4 ms·

> These people were using the notion of unions to further their desire to push their POLITICS. They didnt care about safety or pay. Not true, the reason they w

> These people were using the notion of unions to further their desire to push their POLITICS. They didnt care about safety or pay. Not true, the reason they where trying to organise a union was because they did not feel safe with their employer spying on them [1]. Ironicly they where fired because other employees did not feel safe being spied on. So google obviously recognising that spying on employees is a legitimate safety concern. [1] https://time.com/5709653/google-employee-spy-tool/ https://time.com/5709653/google-employee-spy-tool/

syshum 7y ago
No employee has any privacy from the company on the Corporate owned computer and network
- Nitramp 7y ago
  ... in your country maybe :-)
- jashmatthews 7y ago
  In Germany there absolutely is this expectation. https://www.hldataprotection.com/2017/08/articles/international-eu-privacy/new-case-law-on-restrictions-for-employee-monitoring-in-the-workplace-in-germany/ https://www.hldataprotection.com/2017/08/articles/internatio... GDPR also applies to the employer and employee. You can’t log without consent, and „we might monitor stuff“ in your contract won’t hold up in court in Europe if you start invasively logging.
  - wildfire 7y ago
    Do you know of any court case testing this? My contract with a German company, specifically had clauses saying that anything on their systems is something that can inspect and/or look at. We aren't talking a small company here, but one with multiple large sites; which means multiple large workers councils ( basically a union for a specific company location ). Remember hiring in Germany has to be approved by a Worker's Council and the company has to pay for the council to receive independent legal advice as well.
    - jashmatthews 7y ago
      The one I know is this: http://juris.bundesarbeitsgericht.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bag&Art=pm&nr=19403 http://juris.bundesarbeitsgericht.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/... From the GDPR training I did for working as a software engineer in DE, this is all OK as long as its legitimately required for compliance, explicitly disclosed to the full requirements of BDSG/GDPR and not used for anything other than the stated reasons. This is a huge contrast to the US where it would likely be completely legal to look at this kind of monitoring and then fire someone under at-will employment law for reading too much news.ycombinator.
  - syshum 7y ago
    Well Google is a US Company, and this story is about US Employees so the Laws of the US apply here.
    - jashmatthews 7y ago
      Google has major offices in London, Munich and Zürich where this does apply

syshum 7y ago

No employee has any privacy from the company on the Corporate owned computer and network

Nitramp 7y ago
... in your country maybe :-)
jashmatthews 7y ago
In Germany there absolutely is this expectation. https://www.hldataprotection.com/2017/08/articles/international-eu-privacy/new-case-law-on-restrictions-for-employee-monitoring-in-the-workplace-in-germany/ https://www.hldataprotection.com/2017/08/articles/internatio... GDPR also applies to the employer and employee. You can’t log without consent, and „we might monitor stuff“ in your contract won’t hold up in court in Europe if you start invasively logging.
- wildfire 7y ago
  Do you know of any court case testing this? My contract with a German company, specifically had clauses saying that anything on their systems is something that can inspect and/or look at. We aren't talking a small company here, but one with multiple large sites; which means multiple large workers councils ( basically a union for a specific company location ). Remember hiring in Germany has to be approved by a Worker's Council and the company has to pay for the council to receive independent legal advice as well.
  - jashmatthews 7y ago
    The one I know is this: http://juris.bundesarbeitsgericht.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bag&Art=pm&nr=19403 http://juris.bundesarbeitsgericht.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/... From the GDPR training I did for working as a software engineer in DE, this is all OK as long as its legitimately required for compliance, explicitly disclosed to the full requirements of BDSG/GDPR and not used for anything other than the stated reasons. This is a huge contrast to the US where it would likely be completely legal to look at this kind of monitoring and then fire someone under at-will employment law for reading too much news.ycombinator.
- syshum 7y ago
  Well Google is a US Company, and this story is about US Employees so the Laws of the US apply here.
  - jashmatthews 7y ago
    Google has major offices in London, Munich and Zürich where this does apply