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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

#281

Post by shmatt »

linearrust wrote: post #239
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 th…

They and We are doing some extra leg work here

They were fired for blocking a senior executives private office.

Do that in the name of US, china, russia, sesame street, and you're getting fired.

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

#282

Post by shmatt »

linearrust wrote: post #242

What a difference a few years makes. Top comment here : "Don’t do it at work." Top comment a few years ago : "If you work at Google and you have participated in this protest: Thank you." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17776276 The comments back then were very supportive of google employees protesting against china's censorship. While the top comments here seem to be against google employees protesting israeli w…

Imagine if all these protesters did was to sign a letter. We could only wish, and get on with our jobs

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

#283

Post by bjourne »

devsda wrote: post #257
bjourne wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What country and what company made you undergo these "countless" training sessions? I suspect you are making stuff up.

No thanks. I'm not really keen on doxxing myself. But hey, if you are an IT employee and haven't had to go through those annoying trainings I'd be surprised and a little jealous.

Well, if you aren't keen on doxxing yourself you shouldn't use arguments that require the reader to trust you. Internet is full of liars who claim to be everything from astronauts, to law professors, to IT employees who have gone through "countless mandatory annual trainings that effectively says expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics with coworkers/employer is not advisable". I have not gone through "those annoying trainings" and since you can't offer a single shred of evidence for their existence...

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

#284

Post by racional »

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…

This is a gross misreading of what the article actually said.

The real meat the article (as reflected very clearly in its original title, not the mangled caption that was unfortunately used for the post; and throughout the article body itself) is that Google apparently fired some 20+ employees who either weren't involved the protest at all, or whose alleged participation remains unclear.

As if the higher-ups got together and said to each other: "Ya know, 28 heads just isn't enough. We need to go out and bust some more, to you know, make a point. Plus there's that sound their skull makes when hitting the pavement. I just can't enough of it!"

Google might dispute this - then again Google lies about a lot of things. We'll see how the complaint process goes.

Either way you're going off on an ancilliary aspect of the article, not its main thrust.

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

#285

Post by worried4future »

racional wrote: post #284
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…

This is a gross misreading of what the article actually said. The real meat the article (as reflected very clearly in its original title, not the mangled caption that was unfortunately used for the post; and throughout the article body itself) is that Google apparently fired some 20+ employees who either weren't involved the protest at all, or whose alleged participation remains unclear. As if the higher-ups got toge…

> Google apparently fired some 20+ employees who either weren't involved the protest at all, or whose alleged participation remains unclear

Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but there is deep information asymmetry here and google has all the advantage and must have anticipated that this would end up in discovery and litigation and that the records of the terminated people's employment would be subject to it. That means their chat history, their email history and office surveillance footage.

I have a hard time believing that google would have fired people where the sum of their recorded actions couldn't be reasonably construed to be disruptive.

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

#286

Post by InTheArena »

Given the NLRB's position on "Google's ideological echo chamber," - the likelihood that the NLBR would rule in their favor seems non-existent given their strong defense of corporate rights to punish speech at work.

(/s for those who need it)

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

#287

Post by worried4future »

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.…

I also don't think this counts as a strike, at least the actions taken do not fully fall within the protections of a strike even if they were striking for a reason for which strikes are permitted. Disruptive protest like what this was isn't a legal strike.

Anyway I have no objection to them taking things to the NLRB, I just don't think they will win. I suspect google will settle by paying some or most of the terminated employees some severance or some other token gesture and will consider themselves lucky to be rid of activist employees.

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

#288

Post by AtlasBarfed »

linearrust wrote: post #242

What a difference a few years makes. Top comment here : "Don’t do it at work." Top comment a few years ago : "If you work at Google and you have participated in this protest: Thank you." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17776276 The comments back then were very supportive of google employees protesting against china's censorship. While the top comments here seem to be against google employees protesting israeli w…

If you look at it in terms of AI, I think it makes more sense.

Google the information enabler was a clear benefit to mankind. Pretty easy to be aspirational there. Happy fun liberal improve the world thinking. Expand participation and information awareness.

Google the surveillance tool and AI merchant for governments and corporations for leveraging total surveillance? .... Yeah. But that's where the bucks are.

Google has clearly moved very far into full enshittimonification of its information. It needs compliant obedient workers to shut up and make it money. Alphabet the big ideas has pretty much totally failed, the only thing succeeding is surveillance: Android and Search. Google doesn't need free, liberal, smart thinkers. It needs order takers.

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

#289

Post by someotherperson »

weatherlite wrote: post #166
asadotzler wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What's the deal with the ethnostate ? I mean, why is a Palestinian ethnostate a good thing but a Jewish ethnostate is horrible?

Nobody advocates for a Palestinian ethnostate, it's a concession that was made to resolve the issues after the Jewish refusal of a bi-national solution that would have Jews as the minority.

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

#290

Post by DangitBobby »

D13Fd wrote: post #65
llm_nerd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to say that Google is cracking down. They did tolerate activities like this previously, but came down like a hammer on this. It seems like they are setting a precedent and giving fair warning to anyone else thinking of doing something similar. Things like this can be viral, as seen with the college protests. And the more enabled they are, the worse they get, as seen with Columbia. And to be fair the…

> I find it rather incredible. They end it by announcing that they should all be reinstated because they "did nothing wrong". They repeatedly talk as if they expected just to have their "concerns heard", to get a warning, etc. Yeah. This is true "privilege" speaking -- they don't seem to realize how fortunate they were to be in their positions in the first place. Companies employ you because it's a good deal for them…

Or it can be seen as an extension of the protest, continuing to lash out at Google for making sociopathic decisions (from their perspective) and using all the tools at their disposal to continue to make being evil less attractive.
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