Tensions between Google and its employees are reaching a breaking point

[Eugene]

Earlier report: Google employee activist says she's been fired (TechCrunch)

Also: Google fires four employees at center of worker organization efforts (Ars Technica)

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Source: CNN

Tensions between Google and its employees are reaching a breaking point

By Brian Fung, CNN Business
Updated 2004 GMT (0404 HKT) November 27, 2019

Washington, DC (CNN Business) — For years, Google was seen as the gold standard of office life. The company pushed workplace culture to new frontiers with enviable benefits such as free meals, office slides, onsite childcare and an emphasis on transparency. But Google (GOOG) is quickly developing a very different reputation as it confronts a mounting backlash from its own employees.

Google's internal critics have targeted a growing list of concerns in recent years, ranging from its handling of sexual misconduct allegations to its business dealings with the military. Workers have also questioned Google over a secret project, now shuttered, to develop a search engine built to satisfy China's censorship regime.

But the tension between employees and management appears to be reaching a breaking point. On Monday, Google dismissed several outspoken workers in an internal announcement for allegedly violating its data-security policies. Now some employees are accusing Google of trying to suppress its critics.

"Google just fired 4 of my coworkers for daring to ask the question 'is Google helping separate families or cage children at the border?'" tweeted Amr Gaber, a Google software engineer who has previously organized protests of the company. "After finding openly accessible information, they alerted coworkers of the horrifying news. Yes. Google is working with (US Customs and Border Protection)."

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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/26/tech/google-employee-tensions/index.html

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Source: Ars Technica

PINK SLIP —

Google fires four employees at center of worker organization efforts

Firing is the latest in a series of disputes between Google and its workforce.

KATE COX - 11/26/2019, 1:47 PM

Tensions between Google parent company Alphabet and its workers are again on the rise, as four employees at the forefront of an organization movement within Google have been fired.

The firings came Monday in the wake of an employee rally at Google's San Francisco office that took place last Friday. The rally was in support of employees Rebecca Rivers and Laurence Berland, both of whom had been placed on administrative leave in the wake of their previous protests against the company.

Bloomberg obtained a memo sent to all Google employees on Monday about the firings, which described the dismissal as due to "clear and repeated 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," the company said, adding that the four employees were "searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs."

Activists within Google, however, said that the policy in question is vague and that the firings were retaliatory. In a post on Medium, organizers said that, traditionally, looking at documents outside of one's own job scope is par for the course at Google:

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Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/firing-of-four-google-employees-is-retaliatory-activists-say/