Employees that bring politics to work are making the workplace uncomfortable for everyone else who has a different (or perhaps a more nuanced-) opinion, but can

Employees that bring politics to work are making the workplace uncomfortable for everyone else who has a different (or perhaps a more nuanced-) opinion, but can't speak up. They are creating constant distractions that take away from the work at hand, especially when it forces others to drop their actual work and engage (either passively by reading/keeping-up or actively by spending effort getting involved). These disruptive outrages are largely irrelevant to the mission of the company except via generous stretches of logic. Those involved in workplace activism also often violate the confidentiality that is expected in the corporate context, leaking email threads and weaponizing manufactured outrage via social media or journalistic outlets against the company and dissenting employees. The dynamic that has been created is also often politically-biased (rather than neutral), particularly at large tech companies, because psychological safety is only afforded to those who align with a progressive far-left platform. Let's be clear, most of the justification (and claims of protection) for recent employee activism relies on mental gymnastics. There is no standing, for example, for random Google employees to expect to be involved in the selection of members of an AI ethics panel or in the acceptance criteria for clientele. There is no standing for employees to be involved in most of the company's decisions. This is especially true for the relatively-junior employees who are often driving these protests, since they lack the experience/skillset/visibility to have any useful/comprehensive perspective on complex corporate decisions. It is immature for them to expect involvement or transparency on-demand, and to protest decisions they disagree with that are beyond their horizon. If these activists were truly honest, they would conduct petitions via anonymous voting mechanisms (e.g. internal surveys) that let all employees vote for/against/indifferent, so that a broad voice is heard and not just a skewed vocal minority that faces no consequence. But these same activists won't do that, since these protests are not at all about making the best decisions or being inclusive, but rather about power dynamics and trying to get one's own way. Google has lots of standing to take action against these employees. If these employees don't want to work at Google, or don't display motivation around their core role/function, let them quit or fire them. If they are not performing their duties and are instead spending work time on personal agendas, fire them. If they are disrupting the workplace by constantly fomenting outrage on the Internet, fire them. If they are hurting the company's brand and working against the interests of the company (or shareholders) by engaging in self-serving political activism, fire them. If they disrespect and alienate most of their customer base by only advocating for their own worldview, fire them. All this should be uncontroversial - after all, many others will line up for those jobs and Google will be just fine.