With respect to past happenings with Google and its staff, Google has received a notification to remind its employees that they have a right to complain about their job conditions.
In 2018, workers at Google staged a protest about the way the company handled reports on sexual harassment by senior colleagues with levity. Another employee, Kevin Cernekee was sacked because of his political views. Google, however debunked the claims and said the company let him go because he broke some internal policies including downloading confidential material to a USB drive.
The protests prompted Google to review its internal policies and was compelled to make a promise that it would be more transparent and detailed in its investigations.
Some of the employees involved in the protest said they suffered a retaliation. Google denies taking such extreme measures.
As part of the settlement that Google reached with the US National Labour Relations Board, Google staff members have a right to complain about their working conditions. In fact, the tech firm is obliged to notify its employees about laying complaints and to encourage them to talk openly about their working conditions and request for a pay-rise if they so wish.
The firm said it will not retaliate against its workers if they speak up against unfavourable working conditions.
In November 2018, Google shut out privacy and security teams from secret China project Dragon Fly. The objective of the project was to build a search engine for China that would censor broad categories of information about human rights, peaceful protests and democracy. This meant that people’s search records would be accessible to China’s authoritarian government which has broad surveillance powers.
A staff member decided to pledge $200,000 to engineers who volunteered to go on a strike over the Google’s work on a censored search engine it was developing for China. Google claimed the site had undergone checks by privacy and security teams and that the project would face more.
Mr. Damore, an ex-staff of Google wrote a memo about gender imbalances in the tech world, suggesting genetic differences, as a response to how Google treated the sexual harassment case with levity. Mr Damore was fired afterward for violating Google’s code of conduct.
Under the new terms and conditions, strikes and protests are welcome developments. No one would be fired nor suspended for complaining about their inconveniences.
