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Google workers fired for protesting Israeli contract file NLRB complaint

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

#231

Post by polski-g »

cogman10 wrote: post #218
bjourne wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says that a totalitarian attitude is desirable?? Freedom of speech implies that expressing your opinions should not cost you your job.

No it does not and it never has. Freedom of speech is a protection from the government, not other citizens. And I suspect the only reason people take this view is because the speech is something they agree with. Would you, for example, feel like Google was being totalitarian if Hitler Hank hosted a sit in protest against the company for hiring people of color and he was subsequently fired?

> Freedom of speech is a protection from the government

No, that is the First Amendment. Freedom of speech is a much larger concept.

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

#232

Post by polski-g »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #136
tolerantgravity wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In a just world they wouldn't have been fired for speaking out for what they did.

Yes, employees should be fired for trespassing.

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

#233

Post by siva7 »

runarberg wrote: post #219
lupire wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a genocide if the victims have a larger population in the same location than when it started? Not every bad thing or territorial war, even of conquest, is a genocide.

It is outlined in an 85 page filing to the ICJ—the world highest court—how this is a genocide. Your rebuttal is not a rebuttal, nobody is claiming that “every bad thing or territorial war, even of conquest, is a genocide” . People are claiming, and are being backed in said claim by several governments, international organization, the UN, and the world court, that this particular thing is a genocide.

Source? Not saying that you're fabricating bullshit but let's see.

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

#234

Post by bjourne »

cogman10 wrote: post #218
bjourne wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says that a totalitarian attitude is desirable?? Freedom of speech implies that expressing your opinions should not cost you your job.

No it does not and it never has. Freedom of speech is a protection from the government, not other citizens. And I suspect the only reason people take this view is because the speech is something they agree with. Would you, for example, feel like Google was being totalitarian if Hitler Hank hosted a sit in protest against the company for hiring people of color and he was subsequently fired?

Yes, it does. The right to free speech is not a right if exercising it costs you your livelihood. The idea that freedom of speech only restricts the government's actions is typical American myopia. George Washington didn't copyright freedom of expression and the US constitution is not the end all to human rights.

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

#235

Post by throwaway14356 »

throwaway14356 wrote: post #191

I wonder, would there be a difference if the employees had to kill women en children themselves and if so, how many steps of automation would make it?

With everyone so hung up on if to call the slaughter of woman, old people and children genocide or not the question seems fair.

There seems to be a desire to transform a rather obvious reality into something that doesn't sound so bad.

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

#236

Post by blitzar »

reactordev wrote: post #226
francisofascii wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, agree, but what about the employee in the article who wondered onto the 10th floor to check out the protest. That person wasn't actively protesting. And that person gets fired. That's not right.

Guilty by association. Again, at-will employment means they can justify it however they want to and it’s totally legal. Unless the individual is part of a union…

No, at-will employment means they don't need to justify it, however, should they decide to - then the "justification" needs to be true and legal.

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

#237

Post by [deleted] »

bjourne wrote: post #185
siva7 wrote: post #147

> “There’s been a total change in the way Google responds to employees trying to have a voice in their workplace,” the fired software engineer said. “It’s night and day from the Google of even five, 10 years ago.” Having a political voice is different than having a voice against sexual harassment at the workplace. Please don't mix things that don't belong together. Radically expressing your political voice during you…

Who says that a totalitarian attitude is desirable?? Freedom of speech implies that expressing your opinions should not cost you your job.

[deleted]

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

#238

Post by [deleted] »

tovej wrote: post #160
siva7 wrote: post #147

> “There’s been a total change in the way Google responds to employees trying to have a voice in their workplace,” the fired software engineer said. “It’s night and day from the Google of even five, 10 years ago.” Having a political voice is different than having a voice against sexual harassment at the workplace. Please don't mix things that don't belong together. Radically expressing your political voice during you…

I feel like I have to push back against the idea that it is "radical" to object to your labor being used in a genocide. Am I the only one that feels like this is a fairly straightforward moral issue, and one I would expect to -- at the very least -- be allowed to express myself about. I also think the resolution of the moral issue is fairly straightforward, but I accept that there will be multiple opinions there. Sti…

[deleted]

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

#239

Post by linearrust »

siva7 wrote: post #147

> “There’s been a total change in the way Google responds to employees trying to have a voice in their workplace,” the fired software engineer said. “It’s night and day from the Google of even five, 10 years ago.” Having a political voice is different than having a voice against sexual harassment at the workplace. Please don't mix things that don't belong together. Radically expressing your political voice during you…

> SV was very lax with this in the past. They just adjusted to how it is normally handled in corporate.

What's remarkable is that SV allowed protests against US, china, russia, anyone really. But protest against israeli war crimes is where they drew the line.

SV, media, congress, everyone supported violent protests that burned down cities. But peaceful protests in college campuses against israeli genocide is where they send in the storm troopers.

In china, they send in the storm troopers if you protest communist rule. It's interesting what we send the storm troopers for. Food for thought.

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

#240

Post by racional »

0xBDB wrote: post #228
tovej wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acting on them also has less of an impact on the bottom line, and doesn't sour the company's connections to Israeli or US military and defense industries. Corporations tend to act morally only when doing so aligns with their profit motives.

Google has explicitly denied that Project Nimbus has anything to do with defense or military use. You can disbelieve this, of course, and I assume the internal protesters did disbelieve it or at least thought the tech was dual-use (I don't know what Nimbus actually is). But assuming it's true, and also assuming for the sake of argument that Israel is guilty of genocide, I think it raises an interesting question: do o…

Google has explicitly denied that Project Nimbus has anything to do with defense or military use.

And yet the IDF and other security agencies in Israel are proudly boasted of as clients in their own press releases.

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