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Google fires 28 employees involved in sit-in protest over $1.2B Israel contract
- 1024core 2y agoGood! Check your political beliefs at the gate when you walk in. If you don't like what your employer is doing, you are free to quit. It's a 2-way street. Every 2 weeks your employer settles their debt to you. This is a transactional relationship. If you choose to accept a paycheck, you have to accept the rules and regulations that come with working at that place. If the company is doing something illegal, you are welcome to file a whistleblower complaint and take it up with the authorities.
- testfrequency 2y ago37signals HR?
- jncfhnb 2y agoAlternatively, you could listen to, and value, your employee’s opinions
- xcv123 2y agoThey listened, and they valued the employee's opinions as not worth paying a salary for.
- jimbokun 2y agoThat doesn’t mean every employee gets a veto on any company decision.
- scrapcode 2y agoThey stormed an exec's office building and held it hostage for 10 hours. Is it that surprising that they're getting terminated?
- jncfhnb 2y agoNo not really. I just find the OP here to be a cringey radical free market sociopath
- fasthands9 2y agoI'm skeptical that the consensus among employees is that Google should abandon this project and make less money. I am part of a union where a few people showed up to a meeting to endorse a resolution on IP. The resolution passed at the meeting, and they then set an email message to the rest of the union (thousands of people) saying they wanted to hear from more people than just those that could show up on the weeknight meeting. Presumably the resolution failed because I never heard about it again. The union made no message of any kind on the issue, which is good by me since I do not work for a company that has any business making international political endorsements. I have no idea what the polling would be if you asked all Google employees, but it doesn't mean much to me that 28 people out of 25,000 in SF have this opinion.
- saagarjha 2y ago“Doing what is legal” doesn’t seem to be Google’s slogan, does it?
- negativelambda 2y ago> If you choose to accept a paycheck, you have to accept the rules and regulations... The basic argument that you are presenting here would also oppose unions fighting for better pay and conditions for workers.
- TOMDM 2y agoUnions work on the other end of that balance. By enforcing a policy you have to accept that you can't hire from the unions that disqualify you as an employer based on it.
- philistine 2y agoHopefully you never have any responsibility of setting up law outside the United States.
- TOMDM 2y agoI don't even live in the states, but sure okay buddy.
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- abeisgreat 2y agoTo the same end, when you hire human beings anticipate them standing up for what they believe in and occasionally inconveniencing your immoral business practices. Humans on both sides, opinions and your right to voice them on both sides.
- delichon 2y ago> ... you are free to quit. If I went to my boss's office, refused to leave ... for ten minutes let alone ten hours ... and harangued him with my opinions of how he is completely unethical in choosing to do business with some very lucrative customers, it couldn't be confused with anything other than quitting. I wonder if there was a different expectation among the Googlers sitting in.
- ddalex 2y agoThey managed to successfully do this thing - change company policies - in the past, they didn't perceive the change in tone and morals of the company in the last 10 years.
- TheDong 2y agoWhat a soulless perspective. Most people are not fully free to quit, having rent to pay, a work visa to maintain, or other circumstances. Most software jobs are not paying their workers a salary for them to become soulless robots. They are paying you to produce code, and to have expertise on the matters at hand. In a sense, you're getting paid so that you can tell your employer "No, this feature isn't quite right, it's easier to code this way". This black-and-white "if you accept a salary to code, you also must turn off your brain and become a mindless automaton for your owners, or else quit" is ridiculous, and reality will always have more complexity. You're of course welcome to willingly turn yourself into a robot slave in exchange for money, but I will remain a free opinionated human, regardless of whether I am taking a paycheck or not, and if the company does not want a human, they can fire me and try to replace me with someone like you, or with an AI.
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- jltsiren 2y agoCivil disobedience is a legitimate tactic. If you oppose something, you can protest against it. Openly, under your own name. And accept the consequences. Getting fired in this case.
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- klyrs 2y ago> Check your political beliefs at the gate when you walk in. Did you know, that's actually a political belief. I'm happiest when my coworkers who agree with you practice what you're preaching. That is, I'm glad if you're able to keep that drek to yourself on the job.
- amingilani 2y ago> Check your political beliefs at the gate when you walk in Why? How? It’s unreasonable to suddenly flip a switch and turn off your beliefs when you walk through a gate. > Every 2 weeks your employer settles their debt to you. This is a transactional relationship. Agreed but this doesn’t mean… > If you choose to accept a paycheck, you have to accept the rules and regulations that come with working at that place. …that you don’t have a say in your company. A company is the sum of the individuals that contribute to it. Some have more sway, especially in leadership, but that doesn’t mean folks can’t band together and influence their work place. > If the company is doing something illegal, you are welcome to file a whistleblower complaint and take it up with the authorities. Individual contributors have moral obligation that they are conscious of their contributions. Some groups drill this in: Doctors enforce this through the Hippocratic oath, Canadian engineers have the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer. However, I believe the obligation applies to everyone. Otherwise, imagine all the atrocities individuals can contribute to by just following orders[0]. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
- pixxel 2y ago> It’s unreasonable to suddenly flip a switch and turn off your beliefs when you walk through a gate. Don’t walk through the gate if you’re unable. Welcome to adulthood.
- amingilani 2y agoThat’s not adulthood. What you’re describing is impossible. You can’t suddenly change your beliefs as you enter or exit a gate. You can choose to suppress your opinions, and you may be okay with that. But that’s the same thing.
- AmalgatedAmoeba 2y agoFrom my experience, the best performing companies foster a culture of ownership. Owning the features/products you work on, the team you work with, and, to some extent, the company as a whole. The other limit is a completely detached and mercenary workforce. This is also a part of the reasoning behind ESOPs. The fact that those people didn’t feel like they had any other way of voicing their disagreements with the company’s direction (and having them heard), does not bode well for the long term future of Google. Loosing passionate people that care deeply enough about your company to criticize it is seldom a good thing.
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- richrichie 2y agoI quite prefer the transactional approach. Precisely why i detest these “team building”, “we are a family”, CSR etc moves. Lets just be pro?
- megous 2y agoSome corporates in sillicon valley have (had? wanted to have?) an aura of being more than just money making corporations. Mission, values, we're diffferent, we're the familly, don't be evil, all that crap. I guess some employees took the company bullshit seriously? You can easily blame the company for bullshitting the employees, too. :)
- jpambrun 2y agoIn truth you need to check political beliefs that aren't in line with the company's. My previous job, many were very vocal supporters of Israel and that tolerated, support for suffering Palestinians was not. It needs to wholesale. Accept all political discourse or none.
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- pipeline_peak 2y agoI really don’t understand this idea that Israel should just take any attacks coming their way.
- petee 2y agoHow does starving children solve anything? Israel had a lot of support until they decided to rampage a civilian population. What they are doing now is neither defensive nor effective.
- nolongerthere 2y ago[flagged]
- TiredOfLife 2y ago>How does starving children solve anything? Ask HAMAS, they are the ones hijacking the aid trucks at gunpoint.
- snird 2y agoThat's a lie. Israel always allowed as much aid as needed. Hamas kept stealing it to create the crisis and have useful idiots say it's genocide.
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- relaxing 2y agoCalling the cops on your own employees is beyond the pale.
- jimbokun 2y agoSurely there are some employee actions that would warrant police involvement.
- defrost 2y agoIt might seem that way but, in the US at least, it's a time honed practice with at least 150 years of past practice. Wait until the company forms a private army to keep staff in line and|or calls in the US army to assist .. even then that'd still be within the pale of the history of US labor relations. It's not a good move for many reasons but it's not "beyond the pale".
- aspenmayer 2y agoIn case anyone doubts whether the above is hyperbole - it's not. > Wait until the company forms a private army to keep staff in line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike > calls in the US army to assist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
- readthenotes1 2y agoI'm watching the Godfather. The Don would agree.
- geodel 2y agoYeah, any reasonable employer would take law in their own hand instead of involving police.
- fasthands9 2y agoThe 28 employees do not own the company. They have no right to make life difficult for everyone else who is happy to work there. Removing bad actors is good for the other employees on net. I wouldn't want to work at an office where I had no idea if my office or desk would be a safe space. Calling police is better than private security since each party knows the mediating force is independent and bound by law.
- jimbob45 2y ago“They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Sit-ins specifically shouldn’t be defacing anything. Not only should they not have brought their political opinions up at work, but it also sounds like they lost control of their protest.
- stemlord 2y ago>Not only should they not have brought their political opinions up at work Hard disagree. Not saying for a fact that I personally would have the balls to defacto give up my high paying job over it, but I won't pretend that that isn't a pathetic point of view when it is a genocide in progress that is being fought over here. At least have the wherewithal to recognize their courage and value as human beings when remarking over it pseudoanonymously on the internet, no?
- nolongerthere 2y agoCalling this war a genocide, removes all meaning from the word. If this war in which 14,000 enemy combatants have been killed out of 32,000 total casualties (and 2.1million population) then you could literally call any battle or war a genocide. Heck, by this measure, the cartels are genociding the US (>100k deaths annually from drug ODs). Cars are genociding everyone (>40k deaths in the US alone). Words have meaning and taking a word with an existing meaning and attempting to use that meaning for your own emotional argument doesn’t do you any good. It just makes people ignore you.
- runarberg 2y agoThis is an off topic tangent that gets brought up way to often in these discussion. We have a pretty clear definition under international law what constitutes a genocide. It has nothing to do with numbers or proportion but rather intent and conduct, for example the Bosnian genocide was ruled as such because of the killing of 8372 victims, while the Cambodian genocide failed to meet the criteria despite 2-3 million dead. Many international organizations and governments—including the world highest court—has stated that it is plausible that Israel is committing a genocide. This is not an emotional argument, but rather a legal argument made at the highest court as well as by experts in the field. If we want to be accurate with our words, we should indeed use the word genocide in this context.
- Timber-6539 2y agoHow long till this post gets flagged?
- hakdbha 2y ago[dead]
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- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated: Google workers arrested after protesting company's work with Israel https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40060532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40060532
- saagarjha 2y agoI have to say that HR describing the sit-in as violating their policy on retaliation is kind of darkly hilarious. Not sure I’d want to have those people in charge of actual retaliation cases if they’re this confused…
- cebert 2y agoIt’s similar to Amazon applying the “Disagree but commit” leadership principle to their RTO policy. It suggests that leadership, from the seclusion of their private offices, does not trust employees and prefers to dictate the optimal working conditions without considering individual feedback.
- ImJamal 2y agoHR was being kind calling it a sit in. From the article: "They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers". Defacing property is not part of a sit-in.
- Ahmd72 2y agoThings won't be calm till businesses actually understand that working with genocidal governments and then labelling it "it's just business" and gaslighting their employees opinions on it when they have values like "responsibility" and making employees attend these HR training for these values and then turning their back on when employees actually stand for this. Sad world on how we are all becoming complicit to this genocide based on their presumption that some people from Europe can just claim lands as theirs as their book said so.
- ethics13 2y ago[flagged]
- throwaway298398 2y agoRealistically, how badly does it harm your career when this shows up under your name and you are looking for another tech job? What's the play? Pivot to working in a more activist/NGO style job?
- Ahmd72 2y agoDepends on the employer, question is do you want to work for someone as a mindless robot as they give you a paycheck or for someone that actually takes personal responsibility when things go wrong. At the end of the day most businesses would choose money
- dmix 2y agoMost companies aren't looking to hire adults who think they are still in college and think doing a sit-in in the deans office is important use of their time and an effective tactic. Let alone people getting arrested for trespassing. Some hiring managers might like their tweets and show support in their personal time but when it comes down to actually hiring them they'll wonder if this person will be disruptive and constantly bring their personal activist life into the workplace, making other employees lives difficult, lack self control and say the wrong thing to customers, etc.
- whamlastxmas 2y agoYou can belittle them but they literally made national headlines with their actions
- Ahmd72 2y agoSurprisingly we are well aware about Whatsapp groups which surfaced few months ago where executives and other high position holders of tech companies targeted tech works who were just posting on their personal regarding this. Why didn't something like that make national headlines and pushed from more accountability? Easy to point finger at employees when employers have the upper hand
- 2y ago
- richrichie 2y agoPlease answer truthfully. If this sit in were by a group of employees protesting climate change effects of Google’s data-centers and rampant frivolous training of neural networks by anyone, will HR do this? Or that matter any of approved cause de jour (LGBTQ+, Trump, Police brutality against black men, etc).
- tgma 2y agoI'm fairly sure if Google Google you can't hide — we charge you with genocide is part of your chant you would be promptly terminated regardless of the causes you listed above. Rightfully so.
- richrichie 2y agoI support Google firing them. My point is that climate change, LGBTQ+, Antifa, BLM, etc will be treated very differently. Google won’t dare to fire them in those cases. For example, extinction rebellion crazies get essentially free pass to do whatever they want.
- mr-ron 2y agoUnless theres a similar situation where there is a similar protest for those causes, and Google does not fire them, then you are just making an empty hypothetical.
- TiredOfLife 2y agoGoogle fired James Damore for writing a memo.
- CydeWeys 2y agoHe did a lot more than that.
- bitcharmer 2y agoWhat more did he do?
- ronhav3 2y ago[flagged]
- yread 2y agoNot all Jewish people support genocide
- snird 2y agoThe lie of "genocide" again. Genocide is what the Palestinians attempted - killing civilians, burning babies, and raping teenage girls. Losing a war you started isn't genocide.
- jpambrun 2y agoAn authority on the matter, the international court, concluded it is credible that genocide taking place by accepting the case. We don't have to argue on this anymore. It is not a lie, it is a credible allegation.
- snird 2y agoNo, it did not. You made that up. Read their decision again.
- jpambrun 2y agoThis is too much of a burden to ask. All reputable media announced that they accepted the case and this is a widely known and accepted fact. That they accepted the case is my only claim. It you found something interesting from the court documentation it is on you to bring it forward, not mearly to claim something is a large body of work may be favorable to your argument. You are just muddying the water. This is the tactic of those on the loosing side of an argument.
- catlover76 2y ago[dead]
- xchip 2y agoThe contract was for the Israel's military (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nimbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nimbus) All my respect for the people who put their ethics and integrity before money.
- snird 2y ago[flagged]
- defrost 2y agoShe talks about Emmett Till, Vincent Chen and Rassenschande (anti-miscegenation from Nazi German) in that tweet with no mention of Jewish women ... How does that "justify mass rape of jewish women" ?
- xchip 2y agoAgreed.
- yterdy 2y agoShe's saying that the alleged Oct. 7th rapes (or at least their characterization as widespread) are a hoax, echoing previous hoaxes. Without wading in too deeply, I do think that the fog of war makes conclusions difficult, and an investigation after all this is over is warranted. I do also think it's very disingenuous to point to rape as a crime exclusive to Hamas when sexual assault of Palestinian prisoners happens regularly in Israeli jails. Suffice it to say, the statement above doesn't disqualify the speaker, any more than someone saying, "The deaths in Gaza are a tragedy, but all I care about is that the hostages come home."
- mlrtime 2y ago"do not be swayed by karens and their crocodile imperial feminism against rape. it plays right into long tradition of yt women weaponizing femininity/motherhood to discipline/punish men of color Emmett Till, Vincent Chen, Rassenschande -- all in the name of white sexuality" "t&s child safety" This seems crazy to me, but I guess I work in a boring company where we don't need people like this.
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- lma21 2y agoWhy is this post flagged?
- mirzap 2y ago[flagged]
- ryandrake 2y agoThis seems to be a perfect example of the 'flag' button being abused by people as a sort of "mega downvote" instead of using it correctly to mark offtopic, clickbait, flamebait, spam, or other inappropriate stories.
- snird 2y ago[flagged]
- mirzap 2y ago[flagged]
- ilililolol 2y ago[flagged]
- Qem 2y agohttps://www.oct7factcheck.com/index https://www.oct7factcheck.com/index Please, check what claims were already debunked to avoid unwittingly amplify misinformation.
- mardifoufs 2y ago[flagged]
- DiogenesKynikos 2y agoGoogle has come a long way from "Don't be evil" to "Let's sell targeting systems to a government that's currently killing tens of thousands of civilians, and then fire any employee who protests."