<story><title>Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize</title><url>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/security-engineer-says-google-fired-her-trying-notify-co-workers-n1103031</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>helen___keller</author><text>I agreed with this at first, but according to her medium post ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@ksspiers&amp;#x2F;google-fires-another-worker-for-exercising-her-rights-and-protecting-coworkers-from-illegal-b86c41ef91b9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@ksspiers&amp;#x2F;google-fires-another-worker-for...&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;If this is true and her job is literally to create javascript notifications of company policy, then I think it&amp;#x27;s entirely reasonable what she did considering it IS company policy (well, law really) that you have a right to organize.&lt;p&gt;Link to the popup: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;miro.medium.com&amp;#x2F;max&amp;#x2F;2000&amp;#x2F;0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;miro.medium.com&amp;#x2F;max&amp;#x2F;2000&amp;#x2F;0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>cj</author><text>&amp;gt; Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”&lt;p&gt;So basically, the Google employee added arbitrary javascript to an internal chrome extension used by Google employees that triggered a popup when employees visited a specific website.&lt;p&gt;And Google fires her with the reasoning:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; “We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that it was “a serious violation.”&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not at all opposed to Google employees organizing.  But injecting javascript into an employer&amp;#x27;s internal chrome extension does seem like something that warrants some type of action by Google in response...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scarmig</author><text>The extension is intended to inform Googlers of applications that are not approved for corp data, not just generic &amp;quot;employee guidelines and company policies.&amp;quot; This is so you don&amp;#x27;t e.g. upload PII into a random unsecured S3 bucket.&lt;p&gt;Yes, it&amp;#x27;s company policy, but this is more like running into a meeting and then interrupting it so you can start reciting NLRB policy than it is posting a flyer. Worse, it misappropriates a security tool in order to do that. And when it comes to intentional actions that violate or undermine security, Google, like most companies, takes a pretty hard line.&lt;p&gt;Disclosing that I&amp;#x27;m a Googler, and speaking only on my own behalf, with no connection to anyone involved except the fact that the extension is running on my browser.</text></comment>
<story><title>Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize</title><url>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/security-engineer-says-google-fired-her-trying-notify-co-workers-n1103031</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>helen___keller</author><text>I agreed with this at first, but according to her medium post ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@ksspiers&amp;#x2F;google-fires-another-worker-for-exercising-her-rights-and-protecting-coworkers-from-illegal-b86c41ef91b9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@ksspiers&amp;#x2F;google-fires-another-worker-for...&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;If this is true and her job is literally to create javascript notifications of company policy, then I think it&amp;#x27;s entirely reasonable what she did considering it IS company policy (well, law really) that you have a right to organize.&lt;p&gt;Link to the popup: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;miro.medium.com&amp;#x2F;max&amp;#x2F;2000&amp;#x2F;0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;miro.medium.com&amp;#x2F;max&amp;#x2F;2000&amp;#x2F;0*1BTVYLTvuHiJVvp_.jpg&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>cj</author><text>&amp;gt; Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”&lt;p&gt;So basically, the Google employee added arbitrary javascript to an internal chrome extension used by Google employees that triggered a popup when employees visited a specific website.&lt;p&gt;And Google fires her with the reasoning:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; “We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that it was “a serious violation.”&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not at all opposed to Google employees organizing.  But injecting javascript into an employer&amp;#x27;s internal chrome extension does seem like something that warrants some type of action by Google in response...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dqv</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re right. It literally links to (what appears to be) an internal company document. go&amp;#x2F;nlrbnotice</text></comment>