From its foundation, Google has encouraged all employees to “act like owners”, actively urging them to query decision making in the company through a range of platforms.
However, the recent dismissal of four former employees has brought this into question.
The past year has seen a dramatic decline in the opportunities to call leadership style into question, with bosses introducing guidelines, forbidding “a raging debate over politics or the latest news story.”
This has been coupled with discussions on labour rights being blocked, and it is alleged that the company brought in a consultancy firm which focus on preventing workers becoming unionised.
A spokesperson for the company was unable to confirm the identity of those who had been fired, however, did say that Google “dismissed four individuals who were engaged in intentional and often repeated violations of our longstanding data-security policies.”
Worker activism has become increasingly important in companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, with the nature of the industry as a whole being called into question.
The New York Times has highlighted the fact that the situation calls into question the power of employees across the United States, asking “If the nation’s most sought-after workers can’t stop their employer from behaving in ways that they deplore, where does that leave the rest of us?”
The latest reports of Google’s behaviour make it unclear whether its reputation as “the American dream factory” continues to be justified.
In 2017, Google began working on software which would help the US Department of Defence track people using drones.
The endeavour, known as Project Maven, ultimately showed that the software was more effective at identifying vehicles than human data labellers were.
Rumours of the software’s effectiveness and ultimate intent were circulated across the company, and by February the following year it was well known beyond the group of engineers working on it.
Liz Fong-Jones, an engineer at Google, queried the software in a blog post, with more and more workers feeling it was not in line with the company’s values.
A.I researcher, Meredith Whittaker, led Google’s Open Research Group, and was part of a cohort who wrote a letter to the company, showing their concern.
A meeting, broadcast to Google employees across the world, defended the software, with the former chief executive for the cloud business, stating that it was identical to any off-the-shelf software which could be bought by anyone.
June of the same year saw the company pivot and promised not to renew their contract with the Defence Department.
Employees considered this decision a turning point, using the same formula to call other elements with which they were unhappy into question.
Following the circulation of James Damore’s essay in which he wrote women were less suited to careers in technology than men, employees further voiced their concern, writing that “We must remember that we are ultimately all affected by technology and that every one of us should have a voice in how it’s built.”
The discontent in the company was further seen when 20,000 employees walked out in protest of the $90 million pay out to Andy Rubin, following a sexual misconduct allegation against him.
Following this, the company removed the rights of individuals to ask questions at company-wide meetings, instead demanding that all questions be submitted through the digital question platform, allowing them to be vetted beforehand.
May of 2019 saw an email sent out which informed employees they would risk their jobs if they were to access information only intended for those with a “need to know”. According to a spokesperson for the company, this was part of policy since 2007.
Paul Duke, an engineer in the New York office, stated that the email marked a distinct culture change : “In my orientation, I was encouraged to read all the design documents I could find, look at anything about how decisions are made. Now they’re saying that’s no longer OK. That is a major shift in culture.”
In September of last year, Google attempted to cancel a meeting focusing on unions and labour rights in their Zurich office.
The Google walkouts have inspired those at Amazon to do the same. Activists at both companies continue.
