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Should Google Have Fired Its Protesting Employees?
Google reportedly fired about 50 employees in April for participating in sit-in protests at company offices in a move that pits employee rights and free speech against workplace order and productivity.
The demonstrators opposed a $1.2 billion 2021 Google Cloud contract — known as Project Nimbus — that calls upon Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. Protesters claim Google’s services are being used to harm Palestinians.
In a note to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, “We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion… But 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.”
Google also said that Project Nimbus is “not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
In a blog post, No Tech For Apartheid, the organizers of the protests, accused Google of lying about what happened inside its offices during what it described as a “peaceful sit-in” that received overwhelming support from other workers who weren’t participating in the protest.
“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers,” No Tech For Apartheid asserted.
Driven by younger workers and customers who gravitate to brands that align with their values, businesses in recent years began staking out public positions on social issues, including immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, gun control, and racial justice after George Floyd’s 2020 murder. It’s become more common to see consumer boycott threats as well as employee unrest tied to a company’s position on issues or actions.
At Google, workers in the past have challenged the tech giant over issues including diversity within its workforce, sexual misconduct among executives, and other controversial contracts. In 2018, Google workers successfully pushed the company to end a deal with the U.S. Defense Department that would have helped the military analyze drone videos.
However, the sit-ins around the divisive Israel-Hamas war apparently crossed the line.
“The Israel-Hamas war is dividing employees in ways that I don’t think the debate over police brutality, for instance, ever did,” David Primo, a professor of political science and business administration at the University of Rochester in New York, told USA Today.
Among other firms, Amazon employees have also attended rallies and signed a petition to management, calling for the company to end its involvement in the Google Cloud contract. In early April, nearly 400 current and former Apple employees published an open letter alleging that several Apple Store and corporate employees have been disciplined or “wrongfully terminated” for expressing support for Palestinian people by wearing pins, bracelets, or keffiyeh.
Workers at Procter & Gamble, Nike, and Instacart all expressed displeasure, in Slack messages or emails to executives, with the way their companies have handled the response to the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to Bloomberg.
Americans remain divided over whether corporations should take stands on big political issues, although younger people feel strongly they should.
A survey of 1,500 U.S. and Canadian employees from the HR platform Achievers Workforce Institute taken in March found half of employees want to work for organizations that take public stands on world events, with younger generations (Gen Z and millennials) nearly twice as likely to want their companies to engage.
A survey of 600 C-suite leaders released last week by executive women networking group Chief found that 87% of executives believe taking a public stance on a social issue is riskier than staying silent, but 90% agreed they’re under pressure from stakeholders to take (or not take) a public stand. The pressure comes from three angles: external voices (the public, customers, and community leaders), cited by 73%; internal stakeholders (employees and shareholders), 60%; and company leadership (values of leadership team and board of directors), 58%.
Discussion Questions
Was Google’s firing of employees involved in sit-in protests over its cloud computing contract with the Israeli government appropriate or inappropriate?
How should firms deal with activist employees?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Trevor Sumner
Head of AI and Innovation, Raydiant
Dick Seesel
Principal, Retailing In Focus LLC
Employment is at-will and Google had every right to fire employees for disrupting operations, preventing other employees from going to work, and for being publicly critical of corporate. They have every right to their free speech, but not to unconditional employment. If Google hadn’t taken action, it would have set a disastrous precedent that employees can blatantly defy corporate guidelines with impunity, devaluing any type of corporate governance enforcement. Google 100% did the necessary thing.
I disagree w/ Tom’s assertion: this doesn’t pit “free speech rights” against…anything really: the right to say anything – and sit anywhere you want – stops at the property line. Off site comments to the media, or social media postings, would be such a conflict, but there is none here.
There is no such a thing as freedom to protest on the private property of a company. Any employee doing this against the company’s wishes should be sacked. This in no way infringes on their rights; they’re still free to hold whatever views they want.
More widely, Google and Amazon have every right to provide Israel – the only democratic and free country in that region – with technology.
At Columbia University and across the country in 1970, protestors took over school buildings protesting the Vietnam War. All the issues that are being raised today about the protests were being raised then. Young people were injured and died. While I was not a supporter of the action, in retrospect, I beleive that it was part of the movement to end the war and save American and Vietnamese lives.
Regarding today’s discussion, Google has every right to fire the protesting employees. Not because they are protesting but because they are disrupting the business. The employees could just demonstrate outside the offices. Google and any company can do business with whomever they want, good or bad actors.
My right to free speech does not apply when I’m on company time, especially when I’m on company property. The hubris of these employees expecting their employer to allow them to disrupt business and not face repercussions is rich.
:::::sigh::::: I know I’ve seen this film before. And I didn’t like it then. I don’t like it now. We are headed for a God-awful DNC convention because…..I’ve seen this film before
Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza (which it didn’t start) is a fraught topic, whether in the halls of Congress, on college campuses, or in American synagogues. But when the debate veers into anti-Semitism (see “genocidal Israeli government”) and calls for the end of Israel itself, free speech has devolved into hate speech.
Private businesses like Google, and private universities, are within their rights to enforce their own rules of conduct. Free speech and peaceful demonstrations are embedded in American history (as anyone alive in 1968 can tell you), but it’s up to the grownups in the workplace and on college campuses to enforce some standards of civility.
My own freedom of speech does not mean that I have the right to trample the rights and freedoms of other people. I have a lot of latitude for what I say and do on my property and on my time. If I’m on company property and company time, that’s a whole different scenario. I can still make choices about what I say and do, but the consequences are completely different. People can vote with their voice, their behavior, their wallet and/or their feet. If they aren’t happy with Google’s response after giving voice to their views, they can vote with their feet and leave. Or they can choose to stay and disrupt the business. That immediately puts their job in jeopardy. There are progressions of behavior, and there are boundaries. When those boundaries are crossed, Google has every right to terminate offenders.
Employees have a right to ask questions about certain policies and procedures and have a right to free speech. But these rights are not absolute or endless. Employees that disagree with management do not have a right to disrupt the workplace, damage equipment and/or any type of workplace violence or harassment. Companies in these times should consider being proactive and re-communicate policies relating to protests and general employee conduct so there is no confusion or lack of understanding.
Most companies wouldn’t allow protests like this. Perhaps the employees who participated thought that their firing would amplify press coverage and help their cause.
Never bite the hand that feeds you. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. These are simple lessons that we seemed to have been forgotten in the “me-only” age that also appears frighteningly plagued by an apparent lack of critical thinking skills.
I believe Google handled the situation well because it’s impossible to please everyone. At some point, companies (and universities) must take a stand because our rights aren’t absolute. It’s another simple lesson: the right to swing my fist ends where another person’s nose begins.
The good news is that we have freedoms. For example, if we don’t like the hand that feeds us, we have the freedom freedom to find another hand. There’s a lot of personal power in that.
Google’s “free speech” scenario is similar to situations at Starbucks over similar issues, and perhaps not unlike Kaepernick’s protests against our country while wearing an NFL uniform.
I was encouraged, and surprised, by the comments of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, “workplace, clear policies, business, not for politics,” Granted, there is irony in his comments, since Google has a very biased political philosophy, and their views are implemented in their biased rankings of news items. But I suppose that is a different issue.
The bottom line is that “free speech” does not apply in the workplace. It can be dangerous for employees to take a stand on political issues because they may be inadvertently conveying an image of their employer that might not be in their employer’s best interests.
An employer has every right to fire employees who don’t comply with the employer’s outspoken political policies. I hope that more companies will follow Google’s example.
Starbucks is still suffering from the outspoken political views of their employee union, because consumers don’t always distinguish between employee views and company views.
After Kaepernick began protesting against America, and other players followed, the NFL’s ratings declined for five years, which led to a decline in advertising revenue.
Google did the right thing.
Anytime one employee makes another feel unsafe, the situation must be handled. This “protest” is a politically and racially motivated issue, which creates a different type of tension. This is not appropriate workplace behavior. An argument that this is free speech crosses the boundaries when it impacts the safety of others. Furthermore, for employees to speak out against the company that employees them because they disagree who they are doing business with, regardless of why, must also be handled. I am sure Google did everything “by the book.”
Free speech on your own time is one thing. But once on company time and on company property, employers have the right to remove employees if they ignore supervisory warnings, violate company rules, cause damage, or disrupt the workplace. Simple as that.