Google’s fires four organizers after hiring union-busting firm

This article is ranked 16th on HN first page right now, and it has 80 points, was posted 4 hours ago, and has 16 comments. A different article [1] is ranked 8th on HN right now, and it has 31 points, was also posted 4 hours ago and it has 18 comments. They were both posted about the same time, they have the same number of comments, but the article that has significantly more points is ranked significantly lower.<p>If I understand the HN ranking algorithm, this means this submission is heavily reported. This is not the first time I observe this behavior for anti-Google submissions. Is there a different explanation for this phenomenon other than heavy reporting?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21636093" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21636093</a>

There has been quite a lot of noise on HN about this, and many of the other posts have disappeared, perhaps in an attempt to stop the whole front page getting swamped by this story.<p>You can find the other links here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=pastWeek&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;query=Google%20four&amp;sort=byPopularity&amp;type=story" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=pastWeek&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=fal...</a><p>I wouldn&#x27;t normally bother, but the medium article is about the least balanced of the lot. As far as I can tell, the protesters weren&#x27;t fired for unionizing, in fact they never attempted to push for better pay or conditions; they were fired for harassing other employees in order to further private political agendas. This changes the story somewhat.

So Google really has hit the nadir of the wall that Microsoft hit when Gates testified before the Justice department. It&#x27;s a tough day for all of us Google fan boys but it&#x27;s time to look in the mirror and carefully consider the current reality.

You don’t get to organize and sabotage billions of dollars of revenues and get to keep your job.<p>Google set up this attitude they fostered that worked in attracting talent and productivity. It worked for a time to improve internal issues. But as it creeps and threatens the corporation itself, it cannot continue for management.<p>But as history has borne out, you have to know when to regain control. It’s the struggle of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, PLA and red guards.

What has made google look at the facts and think this is the right way to proceed? Do they think this won&#x27;t blow up? Do they fear unions so much that this is worth the bad PR?<p>Or is this just a corporate process that no-one took a big picture view on? Because from where I am standing, this just seems like a dumb move.

Currently, with the way labour organising works... it seems to either go nowhere, or go into a (belligerent) dichotomy. Professional organizers themselves often see it as an entirely dichotomous, zero-sum game, an inevitable conflict between opposite interests.<p>Overall I&#x27;m curious about unions. I haven&#x27;t had much&#x2F;any direct experience for &gt;20 years. Most of the Union examples we have today are either public-ish sector or some old status quo union inherited from an old generation.<p>It&#x27;s just hard for me to picture an old-school unionised version of Google or (more to the point) Amazon.<p>What is the end game or success case, for a Google union?

&gt; One of the workers set up notifications to receive emails detailing the work and whereabouts of other employees without their knowledge or consent.<p>This is shady&#x2F;creepy. There is no need to know when and where a colleague is every hour, every day. You shouldn’t be allowed to do this.<p>I’m glad an employee who does this is getting fired because I wouldn’t feel safe around them.<p>My calendar is public, but that doesn’t mean you should be alerted every time I go somewhere.

Xoogler. Several people who were involved in organizing protests have also quit over the past year or so, after posting stories of the retaliation they faced, including being reassigned, getting bad performance reviews and such.<p>I jumped ship for these kinds of reasons, but looking ahead a couple years. You simply cannot scale culture, especially when culture that prevents it from going full balls-to-the-wall profit. Google is growing at such a rate that it surpassed organic trajectory; it&#x27;s discarding and digesting its own culture as it swallows up the tech industry and doubles down on surveillance. The technical capabilities of the panopticon it has already built should be the subject of (world) government oversight. Sadly, tech giants have outpaced democracy&#x27;s ability to recognize and rein in threats to human freedom.<p>Google&#x27;s play to be everyone&#x27;s digital assistant should be recognized for what it nakedly is: a play to absolutely dominate every single person&#x27;s life and sell those lives to the highest bidder.

&gt; Around the same time Google redrafted its policies, making it a fireable offense to even look at certain documents. And let’s be clear, looking at such documents is a big part of Google culture; the company describes it as a benefit in recruiting, and even encourages new hires to read docs from projects all across the company. Which documents were off limits after this policy change? The policy was unclear, even explicitly stating the documents didn’t have to be labeled to be off limits.<p>Is such a policy legally enforceable or is it relying on the fact that Google can outspend them in a litigation?

Tech - Past - Leaders were science lovers, humanity saviours, Going past limits of intelligence. Tech - Present - Contaminated with Human management science, economics and anything that gets touched by money. Science based on top of money, is it a real science at all?<p>Nope.

Expropriate Google.

Seems there is still hope for Google. Few more actions like that and maybe they will start behaving like a company and not like an ideological echo chamber.