Indeed ! This Would be much easier to take seriously if Sundar hadn’t meet with Sunak, Modi, Biden et al. In the first year or so since getting the job.
In fact, I’ve heard Google is especially bad here. You only get ahead by shipping a product, and getting a project approved is largely politicking. It’s one of the more political business environments around.
My company seems a lot better. We don’t have aggressive ladder climbing like the big tech firms, we instead value consistency.
You only get ahead by shipping a product, and getting a project approved is largely politicking
Yep - I had a friend who worked for three years at Google, none of the products he worked on ever shipped and eventually he gave up on ever receiving a good salary (bonuses/stock options/etc are supposed to be most of the pay, but you only get that by working on a successful product)
They have ten major campuses worldwide that focus on product development, but only one of those actually ships products regularly.
— With love, your employer who is investing amounts of money beyond your comprehension in a government of a country now being tried for genocide with undenial and ongoing human rights violations.
Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.
Sure, google is an evil corporation and there’s lots of reasons to hate them, but why are we focusing on this specific thing which is common across all workplaces?
And yes, if you find out your employer is constructing concentration camps and you openly speak against that, you’re probably going to lose your job. Why is this even a question?
Lol you’re getting tossed in jail doing this in a communist society…this isn’t about capitalism at all. It’s about keeping people from creating a hostile work environment, look how polarized politics is online, shit gets heated in a work setting? It’s a no go for any sane company wanting to keep the peace between employees.
No one said it hasn’t helped it some, but until you have magical replicators like in star trek, people will still be people. You cannot stop human nature to want more.
I think maybe you’re conflating capitalism and politics.
The need for workers to voice out against company policies and actions often necessary for safety of workers, customers, etc. This is required for capitalism to work to any standard.
Its not hard to see how firing employees for noting safety problems can cause problems. The obvious case for this is Boeing where they started punishing people for doing basic quality control work.
In what country do you think you’re allowed to violate company policy?
Lol did you already forget what you said? Or did your original comment actually say, “Violating company policy at the work place has been an HR violation for some time…” Because yeah, no shit. Somehow I don’t think that’s what you were going for…
Did you purposefully completely change the topic, or was that some kind of “sly” attempt to pivot? Shit is real weird.
Maybe you were about to ask the actual logical follow-up question of, “In what country do you think you’re allowed to discuss politics at work?” before doing a quick google search and realizing you’d make yourself look even stupider.
As if the entire conversation wasn’t about whether or not something should be allowed to be a company’s policy. Not whether or not employees should be able to break their work’s HR policy. Do you not see the distinction here?
You must be very confused. I did not forget anything. I’m simply making the claim that your impression that this happens only in my “shitty” country is wrong and if you tell me what country you live in, I can give you multiple examples of it happening there too. You’re probably misinformed or ignorant of the law if you think it doesn’t.
“A company should not be able to make X part of their policy.”
In what country is an employee allowed to violate their company’s policy?
That’s you. If only there was a word for this… Shmallacy?
The actual question would be,
In what country is an employer barred from firing a person for talking about politics?
Maybe I’m giving you too much credit, but I feel like you knew this and realize how stupid you sounded. The better thing to do would probably just have been to quietly exit the conversation.
By the way, check usernames, I just entered this thread.
Even if we ignore what @prole wrote, in civilized countries you’re allowed to break company policy if it infringes your rights, regardless of what a contract says.
Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.
Looks like a navel-gazing USA thing. Here in Europe I cannot imagine that there’s many companies who’d fire workers for protesting or tells them to shut up forever.
You should be aware of the fact that Google & the others have offices in Europe and they have the same policy here too. These type of policies fit well within the legal framework in most EU countries. And I guarantee that people would get fired over protests disrupting the workplace if found unwarranted.
That’s not actually true. Even in Sweden, employees can be fired for misconduct and what constitutes misconduct is a complex matter. But more importantly, in the Tesla case, those employees are on strike which is a different issue.
They can be fired for misconduct, yes, What makes you think protests or giving opinons on work related mtter, possibly supoorted by a union, would be interpreted as “misconduct”? Can you give an example of a case like that where misconduct was having an issue with selling products to war criminals or similar?
Publicly labeling customers as “war criminals” is misconduct and will get you fired anywhere in the world, yes. Stop pretending you misunderstand this simple fact.
That’s stupid. How can I show you an instance of someone talking against a customer publicly is Sweden? Calming that employees cannot get fired for damaging the business in any country is completely false. Thinking that the situation in Sweden with Tesla is similar to what happened in Google is completely ignorant.
I understand simple facts extremely well. The problem is that you’re trying to make this situation into something it isn’t
You should be more careful on how you let information reach you. You have to be pretty ignorant to think that there exists a country which doesn’t allow business to fire employees.
Fair grounds for dismissal means that an employee is behaving in an undesirable way and is aware that the behaviour is not acceptable. As an employer, you are therefore obliged to make the employee aware that you consider their behaviour to be improper.
Misconduct, such as failure to cooperate, incompetence and poor work performance, can be fair grounds for dismissal on grounds of misconduct.
So yes, again we agree, there is a law of misconduct. Can you demonstrate any reasonable example where an employer in Sweden was fired on such grounds because they protest peacefully against their own company making an unethical deal with a questionable government or the like?
We both agree that misconduct is a thing. We disageew on what miscobduct means. I hope that makes it clear.
Have you read that article btw?
I am not sure what exactly you are asking me to show… in Sweden (as said in the link you posted and as I already know by actually working in Sweden for years) is that you have to warn workers of msiconduct and they can appeal your decision if it’s dumb as fuck (like what Google did). Do you have any reason at all to believe that workers in Sweden would be fired in a similar way? I don’y think so. This shit does not happen here, and there are mechanisms that give employees and unions power to stop it.
Like read this shit:
Google fired workers who willingly left the sit-in when asked by company officials, and also fired some workers who “had just stopped by to chat,” Hasan Ibraheem, one of the Google workers who was arrested and fired, said Monday during a news conference.
so do you have any case whatsoever that shows that this shit would fly at a Swedish company? One where it was legally challenged at least? If no, then what exactly is your point?
PS: sorry can’t be bothered to fix spelling lol. Your tone was so crap that it even put me off trying to explain my point. You cannot fire people in Sweden for doing whay those employees at Google did.
so do you have any case whatsoever that shows that this shit would fly at a Swedish company? One where it was legally challenged at least? If no, then what exactly is your point?
The fact that I don’t have an example doesn’t mean that it can’t happen. It just means that it hasn’t yet or that I don’t know of it. Just because you can’t show me an example of an atom bomb attack in Sweden or of me getting punched in the face in 2024 does not mean that these things can’t happen, does it? This whole thread started with people saying that this can’t happen in Europe. It absolutely can. And having worked in various corporations across Europe (though not Sweden specifically), I can tell you that they all have clauses in the work contract saying that you can be fired for conduct while representing the company, especially for conduct in relation to customers. So if Google employees would block the headquarters in Stockholm to convince the company to stop trading with Israel because it’s a genocidal state, I guarantee you they’d not be safe from disciplinary measures including termination.
I want to say I understand your point. You sre saying misconduct laws are vague and that allows employers to fire employees for BS. You also seem to think those Google employees committed some kind of ‘misconduct’. I disagree.
The issue in my opinion is that you are basing it on the law sounding vague… and ignoring the part where employees would receive warnings that first and foremost makes it clear to them that such a thing is regarded as misconduct and could lead to.termination… and you are ignoring that in is able to appeal the decision with the help of a union representative. Then you are ignoring all free speech laws and the fact that this is not a common culture or occurrence in Sqeden .
I work in Sweden and have read the law a million times. I also raised problems at work and challenged authority and was never fired nor sent to HR or anything like that. There are laws in Sweden that act as a safety net to prevent employers from firing a person for such trivial shit. Has this ever happened? If no one seems to interpret this as misconduct in Sweden, then where is your claim coming from?
So allow me to rephrase the question to you in a more civil way: aside from the “law being vague”, do you have reason(s) to believe that staging a sitdown as protest in Sweden or having coffee and a chat with people staging a reasonable peaceful and coordinated protest in Swede would get you fired?
This may be the case for some European countries (I have no idea and won’t speak our of my asa about places I don’t know much about) but not Sweden. If you never worked here, then you may not understand how Swedish law and unions work exactly with cases like this. I am quite thankful to live in this kind of society where my employer cannot fire me just because they would rather fund the literal mutilation of thousands of children and be complicit in international human rights violations.
And for the example you cited: as someone who has worked in Stockholm specifically and works there now: no, that would not be grounds to fire you, and you can appeal by law and get help from your union representative.
If you are unaware of Swedish law, I would advice that you avoid generalizing European laws to Sweden
I feel we need to discuss this first, because I completely disagree with you:
Then you are ignoring all free speech laws and the fact that this is not a common culture or occurrence in Sqeden .
Free speech has nothing to do with this situation. Nothing guarantees you there will be no consequences if you use your place of business for personal agenda. That’s not what free speech is about.
staging a reasonable peaceful and coordinated protest
I’m sorry, but you’re misclassifying the situation. Abusively occupying an office is not peaceful or reasonable. It is an attention forcing action and it can have consequences. They weren’t arrested for their views on the genocidal Israel state, they were arrested for being in a place they’re not legally allowed to be in. And they weren’t fired for their views on Israel, they were fired for criticising a company customer from the position of an employee
I think you misread Swedish law and are (on purpose?) misreading what happened at Google. I have nothing more to say other than the above in my previous comments. Have a nice day.
Not being able to discuss politics at work is not really the case for everyone though, it’s worker politics that aren’t allowed, if the politics agree with the owner class they’ll set up a PAC for it. Whoever heard of an executive or board member fired for discussing politics that paint the organization in a positive light? I also think it’s worth pointing out most companies would fire for this and are authoritative in structure and don’t allow for democratic practices like elections, petitioning, protesting, etc. Just because it’s that way now doesn’t mean it always will be with good labor protections.
There was a subset of Google contractors trying to unionize but while the group was campaigning at city hall. Google executives decided to not renew the contract and all of them were jobless.
“Google isnt the place for your politics. It is only a place for my politics. So get in line with my thinking or get the fuck out!” - Googles Chief Cunt.
@theluddite@jeffw Since most people spend most of their best hours at the workplace, what this person is really saying is that there shouldn't be any politics at all. I.e., this is a confession: "I am an authoritarian".
If I’m not mistaken there’s a more long winded watered down version at the end of a bunch of bs now. I may be misremembering or out of the loop on subsequent updates and changes though
Accepting contracts from Israel is just as political as denying contracts from Israel. You just stated your political stance by accepting. Why do people think it’s a free copout?