Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint • Hacker News Board

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#111

Post by tolerantgravity » Wed, May 01, 2024, 4:37 AM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #45

reactordev wrote: post #30

Rule number one of being a rebel. Don’t do it at work. Protest all you want in the public streets where you have freedom of assembly. You do NOT have that freedom within a corporate office building. Regardless of employer. A few firings and maybe they’ll get the message to take it outside. I empathize with people wanting to speak out over something they are passionate about. I do this often. Just know your venue and…

>> Rule number one of being a rebel. Don’t do it at work By doing it at work, they are risking high paying jobs, putting their careers at risk. In public. Risking something for a protest is the whole point. To the extent that they do that with their eyes open, risking high paying jobs, they are heroes. If they do that thinking the people who control Google will be fine with that and they will still keep their jobs, t…

Then they shouldn't be suing imo. Suing implies they think they shouldn't have been fired, which means their risk was not intentional. So they're not heroes.

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#112

Post by reactordev » Wed, May 01, 2024, 4:38 AM UTC

devsda wrote: post #108

reactordev wrote: post #30

Rule number one of being a rebel. Don’t do it at work. Protest all you want in the public streets where you have freedom of assembly. You do NOT have that freedom within a corporate office building. Regardless of employer. A few firings and maybe they’ll get the message to take it outside. I empathize with people wanting to speak out over something they are passionate about. I do this often. Just know your venue and…

At almost every company I've worked over the years, I had to go through countless mandatory annual trainings that effectively says expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics with coworkers/employer is not advisable, risky and can be grounds for termination in extreme cases. Either these people genuinely believed there was scope for discussion, or believed their opinion/choice of topic is a PR…

Those trainings are mandatory but usually done via an edutech platform that is basically just a QuickTime movie. Ethics, compliance, corporate policy, it’s just a 30 minute video you play while you do something else and then click the obvious multiple choice answers for 100%. Then forget everything in a week.

Lately it’s been those 2D animations using canned software and AI voice over because that’s cheaper than actually giving a damn. Animaker I believe.

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#113

Post by bluish29 » Wed, May 01, 2024, 4:41 AM UTC

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #97

someotherperson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read this into anything. > - "from the river to the sea" -> implies the destruction of Israel The Israeli vs. Palestinian conflict is, for the Palestinians, about property rights. And both sides claim the full area between the Jordan river to the Sea. Plenty of groups say the same thing, whether it's the Chinese view on Taiwan ("one China!") or the ISIS view on the Middle East (and half of Europe and Asia..)…

I wouldn’t say it’s “Israel” doing this, it’s a belief shared by many (of course not all!) Jews. When your entire ethnic group has only a single tiny country in the entire world that it can call home you tend to take threats against it very seriously. Especially since most Jews in Israel are from the Middle East and if Israel didn’t exist they would literally have no other country in the region they could live in.

> When your entire ethnic group has only a single tiny country in the entire world that it can call home

Are you implying that most of the Jews don't call where they live home?

I think this is actually a kind of narrative that actual anti-semite spread about jews in their home countries.

Most of Jews live outside Israel if you don't know that [1]

And no, most jews in Israel are not from Middle East. They are prominently Europeans [2]. And the arab jews lived in their countries for centuries before the zionist project kicked out and poisoned the whole region against them. They had troubles we have to admit but there is a reason why most of them actually migrate to US, Canada and Europe and not Israel.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#114

Post by reactordev » Wed, May 01, 2024, 4:44 AM UTC

M911T wrote: post #98

rufus_foreman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's such a thing as bad publicity for Google also.

there's also the fact that google will just keep being used by nearly everyone. at the same time, for the now fired employees, having "was a google employee" in their resumes will help them land a new job

So long as they never mention why they are a former Google employee. Instead of a current one.

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#115

Post by choppaface » Wed, May 01, 2024, 4:49 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #103

worried4future wrote: post #9

The meat of it is here: > Google “retaliated against approximately 50 employees and interfered with their Section 7 rights by terminating and/or placing them on administrative leave in response to their protected concerted activity, namely, participation (or perceived participation) in a peaceful, non-disruptive protest that was directly and explicitly connected to their terms and conditions of work,” the complaint r…

I mean, go ahead and file a complaint, right? But my read of the situation while skimming the NLRB summary [1] is this complaint is unlikely to win > Strikes unlawful because of misconduct of strikers or other loss of protection. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a “sitdown” strike, when employees simply stay in the plant and refuse to work is not protected by the law. This feels pertinent, but not a whole match.…

The key difference here is that Google really wants the DoD contract and doesn’t care who’s on the losing side of the real battle.

The Google Walkout in the wake of Andy Rubin, David Drummond etc was far more disruptive to their business yet Google on paper felt they got a great deal on the severance packages of Rubin and Drummond ($0). Or at least Sundar was proud of how he cleaned up those messes.

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#116

Post by reactordev » Wed, May 01, 2024, 4:52 AM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #45

reactordev wrote: post #30

Rule number one of being a rebel. Don’t do it at work. Protest all you want in the public streets where you have freedom of assembly. You do NOT have that freedom within a corporate office building. Regardless of employer. A few firings and maybe they’ll get the message to take it outside. I empathize with people wanting to speak out over something they are passionate about. I do this often. Just know your venue and…

>> Rule number one of being a rebel. Don’t do it at work By doing it at work, they are risking high paying jobs, putting their careers at risk. In public. Risking something for a protest is the whole point. To the extent that they do that with their eyes open, risking high paying jobs, they are heroes. If they do that thinking the people who control Google will be fine with that and they will still keep their jobs, t…

> Risking something for a protest is the whole point.

I can think of a number of protests that didn’t involve risking one’s career, livelihood, or life - that were pretty successful outside the workplace. Inside the workplace, it’s not a public venue and you don’t have the right to occupy offices and sit ins and disrupt work while expecting the company to pay you for that time.

Get realistic. They aren’t heroes. They are trespassers. Disruptive ex-employees that cost the company money. Now if they did this right outside Google offices on the streets, that’s a different story all together. That’s a public place. However, many states have at-will employment so if the company feels you no longer represent their interests, you’re done. Bye. Doesn’t matter the cause.

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#117

Post by asadotzler » Wed, May 01, 2024, 5:11 AM UTC

devsda wrote: post #108

reactordev wrote: post #30

Rule number one of being a rebel. Don’t do it at work. Protest all you want in the public streets where you have freedom of assembly. You do NOT have that freedom within a corporate office building. Regardless of employer. A few firings and maybe they’ll get the message to take it outside. I empathize with people wanting to speak out over something they are passionate about. I do this often. Just know your venue and…

At almost every company I've worked over the years, I had to go through countless mandatory annual trainings that effectively says expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics with coworkers/employer is not advisable, risky and can be grounds for termination in extreme cases. Either these people genuinely believed there was scope for discussion, or believed their opinion/choice of topic is a PR…

This was most certainly work related. It was about a Google contract which is 100% related to Google and workers at Google.

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#118

Post by asadotzler » Wed, May 01, 2024, 5:14 AM UTC

D13Fd wrote: post #100

krainboltgreene wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is true "privilege" speaking -- they don't seem to realize how fortunate they were to be in their positions in the first place. This is an extreme assumption on your part. > Companies employ you because it's a good deal for them. If you're lucky, you find a place where it is a good deal for you too. Protesting and disrupting work changes that calculus for the company. It's no longer a good deal for them, and t…

> This is an extreme assumption on your part. It's not. As I said, that's what I take from a video where a string of people had some of the best paying jobs available to any kind of worker, and at one of the most significant companies in the world right now, but don't seem to appreciate how fortunate they were to be in that situation or that they are replaceable. > hoping for reason and empathy to prevail "Reason" is…

[flagged]

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#119

Post by asadotzler » Wed, May 01, 2024, 5:20 AM UTC

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #97

someotherperson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read this into anything. > - "from the river to the sea" -> implies the destruction of Israel The Israeli vs. Palestinian conflict is, for the Palestinians, about property rights. And both sides claim the full area between the Jordan river to the Sea. Plenty of groups say the same thing, whether it's the Chinese view on Taiwan ("one China!") or the ISIS view on the Middle East (and half of Europe and Asia..)…

I wouldn’t say it’s “Israel” doing this, it’s a belief shared by many (of course not all!) Jews. When your entire ethnic group has only a single tiny country in the entire world that it can call home you tend to take threats against it very seriously. Especially since most Jews in Israel are from the Middle East and if Israel didn’t exist they would literally have no other country in the region they could live in.

[flagged]

Re: Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

#120

Post by atonse » Wed, May 01, 2024, 5:31 AM UTC

asadotzler wrote: post #117

devsda wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At almost every company I've worked over the years, I had to go through countless mandatory annual trainings that effectively says expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics with coworkers/employer is not advisable, risky and can be grounds for termination in extreme cases. Either these people genuinely believed there was scope for discussion, or believed their opinion/choice of topic is a PR…

This was most certainly work related. It was about a Google contract which is 100% related to Google and workers at Google.

But a company isn’t a democracy. They don’t have a right to protest it.

If they as employees refuse to work (what they’re paid to do), then the employer has every right to fire them. They aren’t forming a union or something.