US Labor Board Files a Complaint Against Mozilla for Refusing to Hire Apple | Hacker News Reader

US Labor Board Files a Complaint Against Mozilla for Refusing to Hire Apple

bloomberg.com

“…she had an interview at Mozilla Corp. in 2021, which left her with the impression that she was the company’s first choice for a job.”

I’d be richer than Bezos if I could successfully sue all my interviewers who gave this impression.

That's not the basis of the suit, though, just a fact about the context.

Unfortunate title truncation....

US Labor Board Files a Complaint Against Mozilla for Refusing to Hire Apple Activist

https://archive.is/wAt0i

Yes - wondered if Apple needed a job?

Scarlett's Wikipedia describes her first as a workers' rights activist and second as a developer [1]. To the first, I see a long history of complaining with little other than personal publicity to show for it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cher_Scarlett

She's organized some stuff in general, and I don't know the specific details of each individual claim, but she doesn't seem to ever stop stirring the pot. I don't think "known pot stirrer" is a protected class so if she's being denied employment because of her past actions...well, people don't HAVE to hire people they don't want to most of the time.

She was hired as a principal software engineer on Apple's software security team well into her activist campaigns. Seems absurd to say she doesn't have significant technical skill.

This is a strange one.. I honestly don't see how Mozilla are at fault here, regardless of their practices of hiring people with Unions for example, I'm not sure they can be forced to hire someone who on a qualification level is fine but who might not be a fit for the companies morals. I don't know how the labor board plans to prove this one.. I suppose it will be interesting to see what comes out of the subpoenas though, always amazes me how blatant people can be on electronic recorded communications.

Unless they out and out gave that as the reason they didn't hire her, it's unlikely they'll be able to prove it. They're basically hoping this doesn't get tossed out the door and they'll get lucky with discovery. I wouldn't be surprised if she has misrepresented the case to the NLRB in order to get them to run with it, as I don't see why they would pick this battle otherwise.

On a broader note, it seems pretty plain that any outcome here won't be desirable. If the claim is provably true, and they are forced to hire her, they'll find a way to remove her like Apple did. Likely through bad performance reviews and a PIP. In any case, coming across as a sue happy crusader is a good way to get future applications elsewhere sorted right to the trash.

Edit: clarity

> I wouldn't be surprised if she has misrepresented the case to the NLRB in order to get them to run with it,

The NLRB complaint was filed in February, 2022. The NLRB completed its investigation and decided to file charges in November, 2023.

Presumably, Mozilla had an opportunity to show this "misrepresentation" to the NLRB during the intervening 21 months.

[0] While there is no complainant name, this seems to be the case: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/32-CA-290382

> I honestly don't see how Mozilla are at fault here

Well, yeah, AFAICT no one has bothered to do an FOIA request and get even the publicly-disclosable part of the complaint and publish it, so no one really knows anything.

> regardless of their practices of hiring people with Unions

Since there are specific legal protections for that, if they do what is proven (to the civil preponderance of the evidence standard) to be discriminating against people with an organizing background, they absolutely are legally at fault.

> I'm not sure they can be forced to hire someone who on a qualification level is fine but who might not be a fit for the companies morals.

If the "morals" in question are about things which are activities legally protected from hiring discrimination, they absolutely can be. This isn't even a little bit unclear,

Also Epic Games apparently: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/04/28/epic-g...

Labor activist knows how to file labor related complaints.

Did I miss something in the article? Is there any evidence that the reason Mozilla didn’t hire her was due to her agitation at Apple? Or is it just assumed?

The lawsuit from her alleges she was not hired solely because of her activism, even though she was quite convinced that she would get the Mozilla job. So from what I can see so far, there is no evidence beyond "I don't get a job I thought I should."

> The lawsuit from her alleges she was not hired solely because of her activism

She didn't file a lawsuit. She filed a charge with the NLRB, the NLRB investigated for nearly for 21 months and has initiated a formal case (internal to the NLRB, not a lawsuit) against Mozilla.

> So from what I can see so far, there is no evidence beyond "I don't get a job I thought I should."

There is almost certainly evidence cited in the NLRB complaint, but that complaint is non-public and subject to redactions before being released under the FOIA, and AFAICT no one has FOIA'd and published even the redacted version. But "I don't have access to the document where any evidence would be discussed" may technically make "from what I can see, there is no evidence" correct, the "from what I can see" is doing a lot of work.

That's definitely a lot of distinctions I missed, thank you. To clarify, Mozilla has been under investigation for 21 years? Or was that a typo, I thought her complaint was more recent.

21 months. I probably started with "almost two years", and incompletely changed it. Corrected.

No worries! From what I saw on the Labor Board site for the case their FOIA request system is being upgraded so no one can request more details at the moment.

You can't get the FOIA information that would be normally be presented on the site currently, you can, however, file an FOIA request with the agency. This just means that information previously redacted and released via an FOIA request is not also available on the case webpage during the transition. See:

https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/freedom-of-information-act-foi...

> Is there any evidence that the reason Mozilla didn’t hire her was due to her agitation at Apple?

The NLRB investigation before filing the case was 21 months from the complaint, presumably they found some evidence that made them decide to move forward in that time.

The complaint is not publicly available and is flagged as potentially requiring redactions before being released under the FOIA, but you are free to request it if you are concerned with getting an idea (potentially incomplete, though) of what the government's basis for moving forward is.

I see that makes sense. I do trust this isn’t being done without evidence I just didn’t understand why the evidence wasn’t being discussed. Thanks for the clarification this explains things.

Wait.

So, she had "the impression" that she was the company's first choice for the job? And as the interviews went on, they decided to not hire her and she's suing?

It must be amazing to realize oneself as so fabulous a colleague and fit and perfect at all skills that a company is obliged to hire someone.

She’ll win, watch.

Meanwhile that exact company fired their CEO for donating to a political campaign that won

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