Google workers arrested after protesting against contract with IDF in CEO's office.

[Brittain33]

Lmao this is the most performative nonsense I've seen in my life.

If these people truly believed that Google was complicit in genocide, they'd quit their jobs and work somewhere else. And it's not like they're minimum wage workers taking whatever job they can get to put food on the table, they're software engineers almost certainly pulling six figures.

Haven’t they effectively quit their jobs?

[Brittain33]

NYT reports that Google fired 28 employees for sit-ins. Credit where credit is due, unlike students who blocked classes and campuses against rules and then asked for forgiveness because of their immigration status, these employees made a real sacrifice.

[Brittain33]

If we’re going to complain when people protest in a way that’s performative or ineffective or unconstructive or vain, we must acknowledge there are people protesting who are choosing appropriate targets (Google has much more involvement in Israel’s functioning than the Dean of UC Berkeley Law) and willing to take personal consequences even when I disagree with them. Maybe it’s stupid of them and maybe some of them thought they’d get away with it but I don’t think that matters.

It’s like when people vote Uncommitted in Democratic primaries. I very much disagree with their anger toward Biden and certainly those who make statements about sitting out the Presidential election, but as a Democrat, how can I complain about them using a protest vote in a primary as a way to voice their feelings?

[Brittain33]

The Google FAFO team has filed a complaint against Google at the NLRB over losing their jobs after occupying the CEO’s office. Good luck with that.

https://wapo.st/4dlFQKB

But the fired workers said they weren’t debating politics, but discussing their working conditions, which include building software that is sold to governments like Israel.

“That’s legally protected activity,” said one of the fired workers, a software engineer who spoke on the condition of anonymity for legal reasons. “Sundar can say he doesn’t want that, but the National Labor Relations Act says otherwise. Google is probably the most powerful company in the world, and the work the workers do every day has an incredible impact. To pretend it’s objective and you can’t talk about the effects of that is absurd.”