Roughly 200 workers gathered outside a google office protesting the recent decision to put two staff members on administrative leave. The employees demonstrated outside the company’s San Francisco office at 11 am local time on Friday, 22nd November 2019.
The demonstration signals a growing rift between management and staffers at Alphabet’s subsidiary. Google had received praise in the past for its open corporate culture. The staff believes the company is quenching internal activism and quelling activism over its work with the military and other controversial customers.
“Over the past two years, many of my coworkers have asked the company to take meaningful action to curtail s****l harassment and systemic racism, improve the working conditions of temps, vendors, and contractors, and divest from harmful tech,” said Zora Tung, a software engineer. “Instead of listening to us, the company has chosen to silence us.”
The protesting workers say the company unjustly put Laurence Berland and Rebecca Rivers on indefinite administrative leave without warning. They also demand that Google brings the employees back to work with immediate effect.
Workers Say Google Use Intimidation in Attempt To Silence Workers
Google put the two workers on leave earlier this month. However, a spokeswoman attributed it to allegedly violating company policies. The protesters say neither Berland nor Rivers was given an explanation for their punishment according to Blomberg News. Rivers protested internally against US Customs and Border Protection, which currently is testing a Google cloud product. Berland also protested against YouTube for its handling of hate speech policies.
“It’s a brute force intimidation in an attempt to silence workers,” the employees said in an email.
Rivers mentions that Google’s official reason for sending her on leave was to investigate her document access at the company to ensure “everything’s on the up and up.”
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“However, many of the questions during this interrogation focused on my involvement in the Customs and Border Protection petition and social media usage,” Rivers also said. “I helped my coworkers learn about and act on Google’s collaboration with CBP. Many of my coworkers are immigrants and this directly affects their lives and communities.”
Berland also says Google punished him for his protests against YouTube and for agitating, with other colleagues, that Google stops its work with the CBP.
A company spokeswoman responds that Google is only investigating the access to confidential documents and information that made some employees feel unsafe.
Google Says its Only Investigating Access of Confidential Document
“We have clear guidelines about appropriate conduct at work, and we’ve had a number of concerns raised,” the spokeswoman said. “We always investigate such issues thoroughly.”
Recently, workers accused managers of trying to censor internal discussions and shutting down meetings about labour rights.
Last week, Google scrapped its weekly all-hands staff meeting for a monthly gathering that will focus on business and strategy topics.
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