Google fired almost 50 employees for protesting against the company’s contract with Israel. Now a group of them have filed a complaint with the US labour board claiming that they were unlawfully fired, it was reported. The former Google employees told US National Labour Relations Board that their labour rights were violated by the company. They also claimed that Google interfered with their rights under the US labour law to advocate for better working conditions as well.
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The employees complained that they were not engaging in any political debate during the protests but were rather demanding better work conditions related to building software sold to governments like that of Israel. This is a protected activity under the National Labour Relations Act, they said.
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A software engineer fired by Google told ITPro, “That’s legally protected activity. Sundar (Pichai) can say he doesn’t want that but the National Labour Relations Act says otherwise. Google is probably the most powerful company in the world, and the work the workers do every day has an incredible impact. To pretend it’s objective and you can’t talk about the effects of that is absurd.”
This comes after Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post that employees need to be more focused “in how we work, collaborate, discuss and even disagree.”
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Google has a culture of vibrant, open discussion “that enables us to create amazing products and turn great ideas into action,” he said.
He added, “Ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”
Chris Rackow, head of security, Google also sent a stern message to employees saying, “If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” he said in a stern warning to all employees.
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