Google’s parent company, Alphabet, hit a new milestone on Friday: a $2 trillion market cap.
Google is now the world’s fourth most valuable public company, right behind Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft, which has a market cap of just over $3 trillion and overtook Apple earlier this year for first place.
Yet it’s somehow okay for the company to voice political opinions, and it’s also okay to voice political opinions that are in line with the CEO’s opinions on company time.
It’s not okay, it’s legal. This argument gets incessantly downvoted on Lemmy. No one is arguing ethics. They’re just citing the law.
Speaking as someone who has attended many protests, it’s very important to keep the law on your side. Downvoting factual legal information is inhibiting to future protesters, and needs to stop. Share accurate information to prevent repercussions like this from happening to uninformed protesters in the future.
I used the word okay because the person above me did. It is also legal to voice political opinions, even on company time, even on company platforms, and it is also legal for the company to fire the people doing so. That said, the company is thus taking a political stance by firing those people.
That’s all I’m saying. Not that it is illegal what Google did, but that it is reprehensible.
That’s the misinformation that cost these people their jobs. Stop spreading it. You’re wrong, and dangerously misinforming others about US laws. You cannot voice political opinions at work if the company has a policy against the practice.
If an employee has been warned that their actions are in violation of a company policy, and that further conduct would result in termination, they are within their right to terminate. Furthermore, willful non-compliance of company policy will likely disqualify the former employee from unemployment benefits at hearing.
These are laws. You don’t have to like them, but pretending they don’t exist could cost others their jobs in the future.
If I understand correctly, these people did this despite knowing the risk that they may be fired, they were not doing it believing in some nonexistent US worker’s protections keeping them employed. It’s not like they are suing Google for wrongful termination or something.
They are company policy. It’s not a law, it’s like three levels down, right along with the terms of service documents nobody reads and those stickers malls have on the doors to tell you that you can’t bring your dog in. It’s legal as in it does not break any laws, as the company is not an entity that can enforce laws anyway. If they broke the law, these people would be fined, or jailed. It is not even a tort, since Google can’t even sue them for this. Yes, Google can fire you with cause if you break company policy, but company policy is not law.
And I was not saying Google does not have the legal right to terminate these people. I am saying that by terminating people expressing opinions on one side, and not terminating those expressing opinions on the other, the company is taking a political stance, which is also legal, but one can find it morally objectionable.
When you agree to at-will employment, you agree to adhere to the conduct policy of the business. Where the law comes in, involves rightful termination. If you violate a company conduct policy (depending on the severity of misconduct, in this case it’s acceptable language), the company is required to notify you that your action is in violation of said policy, and that further action would result in termination. If you continue to violate the policy, they can legally terminate you and will likely succeed in representing their case at an unemployment hearing, leaving you without benefits.
There’s an interview with one Google employee who explained that they were notified of the conduct violation on multiple instances, as well as arrest warnings. He said he knew the police were coming to arrest them, but was surprised when he received termination notice the following day. If they had a union representative, they would have been informed on how to legally protect themselves, and probably still have their jobs.
Separately, they were arrested and charged with trespassing. If your employer asks you to leave for reasons of misconduct, and you remain on the premises, they can have you arrested for trespassing.
Trespassing is against the law, yep. Doesn’t look like anybody was disputing that or ignorant of anything you’re talking about. The person above was correctly making a needed distinction; “the law” has been conflated with “company policy.”
The point they’re challenging, that I made, is that knowing employment law will protect your job when protesting. Your rights as an American do not supersede company policy in employment law. I’m just trying to prevent other people from losing their jobs due to misinformation giving them the impression that the Constitution will protect them from termination or loss of unemployment benefits.
That’s the mistake you’ve been making that I pointed out: they were never challenging the fact that knowing employment law will protect your job when protesting. They were challenging a conflation of the law with company policy.
No one in this discussion thinks the Constitution will protect them from termination when the company has employment law on their side, they’re insisting against (what seemed to be your) assertions that acting against company policy was a matter of criminal law.
E: They said “It is […] legal to voice political opinions, even on company time, even on company platforms, and it is also legal for the company to fire the people doing so.” And you replied "That’s the misinformation that caused these people their jobs. Stop spreading it. You’re wrong, and dangerously misinforming others about US laws. You cannot voice political opinions at work if the company has a policy against the practice." They weren’t spreading misinformation, man. You, however, are using words like “you cannot” about company policy, like a bootlicker.