It isn't negative feedback. It is an organized process established in the UK for handling layoffs. The UK workers didn't just say "don't fire us." They offered a ton of different options that, based on actual data, would have produced the same savings as the proposed layoffs. These included things like voluntary layoffs. All of these proposals were rejected.

It sucks to have a corporation say "okay we'll have a discussion and come to a solution that achieves our goals while also maximizing your goals" and then turn around and say "nah, we are just going to do it our way with no changes."

In the US there are little protections so the company just gets to say "you are all fired" but the policies are supposed to be different in some other countries. Since the end result was that Google just picks however they want it feels like crap that the UK folks had to wait 2.5 months to figure out who was going to be fired with no influence at all in the process.