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Google's position here is utterly disingenuous. They have been one of the leading forces blurring employees' home and work lives, and have reaped the productivi

Google's position here is utterly disingenuous. They have been one of the leading forces blurring employees' home and work lives, and have reaped the productivity benefits thereof. But now that it's negatively impacting Google, they're advocating for a strict separation between the two. (Limited to organizing, of course — you're still free to push commits from home or stay late to play foosball with your coworkers and talk about work.)

NovemberWhiskey 7y ago
What does organizing have to do with 'blurring ... home and work lives'? Union organizing seems like a focal case of a workplace activity. I feel many commenters didn't take the time to read the NLRB decision or understand it properly. The NLRB's position (now, and also prior to 2014) is that companies should not be compelled to allow organizers the use of corporate IT if other non-business use is not permitted. That doesn't mean that companies are allowed to have discriminatory policies that permit some non business-related IT usage but ban use for organizing. This puts email back on the same footing as employer-provided telephones, bulletin boards and photocopiers etc.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  I agree that organizing is a workplace activity. But if that’s the case, why should companies be allowed to prohibited it on corporate IT? What other job-related activities are outright banned on company-provided equipment? Google’s position is clearly that organizing is not a workplace activity. That’s why the point about breaking down the boundaries between home and work is salient. They are happy to blur those lines when it means their employees donating their personal time and equipment to benefit Google, but when it means employees organizing they try to prevent what they see as “personal” use of company property.
  - NovemberWhiskey 7y ago
    I agree that organizing is a workplace activity. But if that’s the case, why should companies be allowed to prohibited it on corporate IT? What other job-related activities are outright banned on company-provided equipment? It's a workplace activity; but it's not a business activity. By definition, companies are allowed to make rules about employee conduct and, in most cases except workplace safety/conditions, restrict activities that are not business-related when employees are working. Imagine a company has a policy that says "company mobile phones can only be used for business purposes". So if you're making a sales call or rescheduling a meeting, that's fine - it's a business purpose. On the other hand, chatting with colleagues about plans for the weekend would not be permitted; nor would calling overseas relatives and so on. The NLRB has always held that if a company had such a policy on telephone usage then it was also acceptable to restrict the use of that company mobile phone for union organizing purposes. That is because the policy is non-discriminatory. If the policy said, on the other hand, "company mobile phones should be used primarily for business purposes but reasonable personal use is permitted, but you cannot use the phone for labor organization purposes", then that policy would not be acceptable because it's discriminatory. The question is whether policies are discriminatory in treating labor organization less generously than other non-business usage. The case in 2014 created a special case for email, where even if the employer didn't permit non-business use of email, then they still had to permit use for labor organizing. The recent decision simply undoes that special case and puts email back on the same footing as (e.g.) company telephones. Given Google seems to have a vastly permissive policy on the use of company IT, it seems very unlikely they'd ever be able to restrict use of that same company IT for labor organization purposes; and there is nothing in this ruling that suggests otherwise.
Bartweiss 7y ago
It's been interesting to watch "center your social life on work" come home to roost for Google. (And to a lesser degree other large tech companies.) Unionization is the most direct concern for a company, but it's not the first time this has burned them. Actions from the walkouts to the government contract protests have been encouraged by Google's promotion of non-work connections, and enabled their inability to crack down without destroying the entire "work at Google!" narrative. It didn't get much news focus, but even the Gender Memo story tied into this - totally aside from its content, it was first posted to an internal "Skeptics" mailing list. How could it possibly have sounded like a good idea for a company to have an internal mailing list devoted to discussing controversial ideas and rejecting conventional wisdom? By odds alone, Google was eventually going to run into some outrage-sparking mess like that just by encouraging people to bring their entire lives to the office.

NovemberWhiskey 7y ago

What does organizing have to do with 'blurring ... home and work lives'? Union organizing seems like a focal case of a workplace activity. I feel many commenters didn't take the time to read the NLRB decision or understand it properly. The NLRB's position (now, and also prior to 2014) is that companies should not be compelled to allow organizers the use of corporate IT if other non-business use is not permitted. That doesn't mean that companies are allowed to have discriminatory policies that permit some non business-related IT usage but ban use for organizing. This puts email back on the same footing as employer-provided telephones, bulletin boards and photocopiers etc.

jakelazaroff 7y ago
I agree that organizing is a workplace activity. But if that’s the case, why should companies be allowed to prohibited it on corporate IT? What other job-related activities are outright banned on company-provided equipment? Google’s position is clearly that organizing is not a workplace activity. That’s why the point about breaking down the boundaries between home and work is salient. They are happy to blur those lines when it means their employees donating their personal time and equipment to benefit Google, but when it means employees organizing they try to prevent what they see as “personal” use of company property.
- NovemberWhiskey 7y ago
  I agree that organizing is a workplace activity. But if that’s the case, why should companies be allowed to prohibited it on corporate IT? What other job-related activities are outright banned on company-provided equipment? It's a workplace activity; but it's not a business activity. By definition, companies are allowed to make rules about employee conduct and, in most cases except workplace safety/conditions, restrict activities that are not business-related when employees are working. Imagine a company has a policy that says "company mobile phones can only be used for business purposes". So if you're making a sales call or rescheduling a meeting, that's fine - it's a business purpose. On the other hand, chatting with colleagues about plans for the weekend would not be permitted; nor would calling overseas relatives and so on. The NLRB has always held that if a company had such a policy on telephone usage then it was also acceptable to restrict the use of that company mobile phone for union organizing purposes. That is because the policy is non-discriminatory. If the policy said, on the other hand, "company mobile phones should be used primarily for business purposes but reasonable personal use is permitted, but you cannot use the phone for labor organization purposes", then that policy would not be acceptable because it's discriminatory. The question is whether policies are discriminatory in treating labor organization less generously than other non-business usage. The case in 2014 created a special case for email, where even if the employer didn't permit non-business use of email, then they still had to permit use for labor organizing. The recent decision simply undoes that special case and puts email back on the same footing as (e.g.) company telephones. Given Google seems to have a vastly permissive policy on the use of company IT, it seems very unlikely they'd ever be able to restrict use of that same company IT for labor organization purposes; and there is nothing in this ruling that suggests otherwise.

Bartweiss 7y ago

It's been interesting to watch "center your social life on work" come home to roost for Google. (And to a lesser degree other large tech companies.) Unionization is the most direct concern for a company, but it's not the first time this has burned them. Actions from the walkouts to the government contract protests have been encouraged by Google's promotion of non-work connections, and enabled their inability to crack down without destroying the entire "work at Google!" narrative. It didn't get much news focus, but even the Gender Memo story tied into this - totally aside from its content, it was first posted to an internal "Skeptics" mailing list. How could it possibly have sounded like a good idea for a company to have an internal mailing list devoted to discussing controversial ideas and rejecting conventional wisdom? By odds alone, Google was eventually going to run into some outrage-sparking mess like that just by encouraging people to bring their entire lives to the office.