Google fires four employees including protesting staffer

Bloomberg

Google fired four employees for what the technology giant said were violations of its data-security policies, escalating tension between management and activist workers at a company once revered for its open corporate culture.
Alphabet Inc’s Google sent an email describing the decision, titled “Securing our data,” to all employees, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. The company confirmed the contents of the memo but declined to comment further.
Some Google staff have been protesting and organising in the past two years over issues including the company’s work with the military, a censored search service in China and its handling of executives accused of harassment.
Some supporters of the fired workers said the organising activities led to their dismissals.
“With these firings, Google is ramping up its illegal retaliation,” according to a statement from workers who are organising at the company. “This is classic union busting dressed up in tech industry jargon, and we won’t stand for it.”
In recent weeks, some workers have cited management moves — such as implementing a tracking tool on employee’s web browsers and hiring a consulting firm known for anti-union work — as attempts to curb activism. The company has denied those charges.
One Google employee wrote on Twitter that the company was firing the employees to stamp out internal dissension.
On November 22, more than 200 people demonstrated outside Google’s San Francisco office for a protest organised by staff. The protesters demanded the company reinstate two employees who had been put on administrative leave, Rebecca Rivers and Laurence Berland.
On November 25, Rivers tweeted that she had been terminated from her job. Rivers confirmed the tweet but declined to comment further. Rivers had said she was being targeted for protesting against US Customs and Border Protection, which is testing a Google cloud product. Berland was active in protests against YouTube for its handling of hate speech policies. Both said recenlty that they didn’t trust the company’s official explanation for punishing them.
Federal labour law restricts retaliation against employees for collective action. “When other employees have engaged in the conduct Google cites in its memo, have they been fired?” said Jeffrey Hirsch, a University of North Carolina law professor and former National Labour Relations Board attorney.
“If not, Google will likely have to reinstate the employees and pay them back pay.“
Below is the memo that went out from Chris Rackow, Royal Hansen and Heather Adkins on behalf of Google’s Security and Investigations Team:
We’ve seen a recent increase in information being shared outside the company, including the names and details of our employees. Our teams are committed to investigating these issues, and today we’ve dismissed four employees for clear and repeated violations of our data security policies.
There’s been some misinformation circulating about this investigation, both internally and externally. 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.
To the contrary, our thorough investigation found the individuals were involved in systematic searches for other employees’ materials and work. This includes searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside scope of jobs.