Google employee says she was fired for sending internal pop-ups about labor rights

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/17/21024472/google-employee-fired-labor-rights-notification-tool

By Colin Lecher@colinlecher Dec 17, 2019, 9:00am EST


Google has fired another employee following a showing of internal activism, marking the latest in a series of controversial terminations at the search giant.

Kathryn Spiers, a security engineer at Google, told The Verge she was fired from the company last week after two years. As part of her duties at Google, Spiers was responsible for sending web browser notifications within the company. While Google employees navigated the web, relevant informational pop-ups would appear as employees viewed certain sites. Spiers, who worked on internal data security, had deployed similar notifications to discourage employees from acting irresponsibly with data, among other projects.

After news broke last month about Google employing a law firm known for its anti-union activities and firing four employees involved in internal activism, Spiers took it upon herself to set up a new notification for employees. When Googlers visited the law firm’s website or Google’s internal worker guidelines, they were sent a new message through a browser pop-up: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.” The message included a link to a labor rights notice Google was mandated to post.

Spiers says she was put on administrative leave hours after releasing the message and was told on Friday that she was being fired from the company. Google management, she says, argued that she had sent the code without proper approval and had endangered company security. She says she had proper approval for sending the code, and she disputes that it introduced any security concerns.

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