The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Google on Wednesday alleging that the company violated U.S. labor law by spying on workers who had organized protests against the company before firing them.
The complaint alleged that Google violated a New Deal-era law that affords workers the right to engage in collective action about issues in the workplace — even if those workers do not belong to a union, according to Bloomberg. It named two employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, whom Google fired in 2019.
Berland had organized a protest against Google’s decision to work with IRI Consultants, which is known for a history of union-busting. Google fired Berland because he said he found out about the partnership when he saw an event on a coworker’s calendar, which Google said violated a company policy, according to the Verge.
“Google’s hiring of IRI is an unambiguous declaration that management will no longer tolerate worker organizing,” Berland said in a statement. “Management and their union busting cronies wanted to send that message, and the NLRB is now sending their own message: worker organizing is protected by law.”
Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up browser notification for Google employees who went to the IRI Consultants website. The notification said that “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”
That same day, Google fired four other employees for “intentional and often repeated violations of our longstanding data security policies.”
“I had been involved in other workplace organizing in the past, but the reason I wanted to push this change was a combination of Google hiring IRI and four of my co-workers being fired the same day,” Spiers said, according to the Guardian. “I thought a lot of my co-workers could use a reminder of their rights.”
Google employees have taken part in a number of protests against the company in recent years regarding work the company has done with the Pentagon, the company’s treatment of subcontractors, and collaboration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“We strongly support the rights our employees have in the workplace, and open discussion and respectful debate have always been part of Google’s culture,” a Google spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “We’re proud of that culture and are committed to defending it against attempts by individuals to deliberately undermine it — including by violating security policies and internal systems. The NLRB determined today that Google was justified in terminating three employees who violated our data security policies.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the NLRB for further comment.
