FOIA records show Google settled with a software engineer allegedly fired for his workplace activism in 2019; settlement was approved in July by the NLRB
- U.S. Labor Board said five employees were wrongly terminated — Trial is ongoing over remaining allegations against company
Context & Ripple Effects
This disclosure closes one thread of a long-running labor fight that began when the NLRB ordered Google to let employees speak out on political and workplace issues in 2019, then escalated through a Chicago retaliation complaint filed that December and a 2020 accusation that Google spied on organizers before firing two of them. By mid-2021 the board had widened its case again, adding three more workers who protested the company's CBP work.
What the FOIA release adds is proof of quiet resolution: Google settled with one of the fired engineers and the NLRB approved it in July, even as the board formally found five employees were wrongly terminated and a trial proceeds over the rest. The same playbook resurfaces later — a confidential settlement with six engineers over the anti-union campaign, and a $27M payout in the older Nest case — making this the first documented instance of Google buying down these cases one by one rather than litigating them through.
First-order effects
- The settled engineer receives compensation without reinstatement precedent being set publicly, while four other wrongly terminated workers named in the NLRB's finding remain inside an ongoing trial with their claims unresolved.
- The FOIA disclosure hands the remaining plaintiffs and their counsel evidence that Google settles these cases when pressed, strengthening their negotiating position ahead of trial.
Second-order effects
- Confidentiality becomes the default exit: the NDA structure used in the later six-engineer settlement mirrors this case, letting Google close activist-firing claims without admitting fault in public filings.
- Each approved settlement raises the price of the next one for Google — complainants can point to prior payouts, and the NLRB has already shown willingness to expand its complaint from two fired workers to eight across multiple rounds.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, large tech employers face a structural shift in how internal activism disputes end — not in courtroom verdicts that set public precedent, but in a steady stream of NLRB-brokered settlements whose terms stay sealed, leaving organizing conditions at companies like Google governed by unpublicized agreements.
- The NLRB's willingness to keep expanding complaints against a single employer signals activist terminations becoming a standing enforcement priority, pushing HR policy at major tech firms toward treating protest-related firings as litigation exposure rather than routine discipline.
The trend: Tech-worker retaliation disputes are migrating from public trials toward confidential, NLRB-approved settlements that resolve claims individually while keeping the underlying conduct out of open court.