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>Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected con

>Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense?

jimbob45 6y ago
Fuck what she used the tool for. At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you.
- VikingCoder 6y ago
  This was an internal tool. How will a regression in that be "highly embarrassing ... to the company"?
  - neura 6y ago
    Wait, how was this literal incident not highly embarrassing to the company? "Our internal security team has been known to put up unapproved messages in popups that only apply to specific partners/vendors". Doesn't even matter what the content was in that context. When you do consider the content/context, then we need to consider that this vendor/partner (IRI) was likely offended by the implications and the relationship between Google and the vendor/partner was likely damaged. IRI did the right thing in not publicly commenting on the issue, though, so we'll never know for sure what actual affect this incident had on that relationship.
    - VikingCoder 6y ago
      The argument was "At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you." That is a bad argument in this case, because a regression in an internal tool is not going to be "highly embarrassing to both the company and you." This was not a "regression" in any sense. I welcome any other argument on this topic. But the argument presented had a flaw that I was pointing out.
    - olliej 6y ago
      You mean a change that passed code review and for which she was given an ok by her manager?
  - jimbob45 6y ago
    Tool becomes external because a customer needed the functionality. Regression was silent until the customer found it. “Whoops, we couldn’t possibly have seen that coming”. It happens.
    - VikingCoder 6y ago
      If you turn internal tools into external tools without thoroughly reviewing them, that's a far bigger problem.
giantg2 6y ago
A little more than that even. They have the right to participate in concerted activities. But those activities must usually be performed in a way that would not impact the business during working hours. Unionization and voting etc must usually be performed off-site.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  > Unionization and voting etc must usually be performed off-site. Sounds like a non profit startup opportunity, to provide tools to empower workers to unionize and vote remotely. With remote normalizing, as long as you stay off corp gear (stay off corp gear for any activities not directly related to your employment!), your employer isn't going to know you're working towards organizing, preventing them from interfering with your organizing activities (which does them a favor, considering that's illegal under US labor law).
  - evanb 6y ago
    Unit [ https://unitworkers.com/about https://unitworkers.com/about ] is interested in helping establish small, locally-run unions.
davidcbc 6y ago
"Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities" is not a personal political opinion, it is the law.
- skybrian 6y ago
  If you want to play that game, you could spam people with the text of all sorts of interesting laws. It's still an abuse of authority. But I wonder if anyone would be have been fired if it were an April fools prank?
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Where's the evidence of "spamming?" Is Google "spamming" its employees on a regular basis with their "approved" messages?
    - scarmig 6y ago
      When a Googler visits particular domains, she gets a message from the internal security tool like "Do not upload user data to third-party services. Use secure alternatives instead." This is to prevent employees from inadvertently causing a PII incident or violating contractual obligations to external customers.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        And?
- remus 6y ago
  I think the point here is "...used internal security tools...", Not the particulars of the message she was pushing.
  - ouid 6y ago
    If that was the point, then why was the other bit included in such obvious service to the "point"?
cj 6y ago
Original link + comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21813619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21813619
esrauch 6y ago
I don't think it's so black and white: the "security tool" is a chrome extension for sending notices to employees about the site they are visiting. An analogous situation seems like if the company had a big cork board for safety/security messages and someone posted a paper with that sentence on it next to something the company posted that was perceived as anti-union. It's unclear to me if that other scenario is protected or not: I understand that you're legally protected when posting notices informing your peers of certain rights on company property, but presumably you couldn't stick such notices just anywhere.
- entangledqubit 6y ago
  I don't think the cork board analogy really works here. This sounds like a person (ab)used their position and access to the backend of a security tool (Chrome extension or not) to broadcast a non-security related message. I think we can generally agree that if they were on a team maintaining protocol buffers and they baked an unnecessary ignored message into the encoded stream (about whatever) there should be repercussions for lack of good judgement. Generally speaking, I am for workers self-organizing if they feel it is appropriate. It's not clear to me that Spiers should have been fired for this seemingly minor offense.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > broadcast a non-security related message. I don't think it was broadcast, it was displayed if one particular website was visited. That seems very analogous to permitted organizing activities such as using your employers email system to organize or posting on a cork board. > they baked an unnecessary ignored message into the encoded stream (about whatever) there should be repercussions for lack of good judgement. Would you be fired? I'm not so sure. It is pretty obvious that this firing was not unrelated to the messaging. I'm glad that the very conservative interpretation of labor law that most on HN seem to believe is not the reality of labor law in the US, although more should still be done.
- codekansas 6y ago
  Presumably in this scenario the employee was one of a small group of people that was responsible for maintaining the cork board, and used it for their political beliefs
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
> "Googlers have the right to participate in religious services. Click here to learn more about churches in your area" For those that argue she was within her rights because what she was stating was factual and consistent with the law, can you imagine getting a popup like this?
YokoZar 6y ago
> I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense? If you read the next sentence in the linked article, the NLRB disagrees: Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read, according to The Guardian. The company said Spiers had violated security policies, a statement that hurt her reputation in the tech community. Now, the NLRB has found the firing was unlawful.
- qmarchi 6y ago
  The trick is that there's an auditable trail of things that she did. Notably, she bypassed restriction in our code change system which would've required review. The policy around bypassing that is explicitly to only be used in emergencies. Again, reasonable for her to be fired.
  - inerte 6y ago
    Is there anyone else that has every bypassed this step, but wasn't fired? What's the definition of an emergency? Also it seems reasonable to me her complaint that this hurt her reputation, after all you're a Google employee and here you are smearing her in a public board. I know you're gonna say "I don't speak for my company", to which I will reply: It seems you're a Google employee, and you're speaking as a Google employee. It's distasteful that a Google employee find the need to accuse her in public like this. Is that a view shared by your co-workers? Do you all usually go in public boards to speak ill of past employees? To reveal why they were fired?
    - judge2020 6y ago
      Not a Googler, but probably "to fix the json in case someone leaves out a comma causing the notification system to no longer work".
    - splaytreemap 6y ago
      People bypass this step all the time. The difference is they all have a good faith belief their managers would approve the change if they were available. Spiers 100% knew her changes wouldn't be approved by project leadership, and she used an emergency push to bypass their review. Honestly, the fact that she has the gall to complain to the NLRB about this firing is pretty despicable. Google should be suing her for defamation.
zobzu 6y ago
They claim Google spied on Spiers and did something illegal. This might be the case, but they don't disclose what they exactly did. Maybe we'll know later on.
Miner49er 6y ago
Companies had to allow communication tools to be used for collective action when she was fired for this. The NLRB overturned that 5 year precedent a day or two after she went public about being fired. https://www.post-gazette.com/business/career-workplace/2019/12/19/Careful-about-using-company-email-for-union-business-NLRB-ruling-suggests/stories/201912180147 https://www.post-gazette.com/business/career-workplace/2019/...

jimbob45 6y ago

Fuck what she used the tool for. At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you.

VikingCoder 6y ago
This was an internal tool. How will a regression in that be "highly embarrassing ... to the company"?
- neura 6y ago
  Wait, how was this literal incident not highly embarrassing to the company? "Our internal security team has been known to put up unapproved messages in popups that only apply to specific partners/vendors". Doesn't even matter what the content was in that context. When you do consider the content/context, then we need to consider that this vendor/partner (IRI) was likely offended by the implications and the relationship between Google and the vendor/partner was likely damaged. IRI did the right thing in not publicly commenting on the issue, though, so we'll never know for sure what actual affect this incident had on that relationship.
  - VikingCoder 6y ago
    The argument was "At my job (and most jobs, I would think), if you check in any superfluous code, you’re going to be seen as a bad coder. Regressions are real and are highly embarrassing to both the company and you." That is a bad argument in this case, because a regression in an internal tool is not going to be "highly embarrassing to both the company and you." This was not a "regression" in any sense. I welcome any other argument on this topic. But the argument presented had a flaw that I was pointing out.
  - olliej 6y ago
    You mean a change that passed code review and for which she was given an ok by her manager?
- jimbob45 6y ago
  Tool becomes external because a customer needed the functionality. Regression was silent until the customer found it. “Whoops, we couldn’t possibly have seen that coming”. It happens.
  - VikingCoder 6y ago
    If you turn internal tools into external tools without thoroughly reviewing them, that's a far bigger problem.

giantg2 6y ago

A little more than that even. They have the right to participate in concerted activities. But those activities must usually be performed in a way that would not impact the business during working hours. Unionization and voting etc must usually be performed off-site.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
> Unionization and voting etc must usually be performed off-site. Sounds like a non profit startup opportunity, to provide tools to empower workers to unionize and vote remotely. With remote normalizing, as long as you stay off corp gear (stay off corp gear for any activities not directly related to your employment!), your employer isn't going to know you're working towards organizing, preventing them from interfering with your organizing activities (which does them a favor, considering that's illegal under US labor law).
- evanb 6y ago
  Unit [ https://unitworkers.com/about https://unitworkers.com/about ] is interested in helping establish small, locally-run unions.

davidcbc 6y ago

"Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities" is not a personal political opinion, it is the law.

skybrian 6y ago
If you want to play that game, you could spam people with the text of all sorts of interesting laws. It's still an abuse of authority. But I wonder if anyone would be have been fired if it were an April fools prank?
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Where's the evidence of "spamming?" Is Google "spamming" its employees on a regular basis with their "approved" messages?
  - scarmig 6y ago
    When a Googler visits particular domains, she gets a message from the internal security tool like "Do not upload user data to third-party services. Use secure alternatives instead." This is to prevent employees from inadvertently causing a PII incident or violating contractual obligations to external customers.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      And?
remus 6y ago
I think the point here is "...used internal security tools...", Not the particulars of the message she was pushing.
- ouid 6y ago
  If that was the point, then why was the other bit included in such obvious service to the "point"?

cj 6y ago

Original link + comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21813619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21813619

esrauch 6y ago

I don't think it's so black and white: the "security tool" is a chrome extension for sending notices to employees about the site they are visiting. An analogous situation seems like if the company had a big cork board for safety/security messages and someone posted a paper with that sentence on it next to something the company posted that was perceived as anti-union. It's unclear to me if that other scenario is protected or not: I understand that you're legally protected when posting notices informing your peers of certain rights on company property, but presumably you couldn't stick such notices just anywhere.

entangledqubit 6y ago
I don't think the cork board analogy really works here. This sounds like a person (ab)used their position and access to the backend of a security tool (Chrome extension or not) to broadcast a non-security related message. I think we can generally agree that if they were on a team maintaining protocol buffers and they baked an unnecessary ignored message into the encoded stream (about whatever) there should be repercussions for lack of good judgement. Generally speaking, I am for workers self-organizing if they feel it is appropriate. It's not clear to me that Spiers should have been fired for this seemingly minor offense.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > broadcast a non-security related message. I don't think it was broadcast, it was displayed if one particular website was visited. That seems very analogous to permitted organizing activities such as using your employers email system to organize or posting on a cork board. > they baked an unnecessary ignored message into the encoded stream (about whatever) there should be repercussions for lack of good judgement. Would you be fired? I'm not so sure. It is pretty obvious that this firing was not unrelated to the messaging. I'm glad that the very conservative interpretation of labor law that most on HN seem to believe is not the reality of labor law in the US, although more should still be done.
codekansas 6y ago
Presumably in this scenario the employee was one of a small group of people that was responsible for maintaining the cork board, and used it for their political beliefs

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

> "Googlers have the right to participate in religious services. Click here to learn more about churches in your area" For those that argue she was within her rights because what she was stating was factual and consistent with the law, can you imagine getting a popup like this?

YokoZar 6y ago

> I remember that case. Yeah - she deserved to be fired. She used an internal security tool to push her personal political views. How could that not be a fire-able offense? If you read the next sentence in the linked article, the NLRB disagrees: Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read, according to The Guardian. The company said Spiers had violated security policies, a statement that hurt her reputation in the tech community. Now, the NLRB has found the firing was unlawful.

qmarchi 6y ago
The trick is that there's an auditable trail of things that she did. Notably, she bypassed restriction in our code change system which would've required review. The policy around bypassing that is explicitly to only be used in emergencies. Again, reasonable for her to be fired.
- inerte 6y ago
  Is there anyone else that has every bypassed this step, but wasn't fired? What's the definition of an emergency? Also it seems reasonable to me her complaint that this hurt her reputation, after all you're a Google employee and here you are smearing her in a public board. I know you're gonna say "I don't speak for my company", to which I will reply: It seems you're a Google employee, and you're speaking as a Google employee. It's distasteful that a Google employee find the need to accuse her in public like this. Is that a view shared by your co-workers? Do you all usually go in public boards to speak ill of past employees? To reveal why they were fired?
  - judge2020 6y ago
    Not a Googler, but probably "to fix the json in case someone leaves out a comma causing the notification system to no longer work".
  - splaytreemap 6y ago
    People bypass this step all the time. The difference is they all have a good faith belief their managers would approve the change if they were available. Spiers 100% knew her changes wouldn't be approved by project leadership, and she used an emergency push to bypass their review. Honestly, the fact that she has the gall to complain to the NLRB about this firing is pretty despicable. Google should be suing her for defamation.

zobzu 6y ago

They claim Google spied on Spiers and did something illegal. This might be the case, but they don't disclose what they exactly did. Maybe we'll know later on.

Miner49er 6y ago

Companies had to allow communication tools to be used for collective action when she was fired for this. The NLRB overturned that 5 year precedent a day or two after she went public about being fired. https://www.post-gazette.com/business/career-workplace/2019/12/19/Careful-about-using-company-email-for-union-business-NLRB-ruling-suggests/stories/201912180147 https://www.post-gazette.com/business/career-workplace/2019/...