
Google fires activist Rebecca Rivers and 3 others - zaksoup
https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/25/google-fires-activist-rebecca-rivers-and-3-others/
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rdtsc
> For a meritocracy to work, it needs to engender a culture where there is an
> "obligation to dissent" Eric Schmidt, et al. "How Google Works", (pp 41-42)

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.

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mc32
Google did this to themselves when they invited and fostered this culture. It
had its naive merits.

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.

~~~
0x262d
lol this is absurd, they're fighting against rampant sexual harassment and a
variety of other real workplace problems, not being mind controlled by
nefarious bolsheviks

~~~
aaron695
> rampant sexual harassment

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.

~~~
0x262d
1\. Google is not exemplary, lmao, they have a terrible culture of paying off
executives for harassment and assault which has been thoroughly documented in
the NYT and elsewhere

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.

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diveanon
Does firing employees for trying to unionize count as "being evil"?

~~~
pas
It very much depends on the jurisdiction.

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?

~~~
dccoolgai
>>And of course the real point is whether it helped the workers on the long
term.

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.

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telltruth
I don't understand all these protests against defence contracts, China, CBP
work. Guess what? These needs to be done by _someone_ and if its not Google,
it would be Palantir or Microsoft or Oracle or IBM. Google is not what used
but at least they have better ethics than the most other companies who would
jump to do whatever was asked of them. At least they could steer towards _less
evil_. The era of _no evil_ has ended, if there was one.

~~~
whatitdobooboo
They can still choose not to want to work on it. I'd imagine it slowly eats at
you.

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.

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crb002
Seems like a bit of a National Labor Relations Act violation. Bizzare how the
more defensive a company gets the more it is likely to violate labor laws.

~~~
elp
From the original Bloomberg article
([https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/google-
fi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-25/google-fires-four-
employees-citing-data-security-violations))

"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.

~~~
wortelefant
The"unauthorized access" argument is tainted by the ambiguity of these new
document access rules, or that they were introduced after hiring a "union
busting" company, this article claims:
[https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/googles-next-moonshot-
unio...](https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/googles-next-moonshot-union-
busting-7bd2784dc690)

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paggle
How come half the time I see a female engineer’s name it turns out to be a
transgender person? Transgender people are less than 1% of the population...
is it much higher in Silicon Valley?

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WWLink
Anecdotally speaking, I have met at least a hundred women who happened to be
engineers, and none of them were trans. Then again, I don't work in Silicon
Valley, lol.

~~~
paggle
Yes the same for me with people I’ve worked with. But when I see someone from
a news article or similar seems like they are very commonly trans.

