Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others
venturebeat.com
venturebeat.com
So now with a ship full of passengers thinking they are headed to "bring your whole self to work" town, they are changing course, and are headed to "shut up or you'll be fired" town. I can imagine the passengers are not going to be happy about it.
As they say, it's their company and they can go anywhere they want. It's just hard to understand why they had to change course, and couldn't be the place they kept telling the kids out of college about. It doesn't seem like they are struggling to turn out profits.
I wonder what the original founders think of this? Are they happy about it. Is it the company they thought Google would be...
On the good side, it seems Rebecca already got some offers. At least other companies like people who stand up for their principles.
But like many such attempts, what happens is these groups with good intentions get coöpted and controlled by others with bigger agendas-agendas which often are not in alignment with leadership.
When the PLA got too strong Mao devised the Red Guards. He didn’t want another Menshevik - Bolshevik-like episode.
Nor do companies.
It’s one thing to let people “have a say” in constructing their workplace atmosphere; to make it coöperative, inclusive etc., things which align with productivity— it’s another to interfere with the economics of the company.
But they’ve come to realize that at a certain point in size idealism doesn’t scale (coöperatives, hippie communes, etc) and others will eat your lunch if you encumber yourself with idealism (which can also go in the negative direction (when idealists find conflict amongst themselves and a loser is defined).
Thats not what would happen to Google. What it would mean is Google has a slightly slower path to being a trillion dollar company.
Sounds like something straight from the Bolsheviks in an attempt to take down a larger entity purely for control.
The concept Google is worse than general society is out there. Try looking at the real world, of transport or construction or the service industry or cleaning or food harvesting. Pretty much anywhere but the industry of IT of which Google is exemplary.
2. the idea that if somewhere else is worse, we shouldn't fight harassment here/in our job/in our industry, is abhorrent. this sort of blase, tone-deaf attitude towards gender oppression causes a lot of problems in tech. I'm very glad people are finally vocally fighting back.
I would say yes in most of the cases, but if there are insufficient union oversight processes, then unionization is a surefire way to close up shop due to the eventually inevitable waste/inefficiency.
Also, it's an interesting question of how much unionization helped or worsened the automotor industry's problems around 2008. (And even before.) And of course the real point is whether it helped the workers on the long term.
Plus, do unions support changing employment laws, do they advocate for better support for unemployed folks, or people wanting to switch jobs?
When Saturday rolls around and you don't have to work, keep in mind that's only the case because of unions... and health care and other benefits.
If they believe that they are the best engineering org in the world, which may be true, then whatever other company does it might do a worse job.
Google also has insane margins already - it's not really a convincing argument to anyone other than shareholders that Google needs more revenue whatever the cost.
I do get your side of the argument, however.
"To the contrary, our thorough investigation found the individuals were involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work. This includes searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs — repeating this conduct even after they were met with and reminded about our data security policies. This information, along with details of internal emails and inaccurate descriptions about Googlers’ work, was subsequently shared externally."
That would be grounds for termination in most countries.