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A comment on Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges. Parent comment

Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by munk-a on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @04:42PM (#25282036)
> If the HR rep was speaking truthfully, then I would have expected to Google legal to just adopt the updated text in this agreement and all future agreements. It literally got tweaked at least once a year so the problem of "multiple agreements" wasn't really a problem.

I'm definitely not defending the actions of Google here but I do understand them - it's quite likely this HR rep couldn't legally agree to this contract modification and it's entirely possible that when it was forwarded to legal they didn't have the power to approve this change without consulting up the legal ladder and possibly passing the question by upper management.

To contrast, if this person had said "I can't agree to that clause for my personal property but I am happy to be issued and exclusively use (for business purposes) a phone from you folks." - that problem has a solution that's pretty negligible in cost when compared to the cost of employing someone and it doesn't go against the contract they've been asked to get people to sign on to.

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by jbay808 on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @05:25PM (#25282558)
> To contrast, if this person had said[...]

I mean, Google could also have made that their response, rather than terminating the relationship right there.

"We're sorry we can't change the contract; would it work for you to use a work phone? We can pay for that."

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by munk-a on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @05:29PM (#25282599)
Absolutely - and it seems likely their rejection may not have been due to the contract change request but due to the fact the potential employee rocked the boat... Which is quite not okay in my eyes.
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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by ardy42 on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @05:28PM (#25282587)
> I'm definitely not defending the actions of Google here but I do understand them - it's quite likely this HR rep couldn't legally agree to this contract modification and it's entirely possible that when it was forwarded to legal they didn't have the power to approve this change without consulting up the legal ladder and possibly passing the question by upper management.

I'd be kinda surprised if legal couldn't approve a change like that. Isn't it the bread and butter of legal departments to review all kinds of contracts (with customers, vendors, etc.)?

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by yjftsjthsd-h on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @06:30PM (#25283250)
> I'm definitely not defending the actions of Google here but I do understand them - it's quite likely this HR rep couldn't legally agree to this contract modification and it's entirely possible that when it was forwarded to legal they didn't have the power to approve this change without consulting up the legal ladder and possibly passing the question by upper management.

If you make a system where people are unable to behave reasonably, you still get to be responsible for their behavior.

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Re:Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US ... by joshuamorton on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @04:45PM (#25282072)
> To contrast, if this person had said "I can't agree to that clause for my personal property but I am happy to be issued and exclusively use (for business purposes) a phone from you folks."

And indeed this is a thing that many people at Google do.

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