Dozens of Google workers who were fired after internal protests surrounding a lucrative contract that the technology company has with the Israeli government have filed a complaint with labor regulators in an attempt to get their jobs back.
The complaint filed late Monday with the National Labor Relations Board alleges about 50 workers were unfairly fired or placed on administrative leave earlier this month in the aftermath of employee sit-ins that occurred at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. The protests targeted a $1.2 billion deal known as Project Nimbus that provides artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli government. The fired works contend the system is being lethally deployed in the Gaza war — an allegation Google refutes.
Google jettisoned the workers’ “participation (or perceived participation) in a peaceful, non-disruptive protest that was directly and explicitly connected to their terms and conditions of work.”
I always thought it was weird try and get your job back that way. Some severance payout I can understand. An conviction of the company and a fine to be paid to you ( the unfairly fired workers ) . also yes.
But your job back? They’re going to find a way to fire you legally one way or the other. Or deny you any kind of promotion(title or financially ). Heck, make your life hell while working there. Or include you in the next downsizing they do. Why no just sue for money due to unlawful termination?
If they just demand severance, it will be said it was just a stunt to get that money. If they get the job back, they have some time to realign and have the possibility to gather more information/evidence and also keep the topic alive inside the company, maybe even being able to use company channels to target this involvement in war crimes and genocide. I could imagine that this is against a lot of compliance rules even for a company like google.
It’s probably for unemployment benefits as well. Termination for willful violation of company conduct policy will exempt you from claiming unemployment after hearing.
Union representatives are really helpful for protecting employees from repercussions like this.
Thanks for the insights. I’m lucky enough not to have been in this kind of situation before. As I imagined my career would be over, I couldn’t imagine myself trying to get my job back.
I’m in the process of doing this with my former employer (NLRB complaint). It’s not as much trying to get your job back as getting what you’re owed, be it severance or your pound of flesh lol.
A lot of contracts specify that you have to go through arbitration to resolve disputes with the company as opposed to the courts, which is both good and bad. Bad because it takes a while and they’re usually all buddy buddy with the people who pay them, but good because arbitration is pretty expensive and making them do all this when they’d rather be done with you brings me joy.
Also this gives companies the opportunity to use more rope to hang themselves with if they try to do funny stuff with their arbitrator, the NLRB can overrule arbitration decisions if they’re “repugnant”.
Raising your voice against unethical business practices should be protected. If my org started selling a device to turn people into soylent green, I’d want the ability to say no without having to quit an otherwise nice job or get arrested saying so. Not to mention, it’s Israel, genocide, and history will absolute view Google as war profiteers.
Probably miss their cushy Google salary.
Oh no consequences!
