[HN Gopher] Google Says Staff Have No Right to Protest Its Choic...
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       Google Says Staff Have No Right to Protest Its Choice of Clients
        
       Author : gorbachev
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2021-08-24 21:42 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
        
       | PeterisP wrote:
       | I don't know the details of this, but it does seem to make sense
       | - it may be prohibited to fire an employee for requesting better
       | working conditions, but if an employee refuses to serve a
       | particular customer because they don't like them, that would seem
       | to me a quite reasonable reason for termination. Labor law
       | legitimately protects many parts of employee-employer
       | relationships, but the employer's choice of which customers to
       | serve is not one of them, as long as the service is otherwise
       | legal to perform and does not put the employees at personal risk
       | (e.g. from a specific abusive customer).
       | 
       | How would/should a restaurant react if some waiters team up and
       | argue to other waiters "we shouldn't serve those bloody [insert
       | your favorite group] bastards in this restaurant" ? Such requests
       | simply are not a legitimate demand that should be protected under
       | labor law - for those aspects, the employer can set the policy
       | and if you disagree with the employer's policy, you can quit or
       | be fired even in countries/states where otherwise they can't fire
       | you just because.
        
       | tomklein wrote:
       | I think one of the major advantages a tech company can have
       | against their competitors is their culture and recently, Google
       | seems to be losing out on this a lot. IMHO there is a huge
       | difference between companies that just have workers and companies
       | that are a group of people working towards a common goal/vision
        
       | mikevm wrote:
       | Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent.
       | 
       | That's what you get when you hire SJWs. Funny how the current
       | border fiasco under the Biden administration is not bothering any
       | of these leftists.
        
       | jaytaylor wrote:
       | That isn't very Google-y of them! Where can we report the
       | cultural violation?
       | 
       | /me laughs
       | 
       | Seriously though:
       | 
       | > "What we have here is a protest that does not seek to improve
       | employees' terms and conditions of employment," but rather "a
       | purely political protest that sought to use Google's government
       | contracts, or potential government contracts, as leverage," he
       | said.
       | 
       | > Google violated the law "to discourage employees from engaging
       | in" legally-protected activism, according to a July complaint
       | issued by labor board prosecutors.
       | 
       | How hard will the Labor Board fight to protect employee political
       | speech? It seems like a different level of concern compared to
       | pursuing reasonable working conditions for workers.
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-24 23:02 UTC)