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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

#161

Post by trueismywork »

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…

Sexual harassment cases are much more black and white and actionable than genocide cases.

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

#162

Post by tovej »

Shekelphile wrote: post #141
khazhoux wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Israel doesn't slaughter civilians It’s hard to square this statement against the 13-to-25,000 estimated (Assoc Press vs Al Jazeera) dead women and children in the last 6 months though. Just objectively speaking, that is a shocking number of civilian deaths even at the low end.

What? No, it's quite easy to 'square' it actually. Civilian casualties are inevitable when hamas embeds itself into the civilian populace and forces them to stay in the positions they operate from. Did you have similar outrage when the Russian air force was dropping 1000lb dumb bombs on similarly densely populated cities in Syria from 2015-2017? I guarantee you a lot more civilians died needlessly in places like alep…

There are confirmed accounts from inside the Israeli army that they select their targets algorithmically without confirmation, wait for their target to enter a residential building, and then bomb the building, accepting up to tens of civilian collateral damage to kill one "suspected Hamas operative".

Remember that Hamas operates most government functions within Gaza, so anyone seen doing organizing work to help Palestinians survive could be categorized as a "Hamas operative" by the IDF.

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

#163

Post by tovej »

trueismywork wrote: post #161
tovej wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sexual harassment cases are much more black and white and actionable than genocide cases.

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.

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

#164

Post by gedy »

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…

> Still, people supporting Israel have not been fired

I've worked in past with people who were very passionate Gaza supporters. And they received nothing but praise, but their work may have supported people involved with Oct 7th massacres. Should they be fired too?

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

#165

Post by weatherlite »

khazhoux wrote: post #60
AxEy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this qualify? https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/ucb-police-seek-... "The five people were part of a group of about 200 protesters, who on Feb. 26 broke down the door of Zellerbach Playhouse and smashed a window to prevent Israeli lawyer Ran Bar-Yoshafat from addressing a group of Jewish students. Danielle Sobkin, co-president of Bears for Israel, one of the campus groups who invited Bar-Yoshafat, said…

5 hateful racist people in a group of 200. That’s not unusual.

5 violent people out of 200 is very unusual. In fact violence in general is quite unusual and isn't widely tolerated, most violent people end up in jail.

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

#166

Post by weatherlite »

asadotzler wrote: post #119
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

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

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

#167

Post by _heimdall »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #156
_heimdall wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes people do things regardless of what's "expected" to be done to them, hoping for reason and empathy to prevail. That's not a sin and being snide about it isn't helpful. Of course its not a sin, I think the point here is that people need to be really clear of the risks before taking such an aggressive moral stance. Depending on empathy and reason to prevail while protesting on personal opinion is a crap sho…

> I think the point here is that people need to be really clear of the risks before taking such an aggressive moral stance Every thread like this, from now to the first time I visited HN so long ago, is filled with a hundred of the same comment that gets some weird satisfaction off presuming that people haven't thought out their actions. It's not unique, it's not interesting, it's not helpful, and frankly it's kind o…

Its a reasonable assumption that the person in question here didn't think it through if they're filing complaints over the firing. If you disagree with the company you work for and choose to protest disruptively at the office, and know that could lead to being fired, why file a complaint when that happens? And when filing the complaint, is the goal really to get your job back?

At least for me, I can't speak for others here, its a combination of either not thinking it through or purposely making a spectacle out of themselves just to make a spectacle. For better or worse, I don't have much patience for people making a loud show of themselves and appearing to act irrationally (ex: protesting the company you work for, acknowledging you may get fired, getting fired, then filing a complaint presumably to get your job back?).

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

#168

Post by tovej »

gedy wrote: post #164
tovej wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Still, people supporting Israel have not been fired I've worked in past with people who were very passionate Gaza supporters. And they received nothing but praise, but their work may have supported people involved with Oct 7th massacres. Should they be fired too?

I don't see how that relates to my point. My point is that repercussions are happening to one side of the issue: those opposing genocide and apartheid. Two things I was sure of everyone could agree on are some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity you can commit.

The genocide has been ongoing for multiple decades, Israel routinely bombs civilians in Gaza, and any Palestinians living in Israel have essentially no political rights and effectively fewer property rights than other people. They have color coded passports and car license plates, and are easy to target by Zionists. Zionists get tried in civil court for committing crimes, and Palestinians living on the e.g. West Bank get tried in criminal court for any offense. An offense can include walking on a certain off-limit street if you are a Palestinian (which is not off-limit to Israelis or tourists).

Israel has killed so many more people than any Palestinian resistance forces that were engaged in October 7th (Hamas, communists, etc.), so trying to center the discussion on October 7th is fairly ridiculous.

Look at these charts and tell me with a straight face that Palestinians are the violent ones:

https://www.statista.com/chart/16516/israeli-palestinian-cas...

https://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5898581/chart-israel-palestine...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-20/six-charts-that-show-...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-ham...

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

#169

Post by _heimdall »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #155
_heimdall wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's purely based on personal opinion though. I'm sure you could find people with the opposite opinion, that in a just world they would be able to go to work and do their job without having political debates forced on them. Or alternately, one could easily say that in a just world a person would leave their when they disagree with the company rather than making a spectacle out of it.

You can find people who disagree with me about allowing mixed race couples, but it isn't meaningful to say that it's "purely based on personal opinion". You might as well also comment on how I used air to breath while writing it. No one was stopped from going to work. There were no "political debates" going on, much less "forced" on people. I swear you guys are just making stuff up to get mad at. I feel like there ar…

I had seen reports that there were people disrupting others trying to work in the office. I also expect that those protesting weren't talking about the weather, they would have been raising the issues they are there to protest.

Call it what you want I guess, but that is IMO stopping work and engaging in political debate.

I'm not sure why you reach for a straw man argument about air or mixed race couples, neither of those are relevant here at all and just make your argument weaker.

Edit: also to be clear, I'm not sure who the "you guys" you're referring to are and I'd rather not be lumped in with some larger group for my opinion on one specific situation. I'm also not looking to be angry about anything and am in no way angry about this. I can have opinions without it throwing my mood out of whack.

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

#170

Post by weatherlite »

Georgelemental wrote: post #66
zeroCalories wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that there aren't Jews that support Hamas? I've known plenty of Uncle Toms and Kapos in my life.

> there aren't Jews that support Hamas There are around 16 million Jews in the world, I'm sure you can find one or two to support more or less anything. But the Uncle Tom/Kapo analogy doesn't work; there are no Jews under Hamas rule (other than the hostages ofc) so there is no incentive for any of them to betray their people in that way.

> so there is no incentive for any of them to betray their people in that way

Sure other than getting harassed, humiliated or worse on schools / campuses / workplace.

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