I apologize if this is a naive question, but didn't they expect to get fired?
I certainly would, if I started publicly protesting my employer.
EDIT: Since people don't believe me: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/retaliation.cfm
> Thousands of Google employees and contractors around the globe—many of them women—briefly walked off the job Thursday to protest Google’s handling of sexual harassment claims and other workplace issues, and to demand more transparency around harassment incidents and pay levels at the company.
The aforelinked EEOC page [2] explicitly mentions that asserting your right to not be harassed is protected activity:
> communicating with a supervisor or manager about employment discrimination, including harassment
> Other acts to oppose discrimination are protected as long as the employee was acting on a reasonable belief that something in the workplace may violate EEO laws
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/google-walkout-just-latest-sign-...
That's pretty vague. And nothing else on the government site supports protests. That's not any sort of normally protected activity in regards to labor laws. Plus, I think it's fairly common knowledge that if you walk out of your office to protest anything (your employer, the government, the weather, whatever), nearly everyone would say that you walking out is you not performing your job duties at that specific time. And I don't think Google or any other company has a written policy to take part in protests. The government's site seems to indicate that following the company's policies and HR practices with regards to raising the alarm bells at alleged/suspected improper activity cannot receive retaliation.
EDIT - I was wrong. It is protected. https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2018/11/01/when-a-walkout-hi...
If you are attorney specializing in labor law and you think the above posts comport with your ethical obligations, then carry on I guess.
Google is not allowed to retaliate, either by punishing them, or by offering positive incentives to others to not participate in the conduct.
https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2018/11/01/when-a-walkout-hi...
I suspect you're still right on the law due to other provisions - it's just that link, and section of the law, doesn't obviously cover what happened at Google. You can "communicate", and resist specific discriminatory/harassing actions, without stopping all other legitimate work for speeches & sign-carrying.
"Depending on the circumstances, calling public attention to alleged discrimination may constitute reasonable opposition, provided that it is connected to an alleged violation of the EEO laws. Opposition may include even activities such as picketing."
i.e. direct labor action is considered part of the right to communicate grievances.
(There's probably better protection for their organizing and the walkout in labor-organizing law, rather than the non-discrimination/non-harassment statutes you're citing.)
If I work for a car company, and we come out with a car, and I go on record saying how crappy the car is and how no one should buy it - would that be a protected activity?
Wild guess is that Google internal culture has more "we're the good guys" beliefs among employees than many other companies. And, at least in the past, Google officially supported Don't Be Evil.
If so, that good-guy identification might be self-fulfilling to some degree, in the people who are attracted disproportionately, and in reinforcement from an atmosphere of many people identifying that way.
Continuing the wild guessing, it's possible that people think Google is a safer place to speak up than many other places.
And especially in the age of 'social media', we have blurred ideas of where the line is, between collegial dialogue and public performance. Also, a single person's blurred ideas about that can turn something that was internal for everyone else, into public for everyone else.
Though, in general, if people feel they have to go public about an issue (assuming it's genuine by everyone, not a self-regulation/PR stunt, nor politician-style individual career-building by some)... that seems to suggest that they don't have sufficient influence and trust internally, without putting the organization on the spot publicly. If you don't trust your colleagues/management to do the right thing, or you still don't have influence, I'd say that's not a place you want to be. If the idea of walking away sounds bad, consider whether you actually can find influence and trust within the organization. (And let the rest of us know where you eventually find influence&trust, because that can be hard to find.)
> For example, depending on the facts, it could be retaliation if an employer acts because of the employee's EEO activity to:
> * transfer the employee to a less desirable position;
The word because bewilders me here. Who knows why anyone does anything? I don't know why I do 90% of what I do. If someone accused me of having tuna for lunch because of someone's EEO activity, how could I possibly prove they were wrong?
They demoted two employees who were highly performing, weren't told otherwise, but coincidentally highly instrumental in organizing and staging protests. Doesn't take a genius to figure out why they were forcibly transferred.
This doesn't meet the standards for burden of proof.
So, you'll go up at trail and present a bunch of data points, and build a narrative around those data points. Look, you say, I had good reviews from my managers and glowing recommendations from my co-workers. Despite this, I was fired shortly after I Did A Thing. Is this a coincidence or retaliatory? Your employer would attempt to provide evidence that your work quality actually dropped off, you would attempt to present evidence that either the quality stayed the same, or else that goalposts were moved for no good reason.
Note that both parties have the ability to compel various types of evidence to be produced. You would be able to subpeona the employer for emails between bosses, or manager notes, or reviews and such. You could be able to compel people to testify around a variety of facts.
... if this process sounds rather onerous, now you know why trials take a long time and many parties prefer to settle privately rather than engage in the full court process.
Curiously, this is a standard that isn't well understood. It's "beyond a reasonable doubt", not "any doubt whatsoever". You saw it a lot in some of the Bitcoin cases (Silk Road)... "Well, they can't prove that he wasn't set up or that the wallet matching his wasn't entirely a coincidence, (crypto signatures be damned), so there's doubt, and he should be acquitted".
There could be an email trail, or testimony from witnesses to conversations in which the motivations were discussed. That's direct evidence.
There could also be indirect evidence, for example, if there was a pattern of firing employees directly after they participated in protected activities.
Courts deal with mens rea and actus rea every day. They look at the evidence and see if it meets the burden of proof.
I'm sure most Europeans here would agree that this is a very sad statement.
It's important to point out that you can get fired for protesting alone. But once you start organizing, you unlock a lot of legal protections.
In California, where many of these workers are located, there are additional protections that might cover this.
What a sad state of affairs when workers in the supposed 'greatest country on earth' feel that way.
COWEN: If we turn to senior management of large American companies, as a class of people — and I know it’s hard to generalize — but what do you see them as just not getting?
PETERSON: I would caution them not to underestimate the danger of their human resources departments.
COWEN: Say more.
PETERSON: Yeah, well, because I see that the social justice etiology that’s destroyed a huge swath of academia is on the march in a major way through corporate America. And if the corporate people think they’re immune to it, they’ve got another think coming. It’s not like they’re any smarter than the universities.
COWEN: And who gave the HR department so much power? How did that happen? What myth did we follow that led us wrong?
PETERSON: That’s a good question because they had virtually no power to begin with, right? HR departments have always been underpowered, so to speak.
If Google is still mostly focused on writing software and building the future, rather than prosecuting culture wars, that strikes me as a slight but real positive sign.
I've heard that Peterson was spreading worthless claptrap, but am still a little suprised.
> If Google is still mostly focused on writing software and building the future, rather than prosecuting culture wars
Thankfully, Google has stayed away from Peterson