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

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

#3
> Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension

> “We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that it was “a serious violation.”

The only times I’ve ever seen people fired quickly in Tech without a performance improvement plan or something similar is a security violation. Be sure you always take security seriously if you like your job.

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

#5
> Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”

So basically, the Google employee added arbitrary javascript to an internal chrome extension used by Google employees that triggered a popup when employees visited a specific website.

And Google fires her with the reasoning:

> “We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that it was “a serious violation.”

I'm not at all opposed to Google employees organizing. But injecting javascript into an employer's internal chrome extension does seem like something that warrants some type of action by Google in response...

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

#6
post #3

> Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension > “We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that it was “a serious violation.” The only times I’ve ever seen people fired quickly in Tech without a performance improvement plan or something similar is a security violation.…

What a title.

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

#7
>Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”

You should get fired five times over for abusing your privileged access to modify software that runs on every employee's computer. How stupid can you be? Start a healthy discussion, don't violate trust. This just puts up a bad reputation for workers who do want to organize

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

#9
> I was doing nothing more than notifying my co-workers about Google's obligations under labor law

> Kathryn Spiers updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”

Yeah ok.

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

#10
I think the relevant test is here:

"Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”"

It sounds like the person updated an internal extension on everyone's computer to do this. I am tending to side with Google on this, that is not the right way to go about notifying co-workers of right to organize.

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