Google Fires 4 Workers Active In Labor Organizing

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Google on Monday fired four employees who had been active in labor organizing at the company (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), according to a memo that was seen by The New York Times. The memo, sent by Google's security and investigations team, told employees that the company had dismissed four employees "for clear and repeated violations of our data security policies." Jenn Kaiser, a Google spokeswoman, confirmed the firings but declined to elaborate.

The dismissals are expected to exacerbate rocky relations between Google's management and a vocal contingent of workers who have protested the company's handling of sexual harassment, its treatment of contract employees, and its work with the Defense Department, federal border agencies and the Chinese government. Tensions have increased as Google has cracked down on what had long been a freewheeling work culture that encouraged employees to speak out. Google recently canceled a regular series of companywide meetings that allowed workers to pose questions to senior executives and began working with a consulting firm hat has helped companies quell unionization efforts. Earlier this month, Google placed two employees, Laurence Berland and Rebecca Rivers, on administration leave, "saying they had gotten into confidential documents that were not relevant to their work," reports The New York Times. "They were among the four workers who were fired."

"In the memo, Google said the fired employees had repeatedly searched for, looked through and distributed information 'outside the scope of their jobs.' One of the workers set up notifications to receive emails detailing the work and whereabouts of other employees without their knowledge or consent, the memo said. 'This is not how Google's open culture works or was ever intended to work,' the memo said."