See also:

Watch Live: State AGs Unveil Sweeping Anti-Trust Probe Against Google On
Steps Of The Supreme Court

Mon, 09/09/2019 - 14:01

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...-supreme-court

===========================

Government Orders Google To Let Employees Express Unpopular Political
Views

Thu, 09/12/2019 - 09:44

In what appears to be a huge victory for Google employees who don't
ascribe to the ultra-liberal Silicon Valley monoculture, the National
Labor Relations Board has reached a settlement with Google over
complaints that the search giant punishes employees for speaking out on
political and workplace issues that don't comport with the company's
agenda.

The settlement, which was reportedly approved by an agency director this
week, according to WSJ, comes in response to a pair of complaints filed
by conservative employees about how the company handles workplace
dissent.

One complainant, former engineer Kevin Cernekee, claims he was fired for
expressing his right-leaning political views on an internal company
message board (Google, for what it's worth, claims he was fired for
"misusing company equipment")

Last month, President Trump tweeted his support for Cernekee, whose
complaint became a cause celebre among conservatives.

.@sundarpichai of Google was in the Oval Office working very hard to
explain how much he liked me, what a great job the Administration is
doing, that Google was not involved with China's military, that they
didn't help Crooked Hillary over me in the 2016 Election, & that they...
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019

... are NOT planning to illegally subvert the 2020 Election despite
all that has been said to the contrary. It all sounded good until I
watched Kevin Cernekee, a Google engineer, say terrible things about
what they did in 2016 and that they want to "Make sure that Trump
losses...
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019

Fortunately for Google, the settlement is little more than a slap on the
wrist: the company won't need to admit wrongdoing as part of the
settlement, and the NLRB isn't requiring Google to reinstate Cernekee
with back pay, as he had requested.

As part of the settlement, Google will be required to inform its
employees that they are free to speak to the media about working
conditions, wages and other work-related issues. The company will also
be required to withdraw its final warning letter to Cernekee, which
claimed he had violated a clause in the company's code of conduct
requiring employees to "respect each other" in his message-board
postings.

The other complainant is a current Google employee who claims he was
punished for sharing "unflattering opinions" about a Google executive on
Facebook.

According to WSJ, right-leaning Google employees have long maintained
that expressing their beliefs can make them "lepers" among their fellow
Googlers, as well as to the company's hiring managers. Some left-leaning
employees, meanwhile, have complained that the company retaliated
against them for raising concerns about YouTube's hate speech policies.

Google has long maintained that its company culture encourages open
debate. Now, it's being held accountable to ensure that this is, in
fact, the case.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology...olitical-views

On Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 10:45:49 AM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:

As is often the case, your own cite doesn't say what you claim.
I don't see anywhere that it says Google was ordered to allow
employees to express unpopular political views. And if Google
was to be so ordered, what does that say about the rights of business
owners, their right to run their business as they see fit?

IMO, a business should not be the place to express political views
period. Sure, you can have some discussion with colleagues around
the water cooler, we've all done that. But anyone that starts
using the corporate email
system or similar to express political views, is a damn fool and
a company should have the right to set a policy prohibiting it and
to fire anyone who fails to comply.