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December 5, 2019

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4 sacked staff seek probe of tech giant

Four employees fired by Google ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday said on Tuesday they were seeking a federal investigation into their dismissal, which they claimed was in retaliation for their labor organization efforts.

The dismissal of the group dubbed the 鈥淭hanksgiving Four鈥 on social media highlighted deepening tensions at Google, which had stated the employees violated data security policies.

A Medium post signed by the four said Google 鈥渇ired us for engaging in protected labor organizing鈥 at the Silicon Valley giant.

鈥淲e spoke up when we saw Google making unethical business decisions that create a workplace that is harmful to us and our colleagues,鈥 said the posting signed by engineers Laurence Berland, Paul Duke, Rebecca Rivers and Sophie Waldman.

鈥淲e participated in legally protected labor organizing, fighting to improve workplace conditions for all Google workers.鈥

The four said they would file a complaint alleging unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board. 鈥淲e look forward to hearing the NLRB鈥檚 findings, which we expect will confirm that Google acted unlawfully,鈥 they said.

The dismissed engineers said they were acting on the basis of Google鈥檚 own internal rules. 鈥淭he company鈥檚 code of conduct states unequivocally: 鈥榙on鈥檛 be evil, and if you see something that you think isn鈥檛 right 鈥 speak up!鈥 And we did,鈥 they wrote.

The posting said the employees were seeking better conditions for temporary and contractual workers, challenging the protection of executives accused of sexual harassment.


 

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