This article is from the WeChat public account: wowjiemian , author: Liu Fang, from the title figure: vision China
“Through dismissal, Google is stepping up its illegal retaliation. This is a typical action to disintegrate workers’ organizations, but just package it in technology industry jargon. We will not remain indifferent.”
The “do no evil” Google has a dilemma between ideal and reality. Between an open culture that encourages employees to challenge and discuss, and business interests, which is the ultimate value that the company seeks?
On November 25, local time, Google fired four employees on the grounds of “violating data security policies,” which pushed the tension between management and employees to a peak. According to Google, the four employees improperly obtained internal information and leaked it to the media. However, the aforementioned Google employees protested that they were victims of retaliation by the Silicon Valley technology giant.
In a memorandum sent to employees on Monday, the Google security investigation team (Security and Investigations Team) wrote: “These employees systematically Searched for other people’s relevant materials and work content … We have always attached great importance to information security, and will not tolerate anyone’s intimidation or destruction of others, nor can we tolerate the disclosure of sensitive information of companies or customers. “
This explanation does not convince the fired employees and the media. Bloomberg News said that Google employees have systematically protested company decisions over the past two years, including its cooperation with the U.S. military, the handling of executives accused of sexual harassment, and the treatment of temporary workers and suppliers. Way, etc. In response to “especially advisable” employees, Google specifically hired a consulting company in May 2018 to revise the company regulations to clean up the portal. Opponents therefore believe that there are only four who dare to protestThe real reason an employee was fired.
Google employees said in a statement: “Through the dismissal, Google is stepping up its illegal retaliation. This is a typical operation to dissolve workers’ organizations, but it is packaged in technology industry jargon. We will not Indifferent. “The Tech Workers Coalition (Tech Workers Coalition) , which advocates for employees to have more voice, simply named the four people” thank Jie Sijie “ (Thanksgiving Four) , and called on other technology companies to provide work to” Thanksgiving Four “.
Technical staff tweets
Among the four, Rivers (Rebecca Rivers) and Bo RAND (Laurence Berland)) has previously been suspended and caused fluctuations in the company. On November 22, about 200 Google employees appeared outside Google’s San Francisco headquarters to protest the suspension of the two. Google employees said in an email: “This is a brutal intimidation to shut up employees.”
“Even though Rivers and I are going through Google’s full revenge, it’s not really about us. It’s about all of us, and the open culture we build and cherish together,” Bolland said, “If they can do this to me and they can do this to anyone, this culture will disappear forever.
BolanGerman claimed at the rally that a global investigation team hired by Google conducted a “interrogation” of him for up to 2.5 hours, did not allow him to call a lawyer, or even allowed him to go to the bathroom. Rivers said that when her work equipment was taken away, her personal data was also deleted. During the interview, both denied the allegations of leaking to the media.
At the rally, even Google employees typed the tagline: “All workers have the right to organize.”
The rally banner on November 22. Source: Business Insider
The New York Times analyzes that compared with traditional industries, workers’ organizations are rare in large technology companies, because employees are usually well received. Compensation and benefits. In particular, Google is known for its benefits such as free meals and shuttles to and from the office. So why was this dismissal known by employees as “disrupting workers’ organizations”?
On August 14, 2019, 1,495 Google employees, represented by Rivers and Bolland, sent a petition asking Google not to participate in the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) , Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ORR) .
This open letter reads: “ (above) is imprisoning and harming people seeking asylum, separating children from their parents, and illegally detaining them Refugees and U.S. citizens, systematic abuse and malicious neglect,As a result, at least 7 children died. “
The open letter also wrote: “We only need to look at the cooperation between IBM and the Nazis during the Holocaust to understand the role of technology in mass atrocities.
An open letter from engineers opposing cooperation between Google and the US government.
In fact, this is not the first time that Google engineers have publicly opposed the company’s cooperation with the US government. In June 2018, Google had to terminate its contract with the Department of Defense for Project Maven due to the unanimous opposition of thousands of employees. Google Cloud CEO Green (Diane Greene) originally announced that the contract to analyze drone images using AI technology was worth $ 9 million, but An internal email obtained by tech blog Gizmodo shows that the project’s budget may increase to $ 250 million if it is renewed.
In October of the same year, Google also abandoned the bid for the US Department of Defense ’s $ 10 billion JEDI cloud project under the pressure of its employees. The Technology Staff Alliance said in a statement that Google ’s bid to withdraw from the JEDI cloud project stemmed from “continuous” pressure from employees, who “have strong power and are increasingly willing to use it”.
Perhaps for Google engineers, Google ’s decision on Project Maven and JEDI reflects the company ’s core culture of “do no evil”, but for other technology companies, Google management ’s concessions to employees have already Become a “warning.”
Analysis from Bloomberg said that most technology companies have chosen to ignore the questions raised by employees about company decisions. For example, Amazon is still providing face recognition software for law enforcement, and Microsoft has recently obtainedA billion dollar but highly controversial JEDI project.
US Department of Defense Project Marven official picture. Source: US Department of Defense
Maybe to strengthen the power of management and avoid repeating the “mistakes” of 2018 in future military projects. In the past month, Google has taken a lot of high-profile actions.
In early October, Google employees discovered that a team within the company was creating a new tool for the Chrome browser on the company’s computers. The memo shows that the tool will automatically report employees on more than 10 rooms or 100 participants on a calendar event reminder. Employees see it as a tool used by management to monitor whether employees want to organize protests and discuss labor rights.
In early November, Google CEO Pichai said in an email to employees that the previous weekly internal employee meetings had been reduced to once a month and that the focus had to shift from politics to “products and business strategy”. The New York Times said that since Google ’s founding for 20 years, employees have been able to ask sharp questions to management at weekly meetings, which is one of Google ’s proud company cultures.