Google Fires 28 Employees After Multi-City Protests
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Respect that. Work is not an appropriate place for activism. Or bigotry. Or just assholery.
Your coworkers aren’t your audience.
Protests don't work if you do them quietly in your corner without affecting anyone in a meaningful way.
It's also likely that people who saw this might now not want to be involved at all for fear of losing their job.
This action likely did nothing but make it less likely that anything will change, and been the absolute worst way to attempt to persuade people.
Personal letters explaining what you gave up, financially and otherwise, because of your beliefs.
These are powerful, powerful things.
“Taking over” an office is not powerful. In fact this entire narrative has been constructed by Google, with almost personal testimony from those involved.
It was easy to silence them because they never really spoke up.
The police will be called, there will be more of them than of you, and they will remove you.
It is immoral to both take money from someone and actively work against them. You should chose one.
And let's be serious - they knew they'd be fired. (Or extremely naive)
It's less clear when the "someone" is a nebulous globe spanning transnational with multitudes of projects.
It's moral to work on software that assists humanity while protesting that which does not.
With companies that large your point is akin to claiming it to be immoral to be a citizen of the US while protesting the war in Vietnam.
I'm not about to protest at work, but I respect protestors for fighting for what they believe in. But I agree, coworkers aren't usually your audience, and usually have no power. To quote the article:
> Protesters in Sunnyvale sat in [Google Cloud CEO's] office for more than nine hours until their arrests, writing demands on [his] whiteboard and wearing shirts that read “Googler against genocide.”
I think this is about as respectful as you can be in a protest, especially at work. Directly disrupt the actual person who's responsible for making a decision. Non violently, and out of the way of rank-and-file employees who have no power and are just trying to do their job.
Is there anything an employer could do or be involved in that, in your mind, justifies civil disobedience in the work place, or is there just no limiting principle here?
From what i understand a preliminary "plausible" ruling by the ICJ requires very little evidence. Its similar to the amount of evidence needed for a search warrant in a normal case - you need some, but much less then you need for an actual conviction. There is still a very good chance that Israel will win the case overall notwithstanding the "plausible" ruling.
And Google could freeze all work for and collaboration with the party plausibly accused of acts of genocide until the decision comes in. But they won't, and their employees are only following their lead.
It also doesn't seem reasonable to tell someone they need to wait until a potential genocide, and what might be their role in it, is done and over before they have the social okay to start engaging in political speech.
> Its similar to the amount of evidence needed for a search warrant in a normal case - you need some, but much less then you need for an actual conviction.
No, it isn't. The ICJ proceedings were adversarial, and the process of obtaining a search warrant is not.
At the very least, any country that is "plausibly" committing genocide is engaged in some truly heinous actions, even if they don't amount to the legal definition of genocide.
Yes, Google could wait for "final" decision, like these companies always wait for final decisions when some of their employees rape or assualt someone (or is accused of such), or when their employees kill 10 children on camera, or take a buldozer and crush entire families in tents to death. They'd surely wait until final decision of the court to fire them, and stop doing business with them. Their all about fairness, and respecting the presumption of innocence. :D
It's all about the money, who cares how many people they help kill. Just like with all the data abuse. It only was somewhat limited when there was threat to Google from some governments. Quiting some employees is < $ than quiting a billion dolar contract. That's all there's to it, quite likely.
Pretty sure there are billions to be made between now and some 20-30 years later when the genocide may be recognized by some international court.
I commend these people for deciding to get quited by Google in the manner they did. They made the point publicly, instead of just silently quiting.
It’s not like they were sharing copies of the ICJ decision.
In fact, there are no freedom of expression protections within private businesses outside a few protected categories such as work safety.
No-one was driving those trains to Auschwitz for free, lots of "transactional and professional relation" there, too.
If you don't like it, leave, and when the company can no longer find employees they will change or go out of business.
I'm assuming the protest was disruptive, based on the what was reported in the article and the Google memo. I think it's reasonable to ask someone to leave someone else's office, and expect them to at least leave the office itself. Personally, I'm ok if you want to picket outside the office, as long as you don't impede movement, and if you want to picket outside the building, go ahead. Other people are free to have other ideas about what's appropriate, and I don't expect Google to be supportive of picketing, inside the building or out. But if keeping their job was important to them, finding a different venue than the CTOs office when asked to leave would have been a good step. Getting arrested at work because you won't leave when asked is not usually good for continued employment.
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40072295
It is possible that the CEO of Google may have considered the economic impact cessation of the service to Israel might cause, and weighed that against employee fallout.
It would have been incredible to have been a fly on the wall as Sundar Pichai came to the decision to have the protestors fired/arrested.
If this sit in were by a group of employees protesting climate change effects of Google’s data-centers and rampant, unrestricted and frivolous training of neural networks by Google employees, will HR do this?
They would not allow an unplanned and unapproved occupation of executive offices.
Regardless of your view of the actual topic being protested, they were (relatively) peaceful - they staged a "sit in". They disrupted executives - key decision makers - but they didn't directly try to disrupt regular rank-and-file employees who don't have power to make decisions.
> Protesters in Sunnyvale sat in [Google Cloud CEO's] office for more than nine hours until their arrests, writing demands on [his] whiteboard and wearing shirts that read “Googler against genocide.”
Obviously activism at work will be reprimanded, surely they knew, but it seemed to draw the attention they want. I think we should be careful when we mock or belittle protestors as if they're naive. America has a long history of protesting for (perceived) social good. There aren't many causes I'd risk my cushy job for, but I respect people who make sacrifices for fighting for what they believe in, especially if no one gets hurt.
As awful as these groups are, they generally do not routinely feel entitled to disrupt their own* workspaces.
I don't deny your point that a more popular position may get more lenient treatment, but I also can't remember any of these groups attempting this so boldly so seems like a moot point.
edit: added "their own" for clarity
My understanding is that they disrupted office operations. That automatically allows their employer to (rightfully) claim that they broke some fundamental rules of the employee handbook, and therefore forms grounds for termination.
Hypothetical: If they (say) held up the lunch line in one of the cafes ("people are starving in Gaza, no one here should eat either" or somesuch reasoning) -- would that also incur such censure? I'd wager the answer is "yes".
P.S. If they had gathered in (say) a nearby park, Google would have a much weaker basis for taking such action.
I bet they won’t dare.
Again, I get your point, but that's a very bad example (unless you meant "disrupt their own workspaces") which is a bit different.
If you got hired by an abortion clinic and realized you cannot in good conscious help perform abortions, just leave instead of playing victim.
An abortion clinic would fire you if you disrupted the work of helping people receive medical care related to abortions. And Google would fire you if you disrupted the work of Google and its projects.
From context, i think this is obviously what was meant.