Four former employees of tech giant Google say they were fired because of their efforts to organize employees. Bloomberg reports that it has obtained a company email the search giant sent out on Monday that explained the decision to fire these employees was due to violations of the company’s data security policies, “We want to be clear that none of these individuals were fired for simply looking at documents or calendars during the ordinary course of their work.”
A medium article written by Google Walkout for Real Change questions the assertions Google’s internal email purports as fact.
Google hired a union-busting firm. Around the same time Google redrafted its policies, making it a fireable offense to even look at certain documents. And let’s be clear, looking at such documents is a big part of Google culture; the company describes it as a benefit in recruiting, and even encourages new hires to read docs from projects all across the company. Which documents were off limits after this policy change? The policy was unclear, even explicitly stating the documents didn’t have to be labeled to be off limits. No meaningful guidance has ever been offered on how employees could consistently comply with this policy. The policy change amounted to: access at your own risk and let executives figure out whether you should be punished after the fact.
The firings come shortly after protests in front of the Google offices in San Francisco last Friday. Around 100 employees had gathered outside to protest two of the four Google employees being put on administrative leave. On Monday, it turned out those employees were no longer working at Google. This protest came a little over a week after one employee was fired for allegedly leaking “staffer names,” in violation of the tech giant’s company policy.
Google activists say that the company has shown its true colors, saying that when push comes to shove, the billion dollar mega-business has chosen to “double down on hostile workplace conduct instead of fixing it.”
The email prompted this response from a Google employee.
Over the past couple of years, Google has faced criticism internally over its handling of everything from sexual harassment allegations and general sexism in the workplace to its relationship with ICE detention centers, via the cloud services it provides the DHS. The latter protest was illustrated in a petition circulated this past August, and signed by hundreds of Google employees. Google is not the only tech giant/disrupter/Silicon Valley nuevo-business model to be exposed as the same old business model of exploitative big business practices. Amazon and Apple have also found their employees becoming more and more active and vocal about how they invest their huge cash reserves.
Activists say that these firings are not the end, and Bloomberg points out that if, and this is a big if, any of those employees can prove that the firings were retaliatory, the tech giant could be in for a legal battle and financial compensation.