Google fires more workers after CEO says workplace isn’t for politics

If it wasn't for politics then they shouldn't take government contracts
- Or lobby.
  
  Indeed ! This Would be much easier to take seriously if Sundar hadn’t meet with Sunak, Modi, Biden et al. In the first year or so since getting the job.
- Or fire people because of politics.
- I'm just hearing Google advocating for a strict ban on lobbyism.
  I mean, otherwise it's discrimination, no?

The workplace, or at least career progression, is like 50% politics lol. Google is no different.
- In fact, I've heard Google is especially bad here. You only get ahead by shipping a product, and getting a project approved is largely politicking. It's one of the more political business environments around.
  My company seems a lot better. We don't have aggressive ladder climbing like the big tech firms, we instead value consistency.
  
  You only get ahead by shipping a product, and getting a project approved is largely politicking
  Yep - I had a friend who worked for three years at Google, none of the products he worked on ever shipped and eventually he gave up on ever receiving a good salary (bonuses/stock options/etc are supposed to be most of the pay, but you only get that by working on a successful product)
  They have ten major campuses worldwide that focus on product development, but only one of those actually ships products regularly.

I would argue that firing them seems like a pretty strong political statement.
- Insightful 👍

Oh good, so Google has stopped all political donations and canceled all government contracts so they can stay out politics?
No? Ok fuck you.

- But you see, Google isn't doing it for political reasons.
  They're doing it for money.
  They don't care who wins or loses, what's right or left, good or bad as long as they get that cheddar.

Ok, so if I find out I work for Nazi contractor and object to that, it is politics?
- Clearly
- Yes. What about that do you think is non-political? Abhorrent politics are still politics.
  
  Really great point that adds a ton to the conversation. Clearly the semantics of the word "political" are what's important here.
- Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.
  Sure, google is an evil corporation and there’s lots of reasons to hate them, but why are we focusing on this specific thing which is common across all workplaces?
  And yes, if you find out your employer is constructing concentration camps and you openly speak against that, you’re probably going to lose your job. Why is this even a question?
  
  It's just a Tuesday in the Capitalist Hellscape © of U.S.A.™
  
  Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.
  Looks like a navel-gazing USA thing. Here in Europe I cannot imagine that there's many companies who'd fire workers for protesting or tells them to shut up forever.
  
  which is common across all workplaces?
  In your shithole country, maybe.
  
  Not being able to discuss politics at work is not really the case for everyone though, it's worker politics that aren't allowed, if the politics agree with the owner class they'll set up a PAC for it. Whoever heard of an executive or board member fired for discussing politics that paint the organization in a positive light? I also think it's worth pointing out most companies would fire for this and are authoritative in structure and don't allow for democratic practices like elections, petitioning, protesting, etc. Just because it's that way now doesn't mean it always will be with good labor protections.
  
  Why is this a surprise to us? We had faith in humanity.
  And is it really common in all workplaces?

Sounds to me like these tech workers could really use a good union to protect them.....
- Why do you need to bring politics into it?
  /s
- There was a subset of Google contractors trying to unionize but while the group was campaigning at city hall. Google executives decided to not renew the contract and all of them were jobless.
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/01/youtube-union-contractor-layoffs/
- Sounds like political talk

"The workplace isn't for politics" is about social etiquette, not criticizing what your own company is taking part in you stupid fuck.

"Google isnt the place for your politics. It is only a place for my politics. So get in line with my thinking or get the fuck out!" - Googles Chief Cunt.

"The workplace isn't for politics" says company that exerts coercive political power to expel its (ex-)workers for disagreeing.
- @theluddite@lemmy.ml @jeffw@lemmy.world Since most people spend most of their best hours at the workplace, what this person is really saying is that there shouldn't be any politics at all. I.e., this is a confession: "I am an authoritarian".
  
  Every boss is an authoratarian. Places of employment under capitalism are top down totalitarian structures. What the guy above you says is what goes.

google the company needs to be garroted with their old "don't be evil" line.
- Don’t ~~be evil~~ tell me your opinions
  Don’t ask don’t tell in corporate form!

Well maybe Google shouldn’t take political contracts.

Again the excuse of 'no politics'
YOU CAN'T AVOID POLITICS
Accepting contracts from Israel is just as political as denying contracts from Israel. You just stated your political stance by accepting. Why do people think it's a free copout?
- "Workplace is not for politics" is just doublespeak for "We don't value ethics here"
  
  "Swallow all your morals they are a Poor Man's quality"
  
  more like "SHUT THE FUCK UP, I WANT THAT MONEY"
- "Politics is everything I disagree with"

The little-known genocide assistance exception to “don’t be evil.” You have to read the fine print these days.
- They dropped that line some time ago
  
  If I'm not mistaken there's a more long winded watered down version at the end of a bunch of bs now. I may be misremembering or out of the loop on subsequent updates and changes though

Everything is politics, especially the mega corpos that lobbies the governments of the world.
The only problem is that many people can't afford to be fired because of them.

Weird how all the right wingers that constantly yell about how silencing nazis is censorship are suddenly very quiet when a ceo comes out and explicitly says you will be fired for your speech.
- It is on course for conservatives. It's all about their freedom of speech not anyone else's freedom of speech.
- Not silent. They change the tactic to "what were they expecting?" or "of course they got fired for that, everyone knows you'll get fired for that". The phrase "don't reveal your power level" exists among them for a reason.
- Because Sundar Pichai is woke. Nice try at gashlighting though.
  "I share that feeling and especially regret that this happened during Pride month when we should be celebrating the incredible LGBTQ+ community you all have built at Google." https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/12/18663017/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-lgbtq-employees-letter-harassment

It's about making money for executives and shitting on the employees that do the actual work.
- Ah so Google has gone from NapRoom to full Mainstream now.

My god they really hit the home run with a brand new excuse just to fire a few more people huh?

I'm honestly somewhat surprised that these firings haven't triggered a mass walkout or something at Google offices yet. They're being very cavalier with employees they spend so much effort (at least historically) on keeping in the office to work "free" hours.
- Some of the protesting workers have said the company has a double standard when it comes to which employees it disciplines. Other Google workers have posted the names and photos of pro-Palestinian workers online, “doxing” them and opening them up to harassment from people on social media, the workers have said.
  Seems like it's not an entirely unpopular action with the staff.
- The labour situation is one that people don't want to risk it. Even 150k jobs are fucking good right now.
  My BSc+MSc+BEng degree-holder buddy with a rich resume laden with FAANGs is still challenged to land a permanent role after a year. He'd DEFINITELY not give a fuck while he can feed his family.
- Would you walk out of your 250,000/year software engineer gig over this? Most people won't and don't. Go to work, get paid, and live your life how you want.
  
  When my co-workers get terminated for political criticism? Yeah, I would. Lots of tech workers would and do — remember the Blizzard walkout several years ago? At the very least, this is the type of thing that spurs white collars to form unions.
  
  Is 250k the average wage or just the superstars?

I see the alt-right is out of school early today!
- Still waiting for first period to start
  
  Damn that sucks. May slurs provide entertainment.

“Officially, of course, I have no opinion.”

Riiight... the fact that corporations are petty dictatorships isn't political at all.
Right.

Massive respect to the workers who sacrificed their jobs to highlight Google's scummy behaviour.

Didn't read the article. But what I take from the title is that Google is going to stop paying lobbyists....
No politics in the workplace ftw!

Is it really that surprising? Since when profit isnt the highest value?

I'm shocked that people are only just now finding out that massive companies like Google are evil. Google replaced don't be evil with be evil.

yay

Still more correct to not call it "work" but "slavery" in that country.

that's nice. it's nice that we care about the fate of employees at the company that destroyed the internet and made search useless because they preferred prostitution, and is now supporting genocide for financial reasons (Don't Be Evil!) but, how do we fire google?
If the internet were the sun and google the moon, then we've been under an eclipse since the day of their IPO. I wanna see the fucking sun again. I'm so sick of enshittification and "corporate behaviour" in general

Never worked for one of the big tech firms, but I have been in the working world for ~16 years and one of the few things anyone that has been around for awhile can and will agree on is you don't talk about salary within earshot of the boss, you don't badmouth company decisions within earshot of the boss, you don't talk about politically charged topics, and you certainly don't combine 2 of those 3 and protest company decisions on politically charged issues literally in the office.
You also don't do those things on company provided equipment, software, or services. If you want to bitch about something the company is doing, you go out to lunch or do it after hours, preferably without written or video evidence.
While I think it is gross that Google fired them for this, given the history of the company almost encouraging such things, I can say these people just got a hard lesson that most of us learn about the corporate world long before we make it to working for the likes of Google.
Rightly or wrongly freedom of speech, assembly, etc protects you from the Government, not your boss. And your boss is a petty little ego maniac that controls your livelihood, so best to stay out of his gaze on matters you know he/she would view negatively where at all possible.
- All of which is a problem, not something we should passively accept as the status quo. These employees were advocating for change to fix exactly those sorts of problems.
- Unless the goal is to make a political statement with your departure.
  
  exactly, which is what those workers did, they could've just resigned but they wanted to make a political statement and they did so
- you don’t talk about salary within earshot of the boss, you don’t badmouth company decisions within earshot of the boss
  Or, do these things all the time if you can base your working hours around making your company more money.
- They weren't just making a random protest. It was intended to show leadership their dissatisfaction. When your company is the size of tens of thousands of employees, your only real way to get within earshot is something like a protest.
  Rightly or wrongly freedom of speech, assembly, etc protects you from the Government, not your boss.
  Tired of this. The 1st amendment protects you from the government, but the idea of "freedom of speech" is much broader than that. We are allowed to be dissatisfied with how speech is suppressed even if a government is not involved.
  
  And like it or not they are allowed to fire you for voicing that dissatisfaction. Don't like it? Protesting the company is the wrong seat of power to point your dissatisfaction at. "Freedom of speech" says you can say what you want, but does not mean you are free from the consequences of that speech either when it comes to your dealings with non-government bodies.

- Bringing protest signs = ABSOLUTE LUNATICS!!!
  Proceeds to whataboutism questions far less impactful than the Genocide of Gaza which is by far the worst human rights violation worldwide right now.
- I don't get the comment here, they didn't 'express their opinion' about Israel. They behaved like a bunch of lunatics within Google's offices.
  Yes, they did express their opinion on the ongoing genocide. They did that in a fashion that disturbed the workplace - which some comments seem to deem holy ground that should never be disturbed by anything - but they did express their opinion.
  If you want to protest Google's actions send a signed letter of resignation stating the reason, send it to the press and form a union of techies that won't work for companies that work with Israel recursively.
  Iirc they tried some regular stuff before resorting to this method. Also, it's always funny how when people try to change things, they never seem to do it the right way.
  On a side note, I like how none of them mind building mass surveillance tools, pushing ads, Google-China relations, etc... But Israel's genocide is trending, so they jump on that. What a bunch of shallow fucks.
  Well congrats on being less of a hyprocrite than the rest of us.
  The world is shit, nothing goes in the right direction, and some of us are more sensitive to some issues than others.
  I mean I despise alphabet and their business model, but I also understand than people are less horrified by their work being used to serve ads than it being used in a genocide. And again, I hate that ads exist.
  Protestation and strike are supposed to inconvenience the higher ups, please stop advising to use methods that don't disturb anything.
  
  Iirc they tried some regular stuff before resorting to this method. Also, it’s always funny how when people try to change things, they never seem to do it the right way.
  Did they resign though?
  If you're an employee protesting your own company you're surprised they'd fire you?
  Shouldn't they have resigned first? Or did they really expect random employees with posters would make Google change their mind?
- Protests are meant to disrupt, block, and inconvenience.
- On a side note, I like how none of them mind building mass surveillance tools, pushing ads, Google-China relations, etc… But Israel’s genocide is trending, so they jump on that. What a bunch of shallow fucks.
  Billions of Google users will not comment to your comment nor be critical about Google but will continue ~~sleeping~~ watching their YouTube videos, use Google Gmail and do the most horrible things which we will never know about. Meanwhile the planet is burning by climate crisis and ridiculous wars in the so called civilized world. Yes, let's be silent about Google and instead point fingers to those who dare to be critical for a few moments.
- Being a reactionary is not a substitute for an actual personality mate.

Based Google

The pendulum is swinging back hard. Let's just hope we don't end up way deep into the danger since zone just because woke idiots couldn't leave "good enough" alone.
Edit: wow leddit big mad
- Good enough alone.... Please elaborate on that.
  
  If you are a woman, do you think society was in better shape in 2012 or today? Standing Confederate monuments, hostility to trans people, and all?
- Lol I can't help but laugh at the disparity between the left vs. the right, when it comes to just general ability to speak coherently. Like is this even a coherent thought?
  Like this is the best they've got. I guess it's no wonder then that charlatans like Jordan Peterson can sink their hooks in so easily.