She didn't abuse anything. She followed the standard process and she created the alert on the appropriate page (labor relations) to inform people of company policy: https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg

What if the message was: "Make America Great Again".

What if the message was: "H1B - go back to your country".

would it still feel ok to you?

etc

it is grossly unprofessional to insert unrelated messaging and hijack a tool to push your agenda.

"Going through standard protocols" in this case meant two other people approved the change - those two people also show serious unprofessionalism and bear responsibility as well - it is not an excuse.

Edit:

I have now also read the author's take on it.

https://medium.com/@ksspiers/google-fires-another-worker-for...

I do feel that the way Google went about it was heavy-handed and reflects badly on Google as well.

It's more like posting a reminder of the current legal minimum wage—and only showed up, apparently, if the user visited the site of a consulting firm Google hired to help them figure out how to avoid unionization.

A great and entirely "professional" thing to do? Nah, but hardly worth the vigorous harumphing and tut-tutting it's receiving. It's not like she contributed code to Amp or spearheaded putting ads inline with and above search results. You know, nothing terribly evil.

I think, especially in the light of how it was targeted, a better analogy would be the act of popping a message from the Democrats when visiting the Republican RNC website or vice-versa.

I find it oppressive - the mere "reminder" wants to interfere, it wants to to take away your ability to think for yourself and make up your own mind.

I don't get how so many of the comments on here go straight to political messaging. It's an NLRB notice. There is nothing political about it.

> A great and entirely "professional" thing to do? Nah

So unprofessional?

Somewhat, rather, not not unprofessional, perhaps.

The part I found interesting was that the pop up was on a page specifically about labor rights: https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg

So it's not really inserting unrelated message. I feel like this is completely lost for some reason.

Well the article didn't really go into details. When I read it I got the idea she got two thumbs up on a merge request which is a far sight from getting approval from introducing a new feature by some change management board.

I suspect the details of what really happened would be quite illuminating.

> We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that it was “a serious violation.”

See my other comment reply.

And the “standard review process” was to get approval from two coworkers. Does this even pass any type of bar of what is acceptable behavior?

A code review isn't some kind of blessing.

It's just a way to catch some issues before they get further and cause big problems.

It is too bad for this employee that the CR didn't stop this change.

I love that a site full of engineers is pretending that getting a pull request approved by colleagues is the same thing as getting management's approval for a new, most likely controversial feature. Google is clearly trying to squash union organizing at the company but let's not pretend this employee was correct in her actions. Google being evil and this employee being in the wrong are not mutually exclusive.

I'm stunned by the number of people who think that reviewing a PR is just a matter of checking the code works and looks clean.

Does nobody ask what the code is for and why you're doing it? I mean, I don't expect people to require detailed specs before approving, but a quick "what's this code for, and why are you doing it?" before addressing the details.

Surely that's the bare minimum, isn't it?

Even if they asked those questions, the PR would've looked pretty legit. No one directly asks "did your manager approve this?", that would be silly. When a PR is made and you're asked to review, you assume that the person went through the proper steps to get approval in the first place. In this case those other employees would've seen just another notice being added to an employee page

The employee was not correct in doing her legal obligation to inform people of their right to organize in an app designed to inform employees about various rights and things as they browse the web? Which she had the authority to do because it's literally what she was hired to do?

Can you explain how this makes the employee wrong if they follow the law and their company fires them for doing so?

A writer hired to write the wording on Google's websites could submit a change that rot13s every word on Google's web properties. This would not be against the law, additionally it would be exactly what the employee was hired to do. But the employee should be fired all the same.

> "The employee was not correct in doing her legal obligation to inform people of their right to organize..."

The corporation as an entity has the legal obligation to inform people of their right to organize. The corporation has designated specific people with the appropriate expertise and authority as those permitted to do so. Said group does not include this individual. End of story.

> "Which she had the authority to do because it's literally what she was hired to do?"

This individual is a legal or HR specialist with expertise in US labor law and knowledge of approved mechanisms for complying with said laws? No? How odd it is, then, that people are claiming that is what she was "hired to do" despite having no qualifications or permission to to do so.

If my company's handbook on privileged access is anything like Google's, it's completely against the rules to do something like this, even if it's for a noble or worthy cause for its employees, even if other employee's must sign off on the change. Our employee agreement comes with an NDA that tells us to not speak bad about the company, and insubordination of this has resulted in firings just from social media criticism.

I'm not siding with Google, but I'm not siding with her either. The facts and evidence presented to me don't give me an impression that Google was in the wrong by firing her. My opinion will change if I see that the guiding principles or Employee handbook that led Google to this decision are not in agreement.

Its also against the rules to go on strike, but it would be unlawful to fire someone for striking in many cases

Did you come to the comments to discuss this, or just spam your empty response at everyone?