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?
You could also ask what would happen if the group was pro-Trump, pro-life, or anti-affirmative action, all of which are positions with more support than anti-Israel protests. They would also be fired.
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.
I don't know any more details than what I've seen in public news sites.
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.
While I see your point, I think the idea that pro-life groups aren't disrupting workplaces is very wrong. Pro-Life groups constantly protest at abortion clinics, where people absolutely do work. Sometimes they even bomb them.
Again, I get your point, but that's a very bad example (unless you meant "disrupt their own workspaces") which is a bit different.
That is what I meant. An abortion clinic cannot fire you from your job at Google. And Google would not fire people from protesting at an abortion clinic, or from protesting Israel in a public space.
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.
Many of them were Google Cloud employees protesting the military use of Google Cloud. So they were protesting their own work's use. (They were also protesting working conditions, which obviously impact employees).
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.
If you want to “protest climate chamge”, HR would probably be open to a carefully planned and choreographed event. They might even hire a resident performance artist to have continual “guerilla performance art” raising climate change awareness on the companies dime, with voluntary participation by employees.
They would not allow an unplanned and unapproved occupation of executive offices.
Totally deserving after all the heckling, property damage and distress caused to other employees due to their acts. As someone said earlier about this topic, you're supposed to leave your political leanings outside when you enter that gate. Your employer's place is not your political playground to run agendas. It's a transactional and professional relation where you offer a service and get a monthly pay check, that's it.
This mindset is a pretty convenient way to absolve oneself of any guilt felt over what that service you're offering is contributing to. I also find this reasoning reductive and cynical, for what it's worth.
It doesn't absolve you of guilt whatsoever. If you're feeling lots of guilt over what your employer is doing, then you should resign. There are absolutely companies I would never work for because I morally disagree with what they're doing. Google is not one of them.
I was being pretty sarcastic with my comment, I agree with you, that mentality does not absolve anyone of guilt. I meant that thinking in those terms inoculates the person from feeling the guilt they absolutely should feel over contributing to evil.
Unless you think that the company does something so bad that you need to bring more attention to it and can't work there anymore in good conscience. Then, just like these employees, go for it - that's exactly the audience. You have to be prepared for the consequences of course.
Protests don't work if you do them quietly in your corner without affecting anyone in a meaningful way.
I can guarantee you this made more people adverse to the cause than for it. They did everything wrong, and many of the people who might have had a chance at trying to change things are out of Google and will not be able to do anything.
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.
People afraid for their job would be very unlikely to make noise anyway. It's a nice idea about changing things from within a system, but... you have to believe that's possible in the first place. There will be people that do it too, but we won't see articles written about them.
When you protest after you resign, you're just a random person without access to the decision-maker's office. Protesting after quitting, away from the office/co-workers would bring about as much attention as me protesting in my home right now.
And let's be serious - they knew they'd be fired. (Or extremely naive)
According to the article, this was effectively a resignation from at least one employee who was quoted as saying he felt wrong to receive a paycheck with money earned from immoral behavior.
I think that was supposed to be derisive. When you say "you're helping murder people, we expect change", that's in itself derisive. What specifically is your non-childish idea for protesting your employer taking money to indirectly help murder people?
A memo to your colleagues on why your conscience requires you to quit.
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.
A corporate office is not like an administration building at a soft-handed university. There's no way you are going to successfully take over an office for any real amount of time unless you are willing to use real violence and potentially get into some kind of hostage situation.
The police will be called, there will be more of them than of you, and they will remove you.
Protest is a show. You don't need to take over for days, you just need the protest to have maximum reach which in our time could happen in minutes. Obvious things they should have done : Inform their colleagues beforehand, so they be in the know, plan around it, and why not participate in some form. Inform journalists and smuggle them into the buildings. Police intervention is planned for and should be a major part of the show.
Journalists know better than to get involved in something like that. They would be asked to leave immediately (it's super easy to notice people standing around filming what's going on who aren't wearing employee badges), and then they would of course leave immediately as they aren't willing to catch a trespass charge just for one page 17 news article.
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?
We're all talking about it here, which was probably their goal. I wasn't previously aware of the fact that Google is helping the IDF target Palestinians.
You could wait for the final icj decision on the case.
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.
> You could wait for the final icj decision on the case.
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.
Israel's government is directly and intentionally killing an maiming about 250 children daily for 190 or so days in a row 15-20 thousands of them dead right now, and 10s of thousands more wounded. And this is not even the first genocide Israel was involved in or helped carry out. They have quite a legacy in south america, where they were supporting now (self-)recognized genocide of Maya (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2018/10/guatemala-un...).
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.
A plausible ruling requires a significant amount of evidence - enough to convince the court that the case could lead to a conviction and is worth spending several years on.
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.
Those 28 workers will get compensated probably 1-2mils each as California dont take retaliation easily. American companies are required to allow social activitism. That Google security chief will be fired or nicely put "let go" a couple years down the road. Yeah I dont agree with those workers antic. But unfortunately they will win and Google will win too (more contracts). Not so for that security chief guy unfortunately. He should learn from how Microsoft and Apple did it. Plus Google staffs worldwide will be subjected to retaliation by "freedom fighters". These already happened at least 20 times in the last 15 years just that news not reporting.
I don't know exactly where to begin here... Well, no. American companies are not required to allow social activism - fortunately. Not even in California!
In fact, there are no freedom of expression protections within private businesses outside a few protected categories such as work safety.
The confusion is some companies market themselves as fun and socially responsible and do no evil . That confuses people while if you work for a serous do what your told top down accounting firm no one is going to ask if they should be working with a eco unfriendly company
From a brief look at the national labor relation boar's right to strike page[1], an employer could likely fire over a disruptive protest over who the company does business with; union or no. If you need that paycheck, you better check with a labor lawyer first.
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.
Wow the CEO finally grew some balls. Has been such a pushover for years. Trying to be global capitalist empire while entertaining the demands of bratty employees that continuously humiliated him. Good job for a change!
Possibly. There are two ways one can look at the response. When Cloudflare decided to stop working with a company it could be assumed the CEO made a decision that the revenue from that relationship was no longer as important as the social mission or reason to cease doing business.
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.
Beating down that protest will cost Google all the independent heads it still had. Nobody ever struck gold with a troupe of slaves bound to a kings court. Nobody even does report gold to dysfunctional organizations.
What disturbs me about these types of protests is that the people involved forget that working for a company is a two-way street. An employee has no more the right or place to dictate to an employer what it can do, as an employer can dictate what its employees do. That's because in America at least, you can leave, you can work some place else. The employer can choose not to work with someone. Protesting employees seem to think they have this pedestal of social justice which gives them some authority over how a company can act.
If you don't like it, leave, and when the company can no longer find employees they will change or go out of business.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadIf 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?
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.
From context, i think this is obviously what was meant.
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.
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.
They would not allow an unplanned and unapproved occupation of executive offices.
No-one was driving those trains to Auschwitz for free, lots of "transactional and professional relation" there, too.
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.
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.
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.
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?
It’s not like they were sharing copies of the ICJ decision.
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.
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.
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.
In fact, there are no freedom of expression protections within private businesses outside a few protected categories such as work safety.
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.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/strikes
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/1778898760971821271
[0]: 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.
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40072295
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40060532
If you don't like it, leave, and when the company can no longer find employees they will change or go out of business.