than having your name on a list.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#520

Post by anon291 »

trasz wrote: post #518
otikik wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a procedure (apostasy). That doesn’t mean they make it easy or that all the small village priests are even aware that it exists.

According to Church themselves, apostasy does not make one leave the Church.

The tests the courts use is whether you can actually physically leave control of the organization. Having your name written down or having a spiritual belief that some ritual is permanent, etc, doesn't count as not being able to leave.

Are you asking the court to make a judgement on theological matters (i.e., the state of your soul)? Surely you can see why they don't care.

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