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Google fires 28 workers for protesting $1.2 billion Israel contract (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 2 months ago by UNIX84@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

43 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"Google issued a stern warning to its employees, with the company’s vice president of global security, Chris Rackow, saying, “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” according to an internal memo obtained by CNBC."

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[-] sonori@beehaw.org 61 points 2 months ago

Well on the bright side, getting fired from one of the largest mega corps in the world for complaining about the company’s providing resources to kill civilians is a hell of a thing to be able to put on your resume.

On the not so bright side, I don’t like being a background character in a cyberpunk story.

[-] Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de 22 points 2 months ago

From what I've seen, being a main character in one would suck way worse though.

[-] sonori@beehaw.org 16 points 2 months ago

Probably, but I would much rather be a background character in the intro to a space opera instead.

[-] rammer@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 months ago

You mean those who are on a huge space station that gets blown to bits during the intro sequence?

[-] renard_roux@beehaw.org 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yay, space opera! 🥰

Highly recommend almost everything by Peter F. Hamilton if you haven't read them, arguably top 3 space opera authors ❤️

Edit ...: and Boo! Google!

[-] Twig@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 months ago

Where's the best place to start?

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 59 points 2 months ago

Isn't it illegal to fire protesting workers? At least here in Germany its illegal as far as I know. But it must be a protest event (which it seems to be).

[-] Toes@ani.social 82 points 2 months ago

My understanding is that in America, you're only allowed to protest in ways that don't interfere with capital interests.

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 31 points 2 months ago

That reads like something out of South Park. :D

[-] queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 2 months ago

South Park would probably be on the side of Google and other corporations, Matt and Trey are diehard libertarian capitalists.

[-] livus@kbin.social 21 points 2 months ago

I never really forgave them for the original ManBearPig climat change denialism.

[-] Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 2 months ago

Even though the eventually admitted their mistake with the whole "ManBearPig is real" episode, the damage had been done years prior. I haven't watched many recent South Park episodes, but I hope they learned their lesson to maybe not ignore actual scientists next time.

[-] livus@kbin.social 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If it had happened like in the 1980s or something it would have been forgiveable but it was like 2006, at that point we all already knew climate change was real.

[-] anachronist@midwest.social 5 points 2 months ago

2000s were peak libertarian for SP. They were against the war on terror so they didn't code "Bush-right" but they were extremely libertarian. I remember the media trying to push this "millennials are conservative actually" line by inventing the phrase "South-park republican"

Still I remember them landing some good observations. For instance, in one episode the boys learn how veal is made and become animal rights activists. You can tell TP/MS are not animal rights activists, but after the boys steal the cows the media, police, government, etc all instantly start calling the boys "terrorists." It really caught the whole post-9/11 zeitgeist of "anybody you don't like is a terrorist."

[-] ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 15 points 2 months ago

I'd recommend to watch later episodes. They've pretty much abandoned the 90s libertarian edge-lord moments and explicitly disclaimed and apologized for it. They've had quite a few "wow, we were the problem" fourth-wall-breaking moments in recent years.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 11 points 2 months ago

Every time I read what's going on in the USA and how so many countries want to emulate it, the cynic in me thinks that we kind of deserve what we're getting.

Anti Commercial-AI license

[-] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

yup

[-] LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 2 months ago

Please note that Germany has (compared to other EU members) quite strict and company-friendly protesting laws.

Such protests may be even considered as political protest (Politischer Streik) which makes them not illegal per se but could be illegal. https://www.bpb.de/themen/medien-journalismus/netzdebatte/219308/ein-bisschen-verboten-politischer-streik/

[-] quatschkopf34@feddit.de 8 points 2 months ago

Yes, I don‘t think such protests would fall under the general protesting laws as they have nothing to do with your working conditions.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 18 points 2 months ago

Oh no, here in America we have FREEDOM. the freedom to work! We have something called "right to work" which means we have the RIGHTS to work and quit a job with no contracts. We also gave up every single worker protection for these supposed rights, but since it was named right to work we are meant to believe it's good for us

[-] Whimseymimple@beehaw.org 10 points 2 months ago

I think you're talking about "at-will" employment, which allows the employer or employee to terminate employment for no reason at any time. Only Montana doesn't have that (unfortunately for the rest of us), and employers must show good cause for termination after a set probationary period. "Right-to-work" means that you can't be required to join a union or pay fair share fees as a requirement of employment. 26 states have this on the books.

I live in a state with both laws, and it sucks as much as you'd imagine... (mainly because it's fairly indicative of other issues throughout the state).

[-] drwho@beehaw.org 1 points 2 months ago

I think yinz missed the sarcasm in the comment you're replying to.

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You're confusing At-Will employment with Right-to-Work.

Right to work laws make it illegal to require union membership for employment at a place with a union.

At-Will Employment makes it legal for the employee or employer to terminate employment at-will.

They're both bad, you just got them mixed up. :)

[-] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 3 points 2 months ago

That is not at all what right to work means.

I get the frustration, but if you're going to criticize a thing, it's a lot more effective if you actually know what the thing is.

[-] Butterbee@beehaw.org 43 points 2 months ago

The don't be evil to you must help us commit genocide pipeline

[-] jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 32 points 2 months ago

What did they think would happen? Google removed "don't be evil" a long time ago.

[-] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 34 points 2 months ago

It got on the news. They sacrificed their jobs for that at least.

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 31 points 2 months ago

Love all the people that see repercussions for protesting and their first thought is 'boy, those guys sure we're stupid. Now they've lost their jobs'

Maybe the people doing the protests accepted that as a risk they were willing to take? Perhaps even the next steps were mass resignations? Hmmmmmm

[-] lemmyreader@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 months ago

Yes, maybe all those commenters could be simply called self-censored vendor locked in. This is also not the first time Google has been firing critical voices, it is quite frankly tempting to say "it happens all the time".

[-] Moonrise2473@feddit.it 30 points 2 months ago

So, protesting for human rights is "violating Google policies"?????

[-] Imprudent3449@lemm.ee 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

~~Don't~~ be evil.

[-] eveninghere@beehaw.org 1 points 2 months ago

Why did you put the question marks there?

[-] thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 30 points 2 months ago

"Don't be evil."

[-] tesseract@beehaw.org 2 points 2 months ago

Google would like to apologize for that inadvertent mistake. All efforts are being made to identify how this came to be and to avoid doing the same in the future.

[-] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 21 points 2 months ago

Google is complicit in mass murder.

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 13 points 2 months ago

Is it not perfectly fine to fire people who think it's OK to come into an office and disrupt work for 9 hours and force law enforcement to be called. I can't think of a single place that wouldn't sack me on the spot for doing that.

I'm not fully aware of us protest laws but i was under the impression to protest you had to do it on public property. Seems like this is blown out of proportion because the writer agrees with the cause.

[-] Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 months ago

Imo their issue was in not forming a broader union coalition before picking their workplace

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 4 points 2 months ago

Would a union be able to do this? I feel like a union doing this would be just as bad but Google might hesitate to fire them due to union backlash.

[-] Hirom@beehaw.org 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That's a convenient way to make troublemakers go away. Even it some of these terminations are technically justified, it gives the appearance the company is looking for an excuse to fire critics.

Protesters probably need to be more savvy and respectful, but also need better protection against retribution.

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago

I am pretty sure they could sue for wrongful termination if they conducted their protest properly and respectfully. You can't fire someone for exercising a right.

[-] off_brand_@beehaw.org 3 points 2 months ago

You really can. Right to work, + free speech is only applicable wrt the government.

The fact that it's legal does not make it moral.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 2 months ago

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summary

Google has fired more than two dozen employees for protesting its $1.2 billion contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud and artificial intelligence services.

Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior.

“This excuse to avoid confronting us and our concerns directly, and attempt to justify its illegal, retaliatory firings, is a lie,” it said in a statement late Wednesday, accusing the company of valuing its contract with the Israeli government more than its employees.

Google issued a stern warning to its employees, with the company’s vice president of global security, Chris Rackow, saying, “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” according to an internal memo obtained by CNBC.

The Israeli prime minister's office and the Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News.

The workers were also protesting labor conditions at the company — saying the contract was affecting “health and safety on the job” — and what they said was Google’s disregard “for the well-being of our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim colleagues facing Google-enabled racism, discrimination, harassment, and censorship.”

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