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In her group email she also asked other employees to stop working in any other related project. I mean, I don't see how google could NOT terminate her after su

by yulaow 6y ago

In her group email she also asked other employees to stop working in any other related project. I mean, I don't see how google could NOT terminate her after such an event. I am in a nation with extremly strong worker protection law but that action alone would be enough to fire you on the spot.

lostjohnny 6y ago
> but that action alone would be enough to fire you on the spot. They are not as strong as you think then. In countries where there are strong work protections law striking is a right, you don't get paid for the time you don't show up at work but you can obviously convince an entire department or an entire company workforce to go on strike, without consequences. Without it the protection is not strong, it means an entire company against the individual worker, which is obviously unfair (regardless of what you think about work protections law, Google against a single human being it's an unfair battle, that's why "strong protection" means that the worker deson't have to fight alone and can call other workers to join the fight).
- yulaow 6y ago
  As I said in another sibling post, you cannot strike that way. You have to follow procedures to organize a legit strike. If I wrote an email like that not only my union would not protect me, they would most probably tell me the employer took the right decision because I put at risk other employees positions (if they followed my reccomandations to stop working just because I said it)
tinalumfoil 6y ago
Reading the comments here I feel like HN lives in a completely parallel universe. The number of employees who have the ability to threaten to quit and not immediately get fired are very very few. Even at the executive level you can't just make ultimatums for your employment and expect that they won't consider just firing you. Even if you're the representative of a union speaking on behalf of thousands of employees you need make sure you have enough leverage before making demands like that. This not some crazy conspiracy that she got fired. It would be noteworthy if someone who did what she did didn't get fired.
- beisner 6y ago
  The reality is that the research organizations at big tech companies have always been a very different kind of labor relationship than typical rank-and-file business units. Many of the senior or otherwise high-profile researchers at FAANG companies would otherwise be professors or academics, in positions where there is essentially unbridled academic freedom and no expectation of separating personal convictions and principles from the academic environment. Google lured many of these researchers away from academic roles, with the tacit promise that they would be able to continue their research - and at times political - endeavors relatively unencumbered. Google has built a research empire on this promise, which has been responsible in part for their continued dominance in various markets. My point here is that these researchers have a lot of leverage. Advocating for action within an organization, counter to the current immediate goals of management, is only taboo (and thus “fireable”) in most companies because workers have almost no leverage, generally speaking. Not because it’s some inherently “bad” thing. If Google becomes seen as a place that fires researchers for advocating for their beliefs, especially in a capacity that they’ve been explicitly hired to do, then I think a lot of researchers would - and rightly should - reconsider whether such an environment is consistent with their values as academics and, often times, activists. Google’s research group is enormously valuable to the company, and there’s only so much reputational damage of this nature the organization can sustain before academics decide to take their talents elsewhere.
romanoderoma 6y ago
> with extremly strong worker protection law Serious question: what makes them strong if employers can't organize a simple strike?
- yulaow 6y ago
  You can organize a strike BUT this is absolutely not the way you do it. You have to follow strict procedures, work with your union and go into one or more formal negotiating tables with all the representatives of all the interested parts before even thinking about giving an ultimatum like that. And for sure you cannot communicate in that way using directly your work email
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    But can you or can't you be fired for that? Because in my country you can't be fired for using the work email for that. Communicating with other workers using their work email is absolutely allowed, courts ruled about it several times [1]. I usually receive trade unions (there are several of them) communications on my work email from the unions' work email, because they have been authorized by the company to send them. In this case she wrote directly to workers using work email, but having no union or labor protection laws it doesn't make any difference whether she could or couldn't, she could be fired anyway without having to provide any reason. In countries where there are strong laws protecting workers she would have written to the union members and they would have done the same thing: write directly to the workers. Of course she did it at Google so it is different, but here the strict procedures to call a strike are only necessary if a public service that requires continuity risk to be interrupted, otherwise unions are only required to alert the company that the strike is going to happen, but have no requirement whatsoever on how to organise it. Which sound logical to me,strong protection means IMO freedom to collectively counter the actions of the company, if that's not allowed the protection is not strong. [1] Court of Catania, Labor Section, February 2, 2009 "The RSU employee can send trade union communications by e-mail to the employees of the company during their working hours and to their company e-mail address using his personal e-mail address"
    - 6y ago

by yulaow 6y ago

lostjohnny 6y ago

> but that action alone would be enough to fire you on the spot. They are not as strong as you think then. In countries where there are strong work protections law striking is a right, you don't get paid for the time you don't show up at work but you can obviously convince an entire department or an entire company workforce to go on strike, without consequences. Without it the protection is not strong, it means an entire company against the individual worker, which is obviously unfair (regardless of what you think about work protections law, Google against a single human being it's an unfair battle, that's why "strong protection" means that the worker deson't have to fight alone and can call other workers to join the fight).

yulaow 6y ago
As I said in another sibling post, you cannot strike that way. You have to follow procedures to organize a legit strike. If I wrote an email like that not only my union would not protect me, they would most probably tell me the employer took the right decision because I put at risk other employees positions (if they followed my reccomandations to stop working just because I said it)

tinalumfoil 6y ago

Reading the comments here I feel like HN lives in a completely parallel universe. The number of employees who have the ability to threaten to quit and not immediately get fired are very very few. Even at the executive level you can't just make ultimatums for your employment and expect that they won't consider just firing you. Even if you're the representative of a union speaking on behalf of thousands of employees you need make sure you have enough leverage before making demands like that. This not some crazy conspiracy that she got fired. It would be noteworthy if someone who did what she did didn't get fired.

beisner 6y ago
The reality is that the research organizations at big tech companies have always been a very different kind of labor relationship than typical rank-and-file business units. Many of the senior or otherwise high-profile researchers at FAANG companies would otherwise be professors or academics, in positions where there is essentially unbridled academic freedom and no expectation of separating personal convictions and principles from the academic environment. Google lured many of these researchers away from academic roles, with the tacit promise that they would be able to continue their research - and at times political - endeavors relatively unencumbered. Google has built a research empire on this promise, which has been responsible in part for their continued dominance in various markets. My point here is that these researchers have a lot of leverage. Advocating for action within an organization, counter to the current immediate goals of management, is only taboo (and thus “fireable”) in most companies because workers have almost no leverage, generally speaking. Not because it’s some inherently “bad” thing. If Google becomes seen as a place that fires researchers for advocating for their beliefs, especially in a capacity that they’ve been explicitly hired to do, then I think a lot of researchers would - and rightly should - reconsider whether such an environment is consistent with their values as academics and, often times, activists. Google’s research group is enormously valuable to the company, and there’s only so much reputational damage of this nature the organization can sustain before academics decide to take their talents elsewhere.

romanoderoma 6y ago

> with extremly strong worker protection law Serious question: what makes them strong if employers can't organize a simple strike?

yulaow 6y ago
You can organize a strike BUT this is absolutely not the way you do it. You have to follow strict procedures, work with your union and go into one or more formal negotiating tables with all the representatives of all the interested parts before even thinking about giving an ultimatum like that. And for sure you cannot communicate in that way using directly your work email
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  But can you or can't you be fired for that? Because in my country you can't be fired for using the work email for that. Communicating with other workers using their work email is absolutely allowed, courts ruled about it several times [1]. I usually receive trade unions (there are several of them) communications on my work email from the unions' work email, because they have been authorized by the company to send them. In this case she wrote directly to workers using work email, but having no union or labor protection laws it doesn't make any difference whether she could or couldn't, she could be fired anyway without having to provide any reason. In countries where there are strong laws protecting workers she would have written to the union members and they would have done the same thing: write directly to the workers. Of course she did it at Google so it is different, but here the strict procedures to call a strike are only necessary if a public service that requires continuity risk to be interrupted, otherwise unions are only required to alert the company that the strike is going to happen, but have no requirement whatsoever on how to organise it. Which sound logical to me,strong protection means IMO freedom to collectively counter the actions of the company, if that's not allowed the protection is not strong. [1] Court of Catania, Labor Section, February 2, 2009 "The RSU employee can send trade union communications by e-mail to the employees of the company during their working hours and to their company e-mail address using his personal e-mail address"
  - 6y ago