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In the EU, freedom from discrimination on the basis of political opinion is considered a fundamental right, and is mentioned as such in the European Charter of
by einhverfr 7y ago
In the EU, freedom from discrimination on the basis of political opinion is considered a fundamental right, and is mentioned as such in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Private conversations about politics thus is entirely outside the scope of what the company is allowed to care about. Public comments, for example on global email lists, would be a different topic.
- devy 7y agoDebating politics all you want outside of work.
- einhverfr 7y agoYeah, it is what my colleagues and I often do over lunch break. Since it is a break, it is outside of work, right?
- derefr 7y agoTry that argument next time you invent something on a lunch break and want the patent assigned to you :)
- blueboo 7y agoTry making the argument that the invention was developed purely over the course of lunch
- einhverfr 7y agoThe larger problem is that the IP assignment clauses are way too broad in the US. When I worked at Microsoft I had one that theoretically covered everything I wrote regardless of when, where, or on what devices. As an hourly worker, though, Microsoft was never going to exercise that due to overtime issues. I rechecked my contract and under the terms of the contract, if it is specific to my work at my employer, they could claim it, but frankly we prefer to release everything that isn't specific to our industry open source anyway, so.....
- einhverfr 7y agoI just checked my contract again. If the patent is outside the scope of my work activities, and I don't write up the application while I am at work, I don't see how they could claim it. But then Americans have these funny "all your intellectual property are belong to us" clauses in work contracts....
- einhverfr 7y agoIts worth noting my colleagues and I have very different political views when we talk over lunch but I find it very insightful to see different views and we are all on good terms over it all. And I think we do think about eachother's views and we do try to build common ground, so frankly I find it healthy.
- jdm2212 7y agoThe American political spectrum is way bigger than the political spectrum in most European countries. There's a lot more potential for deep disagreement in the US when people talk politics.
- TheGRS 7y agoI'm American and I've had plenty of political discussions on polar opposite political sides at work or with colleagues at a bar or wherever. There's two lines that should not be crossed: the obvious one is threatening someone's job due to politics, but the more nuanced one is mistrusting someone professionally based on their political affiliation or opinions. I suspect some on this discussion are also conflating political discussion at work with this incident: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/business/google-women-engineer-fired-memo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/business/google-women-eng... Sure, it's "political", but more importantly it's discriminatory and therefore unacceptable on many other levels.
- jlawson 7y agoWhat part of Damore's memo do you think was 'discriminatory' in an 'unacceptable' way? Please be specific, because this is into bizarro-world territory from my point of view. I read it and saw an attempt at proposing policies to increase female representation based on a collection of science papers about differences in behavior between men and women.
- einhverfr 7y ago>The American political spectrum is way bigger than the political spectrum in most European countries. There's a lot more potential for deep disagreement in the US when people talk politics. Ummmm.... The entire American political spectrum fits in the center-right of most European countries' political spectrums. When was the last time you saw a political discussion between a Socialist, a Social Democrat, and an old-school Christian Democrat? Here's how I describe American politics to Europeans: In the US we have two political parties. We have the Democrats which you know as the Liberal party. And then we have the Republicans which you know as the Liberal party. Yes, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama would be in the same party in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, etc.
- Excel_Wizard 7y agoPolitical opinion is a very strange protected class, and protection of it seems unenforceable to me.
- einhverfr 7y agoThe issue was that tying political opinion to jobs was what the Fascists did in the 1930s. So it's kind of a "Never Again" category. It isn't entirely enforceable but companies cannot use it to fire people based on private conversations about politics. This has come up a few times where I work actually and the answer is the same. That's off the table.
- derefr 7y agoI assume "political opinion" as in "the way you vote", not so much speech about politics (which would just be protected by rights protecting speech.) Even in the US, you have a right to voting in a way that's protected from others' observation. Or, to put it another way: if you want to hold a political opinion, and then express it by voting, but otherwise keep it completely secret from your community... that's your right.
- einhverfr 7y agoPrivate conversations are protected. So even in Germany if a report to me confides he admires Hitler I can't fire him for that. If he says so on a public channel, that is different (and depending on what is said might be criminal, but that is a time/manner/place restriction). But the goal is to hold private political discussions as much as possible above economic retaliation.
- einhverfr 7y agoA useful way to think about this is that the Supreme Court ruled the state cannot punish someone for advocating genocide in the abstract at a KKK rally, not because advocating genocide is somehow a natural right or that free speech is absolute, but because the government had previously exceeded its authority by going after political dissidents (particularly Communists) using similar logic. So free speech protections in the US for hate speech are a reaction to state abuse in the context of the US. In Europe the abuses were different so the protections are different.
- gwbas1c 7y ago> Public comments, for example on global email lists, would be a different topic If I understand Google's stance, that's what it's about.
- einhverfr 7y agoAnd to Alphabet's defense, if it is exclusively aimed at disruptive behavior then that's fine. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
- linkregister 7y agoFrom the article: > Google is also building a tool to let employees flag problematic internal posts and creating a team of moderators to monitor conversations on company chat boards, a spokeswoman said. Though the article's headline is remarkably unclear, it's apparent that Google is focusing on the written word on company equipment.
- ghobs91 7y agoGood luck proving that political differences were why you were fired.
- einhverfr 7y agoIt's also very easy to fire someone in the US compared to many other countries.