If it wasn’t for politics then they shouldn’t take government contracts
Or lobby.
Indeed ! This Would be much easier to take seriously if Sundar hadn’t meet with Sunak, Modi, Biden et al. In the first year or so since getting the job.
I would argue that firing them seems like a pretty strong political statement.
Insightful 👍
Removed by mod
Ok, so if I find out I work for Nazi contractor and object to that, it is politics?
Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.
Sure, google is an evil corporation and there’s lots of reasons to hate them, but why are we focusing on this specific thing which is common across all workplaces?
And yes, if you find out your employer is constructing concentration camps and you openly speak against that, you’re probably going to lose your job. Why is this even a question?
Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.
Looks like a navel-gazing USA thing. Here in Europe I cannot imagine that there’s many companies who’d fire workers for protesting or tells them to shut up forever.
Removed by mod
That’s not actually true. Even in Sweden, employees can be fired for misconduct and what constitutes misconduct is a complex matter. But more importantly, in the Tesla case, those employees are on strike which is a different issue.
They can be fired for misconduct, yes, What makes you think protests or giving opinons on work related mtter, possibly supoorted by a union, would be interpreted as “misconduct”? Can you give an example of a case like that where misconduct was having an issue with selling products to war criminals or similar?
Publicly labeling customers as “war criminals” is misconduct and will get you fired anywhere in the world, yes. Stop pretending you misunderstand this simple fact.
Removed by mod
You should be aware of the fact that Google & the others have offices in Europe and they have the same policy here too. These type of policies fit well within the legal framework in most EU countries. And I guarantee that people would get fired over protests disrupting the workplace if found unwarranted.
Why is this a surprise to us? We had faith in humanity.
And is it really common in all workplaces?
Not being able to discuss politics at work is not really the case for everyone though, it’s worker politics that aren’t allowed, if the politics agree with the owner class they’ll set up a PAC for it. Whoever heard of an executive or board member fired for discussing politics that paint the organization in a positive light? I also think it’s worth pointing out most companies would fire for this and are authoritative in structure and don’t allow for democratic practices like elections, petitioning, protesting, etc. Just because it’s that way now doesn’t mean it always will be with good labor protections.
which is common across all workplaces?
In your shithole country, maybe.
Oh, please, enlighten me. In what country do you think you’re allowed to violate company policy?
Even if we ignore what @prole wrote, in civilized countries you’re allowed to break company policy if it infringes your rights, regardless of what a contract says.
you’re allowed to break company policy if it infringes your rights
No country guarantees you the right to openly discuss politics in the workplace though.
“The workplace isn’t for politics” is about social etiquette, not criticizing what your own company is taking part in you stupid fuck.
Sounds to me like these tech workers could really use a good union to protect them…
There was a subset of Google contractors trying to unionize but while the group was campaigning at city hall. Google executives decided to not renew the contract and all of them were jobless.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/01/youtube-union-contractor-layoffs/
Sounds like political talk
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
“Google isnt the place for your politics. It is only a place for my politics. So get in line with my thinking or get the fuck out!” - Googles Chief Cunt.
google the company needs to be garroted with their old “don’t be evil” line.
Don’t
be eviltell me your opinionsDon’t ask don’t tell in corporate form!
“The workplace isn’t for politics” says company that exerts coercive political power to expel its (ex-)workers for disagreeing.
Well maybe Google shouldn’t take political contracts.
The little-known genocide assistance exception to “don’t be evil.” You have to read the fine print these days.
They dropped that line some time ago
If I’m not mistaken there’s a more long winded watered down version at the end of a bunch of bs now. I may be misremembering or out of the loop on subsequent updates and changes though
Yes it’s still there, it was just moved, albeit from a very noticeable position to quite an obscure one.
Gotcha. Yeah thats more or less how I remembered it… 🙃
Its a bummer, I used to consider myself a fan of Google’s direction. But lesson learned I suppose, money is power and power corrupts.
I feel like the turnaround was somewhere around 2008-2010. Before that they seemed a lot more amicable.
Weird how all the right wingers that constantly yell about how silencing nazis is censorship are suddenly very quiet when a ceo comes out and explicitly says you will be fired for your speech.
It’s about making money for executives and shitting on the employees that do the actual work.
Riiight… the fact that corporations are petty dictatorships isn’t political at all.
Right.
Never worked for one of the big tech firms, but I have been in the working world for ~16 years and one of the few things anyone that has been around for awhile can and will agree on is you don’t talk about salary within earshot of the boss, you don’t badmouth company decisions within earshot of the boss, you don’t talk about politically charged topics, and you certainly don’t combine 2 of those 3 and protest company decisions on politically charged issues literally in the office.
You also don’t do those things on company provided equipment, software, or services. If you want to bitch about something the company is doing, you go out to lunch or do it after hours, preferably without written or video evidence.
While I think it is gross that Google fired them for this, given the history of the company almost encouraging such things, I can say these people just got a hard lesson that most of us learn about the corporate world long before we make it to working for the likes of Google.
Rightly or wrongly freedom of speech, assembly, etc protects you from the Government, not your boss. And your boss is a petty little ego maniac that controls your livelihood, so best to stay out of his gaze on matters you know he/she would view negatively where at all possible.
Unless the goal is to make a political statement with your departure.
exactly, which is what those workers did, they could’ve just resigned but they wanted to make a political statement and they did so
