I'm going to go ahead and assume that a similar circumvention of company policy for non-labor union purposes would not have been met with immediate termination.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that a similar circumvention of company policy for non-labor union purposes would not have been met with immediate termination. Unless Google can say that this was normal punishment or was part of a pattern of behavior, it's kinda hard for it not to look like retaliation.