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Google Fires Four Workers, Including Staffer Tied to Protest
- lawrenceyan 7y agoPaywalled. Would appreciate a link from a source that's readable.
- justkez 7y agoI saw it this morning via BBC - appreciate it's not the same article. 'Thanksgiving Four' say Google is punishing them: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50554931 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50554931
- masonic 7y agoThat was already submitted also. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21636361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21636361
- masonic 7y agoIt's been submitted at least eight times today from various sources, including three times by this submitter in 21 minutes. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Google%20four&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- 3xblah 7y agoTry disabling Javascript.
- alecco 7y agoArchived Washington Post, better article http://archive.ph/IuMt4 http://archive.ph/IuMt4
- neya 7y agoHey guys, at the expense of sounding stupid, please educate me - if a company A pays you a salary X to do your fucking job Y and if you use that money and time on activities Z, especially if it negatively affects company A's image / revenues, why shouldn't the company be allowed to fire you as they're losing significant revenues because you didn't fulfil your contractual obligation to perform Y that you're paid X for? I'm not taking sides nor talking about what's right, what's wrong, or whether you agree with the company's way of handing something or not. I'm talking simply from a contractual standpoint that you signed on the day of your employment. If you don't like it, why don't you just quit and then sue the company instead?
- yellowbuilding 7y agoLabor rights have a very long history worth learning about. The short of it is that profit from labor is definitional exploitation; the question is how much exploitation we consider economically useful.
- masonic 7y agoThey should be happy to not be exploited anymore, then.
- jpxw 7y agoThis is ridiculous. These engineers are on >100k$ per year and could quit and get employed almost instantly elsewhere at any time. It’s not “exploitation”.
- monocasa 7y agoJust because they make a high salary, doesn't mean they're not exploited. Remember that wage fixing scheme where the big tech companies had been found to be suppressing wages by about 20% with mutual non solicits?
- smolder 7y agoThis is obviously relative. If someone generates 200k of value and gets 100k in benefit, they are being exploited for that other 100k. That's by definition, as the parent says.
- docdeek 7y ago>> In one case, among other information they accessed and copied, an individual subscribed to the calendars of a wide range of employees outside of their work group. The individual set up notifications so that they received emails detailing the work and whereabouts of those employees, including personal matters such as 1:1s, medical appointments and family activities — all without those employees’ knowledge or consent. When the affected Googlers discovered this, many reported that they felt scared or unsafe, and requested to work from another location. Screenshots of some of their calendars, including their names and details, subsequently made their way outside the company. Yikes - this seems to go beyond labor organizing within the company.
- bobthepanda 7y agoHow can one even be able and allowed to do this? It smacks of gross incompetence on Google's part.
- hknd 7y agoGoogle has a very open culture, e.g. all documents/calendars/... are open to anyone by default. If it's private, you'll need to mark it as private and then nobody has access.
- CGamesPlay 7y agoYou should be prohibited from viewing anyone else's calendar? It's a pretty core functionality to scheduling meetings. They obviously use Google Calendar internally, where event details can be controlled with privacy settings. That said, when you're stalking someone, it's pretty easy to infer if it's an unlabelled block of time is for a 1:1, doctor's appointment, friend visiting for lunch, whatever. Yeah, the policy should be "employees are not allowed to stalk other employees". Sounds like that's what the policy actually was; I don't see any incompetency.
- bobthepanda 7y agoI think the part I’m not getting is why event details would be open by default in a work environment. If you need to schedule around someone’s times, all you need to know is if they’re busy or free. At my office this is what is displayed if you look at others’ calendars, but not details unless you’ve been invited yourself.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- telaelit 7y agoThis is just the start. As software becomes less specialized and more engineers are less skilled (ie. coming from boot camps, self taught, etc), you’ll see a lot more organizing efforts which means more union busting. Workers deserve rights, including the right to organize.
- concordDance 7y agoThis was union busting? I didn't see anywhere a mention that these employees were organizing for pay/working conditions/benefits/et
- linuxftw 7y agoThank you for disparaging self taught engineers as less skilled. God forbid we have the mental fortitude to learn something on our own. Who taught Newton calculus again? I do agree with the right to organize. Troubling times ahead.
- z92 7y agoAnyone else thinks Google is getting too much protests, walkouts, processions compared to other big companies like MS in its peak days? It even missed a defense contract of $10B because its employees didn't like it, which MS picked up happily. I wonder how it's like working there now a days.
- googleisevil6 7y agoGoogle wouldn't have won that contract anyway. Contrary to the hn echo chamber Google is a distant 3rd in cloud and that too because of brand recognition. Their offerings are subpar
- tr33house 7y agoCare to elaborate more especially on the subpar issue? Is it related to SLA? I thought their ml cloud offerings were superior
- goatinaboat 7y ago4th. Everyone always forgets Aliyun. Google is an also-ran in cloud and will probably scrap it at some point. Look out for it on https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/
- googleisevil6 7y agoHow much revenue is Aliyun? And what about the second in Chinese? (Tencent?) I do hope Aliyun starts offering in the US soon- would benefit competition.
- wanghq 7y ago> In 2018, in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) segment of the cloud, Alibaba Cloud had 43% market share while Tencent had an 11.5% market share in 2018. source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alibaba-vs-tencent-battle-cloud-013100994.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alibaba-vs-tencent-battle-clo... Aliyun (Alibaba Cloud) is doing business in US: https://alibabacloud.com/ https://alibabacloud.com/
- jstewartmobile 7y agoThe washington post version had a little more detail: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/25/google-fires-software-engineer-center-san-francisco-worker-rally/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/25/google-... Hard to muster much sympathy for anyone here--whether it be the machine, or its acolytes. These bastards all loved that sweet, sweet institutional power back when it was advancing their own agenda.
- alecco 7y ago> “To the contrary, our thorough investigation found the individuals were involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work,” according to the memo. “This includes searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs.” People who were idealists, now are turning Machiavellian.
- jstewartmobile 7y agoAfter Snowden and the Assange book, I strongly doubt that any idealists are applying to Google. My gut tells me that when the machine went their way, they were obedient little soldiers. When it didn't, they took matters into their own hands.
- Fiadliel 7y agoGoogle’s statement is, in my opinion, disingenuous. Including personal information on your work calendar without using privacy controls is pretty bad practice, though obviously some people occasionally did it. There is no indication that this information was a target of the fired employees. There is also no indication that these personal events were included in screenshots “outside the company”. And that phrase encompasses a wide range of possibilities, I suspect that Google made it so general because the specifics would have sounded more benign. The statement in general is designed to cast the four in the worst possible light.
- ggambetta 7y ago> There is no indication that this information was a target of the fired employees. This bit? "The individual set up notifications so that they received emails detailing the work and whereabouts of those employees, including personal matters such as 1:1s, medical appointments and family activities"
- H8crilA 7y agoIt's a little stalky, but yeah your work calendar is public on purpose - it's incredibly useful. People look it up before walking to your desk to chat and especially before setting up meetings. Just put a block of "busy", serves the same purpose. Nobody really cares if you're in a hospital or just running.
- koheripbal 7y agoDoes that give them the right to take a screenshot of it and send it out of the company?
- H8crilA 7y agoYou cannot take any screenshot or any document or any piece of code from any company. This is common sense, in addition to probably being a copyright issue. I'm not sure why would anyone expect to be respected by their employer without following this rule. I meant public as in "internally public".
- commandersaki 7y agoIf Heather Adkins endorses the message that these employees were terminated for sharing internal Google data to the outside, then that was probably the case. I don't think we have to care who these employees were or why they did what they did; they severely broke policy. But I'm absolutely sure there's an element of "rules for thee but not for me".
- WilTimSon 7y agoI mean, it is pretty ironic to have Google fire someone for intruding on someone's privacy... Quite a turnaround. I don't know if I fully believe their side of the story but not sure if there's much reason to think otherwise. Does Google have a long history against unions or something?
- GuB-42 7y ago> I mean, it is pretty ironic to have Google fire someone for intruding on someone's privacy... Not ironic at all. I remember seeing a Googler commenting that misusing personal data was one of the most serious violation there. And it makes sense because of all the data they collect. For now, they have been no significant leaks or incidents of that kind. And people trust them with their data for that reason. A leak would have disastrous effects, with loss of trust and lawsuits costing billions. Considering Google scale, it may even affect politics.
- 0x262d 7y agothey're just starting that long history. unions come up because companies have to increase profits and eventually, after other growth slows, that comes at the expense of their employees. the recent spate of activism against google is a symptom of that. it will only get worse as they clamp down.
- bogwog 7y agoSo in your eyes a senior Google executive is a trustworthy and unbiased person in this controversy?
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- axilmar 7y agoNo one should be held responsible for accessing something that is public. If a person puts a personal event in a calendar and leaves the event as public, it's their fault, not mine if I access it. If I leave the door of my house open, and someone enters and steals my tv, it's my fault. So, unless these four people hacked the calendars, i.e. systematically searched for and found weaknesses in the software, exploited them to get access to private calendars, they are not guilty of anything. It's obvious that Google is really scared of unionizing and their moves were done to scare the shit out of the rest of the employees. EDIT: Yes, stealing another person's belongings is theft (morally and legally wrong). The 'it's my fault' part goes to the act of getting access to something: if I leave my door open and someone walks in, it's my fault. If they steal my TV, it's their fault as well, but this does not erase my fault of leaving the door open.
- goalieca 7y ago> If I leave the door of my house open, and someone enters and steals my tv, it's my fault. Seeing a public calendar is equivalent to seeing into your neighbours house because they left the front door open. Not stealing your damn tv. Stealing the tv is clearly theft. Only your overlords at the insurance company would ever try to claim it’s your fault for someone stealing your stuff.
- koheripbal 7y agoSetting up an alert on someone's calendar is equivalent to having someone followed. Then sharing a screenshot of that calendar outside the company is like posting a video of you secretly filming them as you follow them around all day. No reasonable person would not consider that incredibly creepy behavior.
- codewiz 7y ago> If I leave the door of my house open, and someone enters and steals my tv, it's my fault. I don't think so. In fact, I don't know any jurisdiction where taking a TV from someone's house wouldn't be a crime, even if the door had been left wide open.
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- Traster 7y agoI think it's worth including here a link to the protesters statement, especially because one of the employees states that they were categorically told they were not fired for leaking company information. https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/googles-next-moonshot-union-busting-7bd2784dc690 https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/googles-next-moonshot-unio...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dataduck 7y agoI don't know if Google's story here is honest, but the two protesters' certainly aren't. They were not organizing anything to do with improving the working conditions or treatment of their co-workers - they were explicitly attempting to subvert company policy for their own political ends, in ways which are highly controversial and likely went against the wishes of many of their peers. There is no reasonable way you could call this legitimate union activity. While others have rightly pointed out that Google's statements about stalking and harassment are vague enough that they could refer to reasonable activities, I have no doubt that people engaging in this kind of political intrigue would have to resort to some kind of harassment at some point. I'm not saying that Google is right here. But the fired protesters are definitely in the wrong.
- hos234 7y agoGoogle is a political entity. Anyone controlling info flow is. There are lot of people in Google deluding themselves that this is not true, while taking decisions that effect millions of people. Who elected them? That contradiction will always create political tensions. If they don't want to be political they should stick to tech like phones and browsers and sell off Search and YouTube. Until that happens don't call polical objections and resistance wrong.
- anongraddebt 7y agoThere is a difference between 'resistance' (whatever that even means) against your own company versus against fellow employees. In what universe should a company let workers organize against fellow employees apart from simply having those workers complain to HR? This is particularly specious when organizing for 'political' reasons. This is the issue: were they organizing for the purposes of 'resisting' the company or were other employees also apart of what they were 'resisting'? If the former, then what Google did seems questionable. If more like the latter, then the people rightfully were fired.
- koheripbal 7y agoYou cannot accept a paycheck from a company, while also be trying to subvert it internally. It is crazy you don't understand that.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoDo no evil; unless the opposite affects your bottom line.
- iamtheworstdev 7y agoWorth noting that "do no evil" was officially removed from their mission statement or whatever several years ago.
- BickNowstrom 7y agoIncorrect on many fronts. It is "don't be evil". It was in their code of conduct, not mission statement. It is not removed from their code of conduct, in fact, it is the final conclusion of the document: > And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up! https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ The last edit is from 2018, not several years ago. And its updated cousin motto "Do the right thing" became more prominent. I suspect a journalist had a diff bot running on the code of conduct, created a story around it about removal, because that would actually constitute a story worth paying journalist wages for, and then the media ran with it, without doing checks of their own. And now, here you are. And I am ignoring the fact that an evil company announcing its future plans by removing references to "evil" in their mission statements is downright James Bond-level of ridiculous.
- saalweachter 7y agoAlso, "don't be evil" was originally a subversive message within Google, scrawled on whiteboards by a handful of people who were concerned about the direction of the company ~20 years ago. Nothing new under the sun, etc etc.
- nmeofthestate 7y agoAs always with these stories you have to read between the lines to work out what kind of culture-war zealots Google is having to contend with.
- throw_m239339 7y agoAnybody who interact with the US IT scene, especially the silicon valley knows what's up. From GitHub to NPM to Google it's political shitshow after political shitshow. It's rogue employees brainwashed by a cunning, sophistic and insidious ideology, transforming the workplace into a political battleground with the goal of making it impossible for people without "the right politics" to work there, under guise of "unionizing". First it was tech conferences, then open source communities, now it's IT businesses themselves that need to be in the service of that ideology. These people are trying to turn IT into the same ideological shithole they turned academia into...
- gddvhy 7y agoRight. And I don't get what their plan is. In academia they may leverage external support, e.g. someone outside makes generous donations to a university on monthly basis and then hints that if that wrong white male isn't fired or expelled, the donations might stop. Google can't be manipulated this way and obviously, these activists will be lucky to get any support outside their circles.
- thu2111 7y agoJust keep up the moral and psychological pressure, that's all it takes. Look at the constant leftward drift in academia. Not all of that is rich donors mysteriously interested in political agendas that involve increasing their own tax rate; most of it isn't. The sort of people who would politically oppose them are conservatives, who by their very nature tend to be ... conservative. That is, careful about challenging the status quo and uninterested in activism. So frequently they just stay quiet and don't talk much about their views: that's why the walkouts and Googler activists on Twitter always seem to have the same agenda. It looks like Googlers all agree but they don't, not at all. But this has an insidious impact in two forms: 1. People whose own convictions aren't that strong can be easily swayed by constant arguments of the form, "if you disagree with me you're evil and bad" because everyone wants to be good and they're not being supplied with intellectual ammo with which to fight back. 2. People who are trying to calculate the cost of resistance look around and don't see any allies, just a big angry mob, so feel they have to fold even if they disagree. The correct way to handle this sort of situation is for senior managers to have strong and relatively small-c conservative convictions, such that progressive placard-waving activism is swiftly dealt with via firings with everyone being made clear on why those people got fired (political arguments do not belong in the workplace). Google doesn't have that and we can see the result.
- DSingularity 7y ago“Show me the man and I'll show you the crime” I think our attitude should be cautiously skeptical of any Google provided reason for firing these individuals. It could very well be that their alleged behavior was technically against company policy but in line with typical Google employee behavior. It might just be a convenient reason to fire them given their unionizing efforts. I really wish a jury of peers is used to fire people in this age of disproportionate corporate power.
- memling 7y ago> I really wish a jury of peers is used to fire people in this age of disproportionate corporate power. You mean like a union? (Or at least how I imagine unions could work, by policing under/non-performing members.)
- jm4 7y agoThat’s a ridiculous idea. It’s a job, not a judicial system. I suspect our real disagreement is around your “disproportionate corporate power” remark. I believe that’s how it’s supposed to be. The people running the company have more power than the workers. If the workers don’t like it, they can go to another company they more prefer or start their own. And don’t tell me it’s not possible. Google is only 20 years old. Facebook is younger than that. Both started in college. The power lies with the corporation because that’s where the risk and responsibility is. You don’t risk much driving to your job at a big company and collecting your check every two weeks. You risk everything and take on responsibility for a lot of people when you’re the one who starts the company or who has to lead it or a large portion of it.
- neves 7y agoJust go to other company. Surely it's a perfect market economy and there's any kind of agreement that prevents you to be hired: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... There's just one way to prevent the "disproportionate corporate power", its called unions. Wait! Maybe you'll be fired if you try to create one.
- croissants 7y agoAre there any numbers for how Google employees at large actually feel about the claims made by organizers (unionization, retaliation, harassment, bad work environments, etc)? It's hard to tell from the outside how many people actually there agree with, disagree with, or are indifferent to, the efforts of the people who have been fired.
- elchin 7y agoThere aren't. The petitions are always for a given cause, not the counter-cause.
- croissants 7y agoSure. But people who think the status quo is not bad are unlikely to petition for it. So there seems to be a selection problem here.
- icotyl 7y agoYeah, I think you are in agreement. It’s worse than that though, because I’d be afraid to say anything contrary to the activist’s opinions. I don’t want to be stalked or harassed. The company is extremely tolerant of what employees say, the activists not so much.
- chooseaname 7y agoControversy aside, I wish Google would come out and say, "These employees had an 'at will' employment contract that we (Google) terminated.", and leave it at that. I'm pretty curious what would come of that, in the media and elsewhere.
- g_sch 7y agoEven with "at will" employment, workers still have some protection from termination. For example, anti-discrimination laws prohibit people from being fired for a number of reasons, including their race, gender, sexuality, etc. Another form of protection covers union activity. This is what's at issue here.
- lingnan 7y agoStill, I'd ask: why do you work for Google if you realize your value and goals are more aligned with something otherwise? By such it might actually be a good thing for one to be fired - it's not easy to make sure a company is not evil if its business motivation / culture doesn't by itself advocate for a positive non-evilness; it's better to find another company that has much simpler and better reasons for "not be evil".
- elicash 7y agoSome people don't subscribe to your belief that rather than improve your workplace you should just leave. Google created a culture and set of values and recruited based on that. So of course they shouldn't be surprised when the people who were recruited on those values try to live up to them, even when there's some push back. Nor should they be surprised when people bring additional values they may personally hold to the companies where they work. Yes, it might be "simpler" to just leave whenever you meet resistance on the job -- but it's also less rewarding. Finally, I'd add that there are no perfect workplaces. There are also shared problems across entire industries.
- altendo 7y agoIf I might add, that some employees might even see the need to speak out about issues, because if not them, who will? Leaving just gives the company a chance to replace them with someone who -will not- challenge the status quo. Some people resign in protest, and some people stay and challenge the problem. It depends on the person.
- elcaminocomplex 7y ago> Google created a culture and set of values and recruited based on that. Company culture changes. Companies change. The fact that you were told one thing or a company had a particular reputation when you joined doesn’t mean that thing will always hold true. Union busting and discrimination are illegal. Terminating someone’s at-will employment because they are acting against the company’s interest isn’t. From what I have read thus far, this situation sounds a lot more like the latter than the former despite some of the people involved claiming it’s the former. Perhaps more facts will come out to support that position, but in the meantime I am with the grandparent post. These people want to have their cake (i.e. some of the largest total compensation packages in the industry) and eat it too (force policy by protesting management choices expecting no consequences).
- OptionX 7y agoIts funny how Google liked so much to virtue signal its own pseudo-progressive agenda and hired to suit and now has it biting in the ass. One day companies, large and small will learn to stop being political as a PR move since its never worth it in the long run.
- m3kw9 7y agoNot defending Google or anything but correlation doesn’t imply causation, as Bloomberg tries to imply.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'." --Alt-text from XKCD #552
- icotyl 7y agoThe mental gymnastics some of us are using to justify the bad actions of these employees are astounding. Making documents and calendars accessible is one example of Google’s “open culture.” When these features are abused in an attempt to strong arm a company or coworkers into kowtowing to each of your demands, that’s sabotage of the company’s culture at the expense of tens of thousands of your coworkers who may not share your political views on every issue. Say your piece, keep saying it if you feel so compelled, but don’t cross the line into unethical behavior and cry “retaliation!” when you’re caught.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- balozi 7y agoSpinning this as a union busting move is disingenuous at best.
- claudeganon 7y agoJudging from the content of this thread, Google’s investments in union busting consultants and their PR strategies are paying out in spades.
- throw_m239339 7y ago> Judging from the content of this thread, Google’s investments in union busting consultants and their PR strategies are paying out in spades. Or people aren't fooled by the positive coverage for fired workers and political agitators and know what's really going on, and this has absolutely nothing to do with union busting, just individuals who can't tell a workplace from a culture war battlefield.
- claudeganon 7y agoSure, it’s the four fired workers that are conspiring with media to defame the just Google, and not the obscenely wealthy tech company with its armies of lawyers, consultants, and paid influence campaigns shaping the narrative. Seems plausible.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- neonate 7y agohttps://outline.com/4FxdG8 https://outline.com/4FxdG8
- isignal 7y agohttps://medium.com/@laurenceb/my-remarks-at-the-town-hall-on-friday-november-22-686839bb8c7c https://medium.com/@laurenceb/my-remarks-at-the-town-hall-on... for a personal account by one of the ousted engineers. Not sure who is right but it presents the other side.
- gddvhy 7y agoFirst they get fired J.D. (he who must not be named, or you would get banned by the mods if you dare to) by leaking internal docs and celebrate that like a new year. Now they leak other people's calendars, get fired for that and cry for help. I don't understand who they have as their allies.
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