Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize • Hacker News Board

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#761

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #756

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even setting aside the obvious " Two wrongs do not make a right " response, if you have to cite history from 3/4 of a century ago, well...good luck persuading people with that. On the other hand, the public can easily find news stories of major corruption and criminal involvement by unions for each of the past few decades. (Oh, and by the way, the Teamsters, whose site you linked to, figure prominently in quite a num…

Ok boomer.

> "Ok boomer."

That's the cleverest counterargument you could manage?

I choose to interpret that, as most readers will, as conceding to my arguments.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#762

Post by CharlesColeman » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #747

CharlesColeman wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't get to co-opt internal tools to post your interpretation of federal labor law, or to send a message to the management team, or whatever else her motivations were. That's why she got fired. > This kind of thing would have gotten her fired from pretty much every company in the country and for good reason - she's untrustworthy and cannot seperate her job as a Security Engineer from her activism, and I'm sorr…

>What Google-specific support do you have for this, than post-hoc rationalizations based on her firing? That's not post-hoc rationalization. That's the stated reason. That's also clearly the reason if you take an inventory of the facts on hand. >Every indication I've seen has told me that Google has developed a very unique corporate culture Yes, "unique" just like every snowflake is unique. And "Unique corporate cult…

> That's not post-hoc rationalization. That's the stated reason. That's also clearly the reason if you take an inventory of the facts on hand.

The stated reason can obviously be a post-hoc rationalization. It's entirely possible that she crossed a line her employer drew after the fact.

> That's not my position and I don't appreciate this distortion.

Well, if you could clarify, that would be great. It's clear to me that there's some moral component to your position, given your language:

>>> she's untrustworthy

>>> [she] betrayed the trust that her position entitled her to.

> She doesn't have the right to assert her interpretation of law and morality on the entire corporation.

(I should note that it's not her interpretation, it is the law.)

> I would argue her action is narcissim and attention-seeking

I does sound like you feel that her overriding moral obligation was to serve her employers to their satisfaction, and that it was a strong moral violation to take a fairly anodyne action that caused her employers some discomfort. No money was lost, no security systems breached, no confidential data exposed. The only thing that happened was a few people saw a required legal notice that her employers would rather have people forget about.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#763

Post by bluntfang » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

antpol wrote: post #728

bluntfang wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great question. Are you familiar with the historic treatment of LGBTQ+ folks?

Historically big tech companies are treating their LGBTQ+ folks the best in comparison with any other industry though I guess it’s not enough

Have any info to back that up? And just because an entity is the best at something doesn't mean they are good at it.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#764

Post by SilasX » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

fargle wrote: post #754

SilasX wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, courts are run by humans and patched the "pretense" hack a long time ago.

It's not a pretense when she broke a serious rule. Whether or not she claims she didn't, google has determined she did. So therefore it's clearly not retaliation. That's the default position. Now, there would be a high burden of proof for her to claim it was a conspiracy and it really was related to union organizing. That she did not in fact violate a rule (based on googles own interpretation). Good luck! Unless she…

It is definitely a pretense when rules are selectively enforced. You seem to think it’s the courts’ first rodeo.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#765

Post by fargle » Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 2:08 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #764

fargle wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a pretense when she broke a serious rule. Whether or not she claims she didn't, google has determined she did. So therefore it's clearly not retaliation. That's the default position. Now, there would be a high burden of proof for her to claim it was a conspiracy and it really was related to union organizing. That she did not in fact violate a rule (based on googles own interpretation). Good luck! Unless she…

It is definitely a pretense when rules are selectively enforced. You seem to think it’s the courts’ first rodeo.

No, history has shown about 95% of the time employers prevail in actions like this. The burden of proof is really high for the employee, and the company has plenty of money for lawyers. It can simply run out the clock too. So yeah, 23 years from now after the ex-engineer spends 2.6 million on legal fees, she might win her job back and lost wages.

Furthermore, google has a really easy time with "selective enforcement" They can show that people violating security rules and abusing administrative rights are always fired. Now, she can argue she didn't do this, but because of the nature of our legal system, it will be extremely hard to explain. I main, disgruntled employee abusing security? Whoever heard of such a thing. The civil judge will probably help google refer her to the FBI!

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#766

Post by georgeplusplus » Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 6:49 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #512

helen___keller wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with this at first, but according to her medium post ( https://medium.com/@ksspiers/google-fires-another-worker-for... ) "Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web" If this is true and her job is literally to create javascript notifications of company policy, then I think it's entire…

The extension is intended to inform Googlers of applications that are not approved for corp data, not just generic "employee guidelines and company policies." This is so you don't e.g. upload PII into a random unsecured S3 bucket. Yes, it's company policy, but this is more like running into a meeting and then interrupting it so you can start reciting NLRB policy than it is posting a flyer. Worse, it misappropriates a…

It sounds like you are saying SilasX was misinterpreting the policy or taking it a step too far.

That was my question, her job literally to make extensions to inform employees on policies but I was doubting that it was to make any and all notifications but only a specific set of policies like, limit personal browsing activities, or that the computer is the property of google and you consent to blah blah by it’s use.

It’s clear to me that this employee knew this was more of a political notification and took matters into their own hands.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#767

Post by Terretta » Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

drewbug01 wrote: post #735

fargle wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a field which is largely unregulated and not credentialed. That IS why (engineers are credentialed and regulated). And where you got misogynistic is a mystery - simply using someones pronoun of choice in conjunction with something negative isn't implying anything.

Not software/devops/security engineers in the US, as I’m sure you’re aware. You and I can claim to be software “engineers” in the US and no one can reasonably tell us we’re wrong. And the domain of conversation is restricted to the US, because that’s where she worked. The misogyny comes from the fact that this tends to only come up whenever a woman engineer is in the news. Nobody comments on HN threads saying “but he…

These are not equivalents: Scripter -> Coder -> Developer -> Software Engineer

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#768

Post by SilasX » Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

fargle wrote: post #765

SilasX wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is definitely a pretense when rules are selectively enforced. You seem to think it’s the courts’ first rodeo.

No, history has shown about 95% of the time employers prevail in actions like this. The burden of proof is really high for the employee, and the company has plenty of money for lawyers. It can simply run out the clock too. So yeah, 23 years from now after the ex-engineer spends 2.6 million on legal fees, she might win her job back and lost wages. Furthermore, google has a really easy time with "selective enforcement"…

Saying that selective enforcement is hard to prove is different from saying it doesn't matter, which you were originally claiming, and which is what I was disputing.

>They can show that people violating security rules and abusing administrative rights are always fired.

Yes, that agrees with what I was saying: if every message thusly inserted resulted in a firing, then it would not be fair to say she got fired "for notifying employees of their right to organize".

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#769

Post by freyr » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

drakonka wrote: post #726

freyr wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using access granted to you as a developer to alter work tools to spam controversial messages to your coworkers is wildly inappropriate and unprofessional. There's no rationalization that makes this acceptable behavior.

This is exactly what I'm talking about - that we consider a message about organising/unionising to be so controversial at all. To me that is some dystopian level weird.

It's controversial merely because it doesn't belong in a security tool that's intended to warn users about malware.

I say this as a non-management, rank-and-file employee: I don't like the idea of activists (whether I agree with their cause or not) hijacking the company's internal tools to broadcast their message. There are plenty of ways to communicate with your colleagues, there's just need to resort to that.

The worst part is that when the activists abuse the company's open tools, the likely response will be to put more restrictions down the tools. In the end, everyone loses because of one individual's thoughtless, narcissistic actions.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#770

Post by KirinDave » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

fargle wrote: post #753

KirinDave wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the lowest and most basic tech cert you can get. As opposed to... what? Do college degrees promise engineering discipline? Surely not. Many successful engineers have nothing more than a high school diploma and industry experience. This has clearly gone into sexist territory now. She's a she, and therefore her experience and education is going to be audited by arbitrary and increasingly vague standards to make…

OK, I have to rebut some of this. I have no axe to grind about whether the engineer is male, female, trans, white, black, whatever. Fact is that when I wrote this I didn't know she was a female. Don't care. How insane to claim that simple negativity toward a member of a protected group is an -ism. I'm not saying she isn't an engineer because of ANYTHING related to her sex. She's getting raked over the coals because w…

> How insane to claim that simple negativity toward a member of a protected group is an -ism. I'm not saying she isn't an engineer because of ANYTHING related to her sex.

If the only way we can distinguish your actions from sexism is via your internal state, you have a problem larger than this conversation and you should expect pushback.

> I'm clearly stating that a CompTIA+ is not sufficient to call someone an engineer. Regurgitating questionable facts does not make you an engineer. I didn't move the goalpost. But I can recognize something that isn't one.

But just before this you said there isn't a clear test. So really, it's just your feelings.

> Yes, I agree there is no litmus test for "Engineer".

This is more arbitrary goal setting to gatekeep a word. The debate is not if she is somehow an amazing engineer or a mediocre engineer, a well trained engineer or a rushed training job, well paid or not. No, that's not the debate.

The debate is, "was she given an engineering position in which she had autonomy to make changes and when she made changes a union buster didn't like, she was fired in retaliation.

If her job was strictly to type things that were handed to her in a field, this might technically evade the law. But that's obviously not her job.

You're obviously eager to categorize her as a not-engineer because (despite protestations) you're obviously eager to shut down any pro-unionization messages, even legally protected ones.

> She screwed up bad, because if there is ever any collective action, her case won't be in on it. She gave google an ironclad excuse to be fired.

I don't think this is true. She acted within her job capacity. She wrote a true and (importantly) legally protected statement. It was in a system that was specifically mean to advise workers about rights, options and obligations.

And unless she was already being evaluated for poor performance, even a single infraction is an extremely rare circumstance for dismissal in modern corporate America.