Memo: Google fires four employees, citing data-security violations, amid rising tension between management and staff
- Move comes after worker protests and union organizing — Google told staff on Monday that it fired four employees for what the company called “clear and repeated violations” of its data-security policies.
Bloomberg
Context & Ripple Effects
This firing lands two weeks after Googledismissed one staffer for leaking employee information and put two others on leave over shared documents and calendar tracking — a sequence that has turned data-security policy into the company's stated rationale for removing activist employees. The four dismissed Monday follow months of worker protests and union organizing inside the company.
The stakes are legal as much as cultural: within weeks of these dismissals, the fired employees filed unfair labor practice charges and the National Labor Relations Board opened an investigation into the 'Thanksgiving Four' firings and alleged union discouragement, putting Google's security framing directly in front of a federal regulator.
First-order effects
Four employees are out with Google publicly attributing the terminations to 'clear and repeated violations' of data-security policies rather than to their organizing activity, which sets the official record the NLRB will now test.
Second-order effects
The affected workers' response is already visible: they are filing unfair labor practice charges arguing the firings were retaliation for organizing, forcing Google to defend its security justification before the board while a separate probe into the same terminations proceeds.
The trend: Large tech companies are policing internal activism through data-security and confidentiality rules, shifting workplace conflict from office politics to formal proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board.
I am SO glad I resigned from @Google in protest. It's astounding how many new ways they find to be intentionally unethical. The company “won't tolerate Googlers' work being undermined”, even when it's blatantly unethical and potentially illegal work. https://www.theguardian.com/ …
“When other employees have engaged in the conduct Google cites in its memo, have they been fired?...If not, Google will likely have to reinstate the employees and pay them backpay,” @WorkLawProf tells me https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
As a @GoogleAI PhD fellow I am extremely disappointed to see @google illegally firing workers for trying to improve their workplace. If you want job security and the ability to speak out when you see something that's wrong: do not go work at Google. https://www.theguardian.com/ .…
Last week a Google employee leaked to the NY Times about software installed to monitor employee gatherings, how they discovered this including checking on the calendars of fellow employees. Unsurprisingly Google has fired 4 people for these actions. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Google told staff it had fired four people today in a memo titled “Securing our data.” Here's the memo. (story with @GerritD & @rj_gallagher; more coming). https://www.bloomberg.com/...