It’s early morning, and Zelda Montes walks briskly through the crisp New York air as they head to Google’s headquarters on Manhattan’s 9th Avenue. Montes, who self-identifies as they, fumbles with their ID card at the entrance, blending in with the steady stream of Googlers swiping through the security barriers as if it were just another day at the office.
Armed with an oversized tote bag, Montes pulls back their purple hair and heads to the 13th-floor canteen to order their usual: a dirty chai and an egg, avocado, and cheese sandwich with a bowl of raspberries.
Their hands tremble slightly as they grip the coffee cup.
Locking eyes with two others, they get the signal that the coast is clear, head down to the entrance, and sit. The three Googlers unfurl their banners and begin chanting to demand that Google do one thing: Drop Project Nimbus.
But this will be the last time they sit inside Google’s New York office as Googlers, as Google itself refers to its own employees. “Getting fired felt like a possibility but never a reality,” remarked Montes, one of 50 employees fired by Google for staging a 10-hour sit-in at one of its American offices in April.
For the last three years, Montes has been one of several activists calling for Google to drop Project Nimbus, a partnership Google and Amazon have with the Israeli government reportedly worth $1.2bn.
…tech people never fail to amaze me in their misty-eyed views of the companies they work for.
It’s still disgusting and obviously an attempt to stifle dissent in the ranks, but like, firing someone for stuff like this is so common in the world that you have to be pretty naive to think it wasn’t a reality and to prepare for it accordingly when you planned your sit-in.
Tech workers need unions so badly for reasons exactly like this.
The biggest problem is tech workers tend to not be social and feel elitest. I know, I’ve been in the business 25+ years. You also have a lot of older folks poisoned against unions by politicians and the media. Building a tech union at this big companies is an uphill battle.
Can’t expect people to do something they don’t think they need.
It’s a very fat industry. When (due to big fish failing, anti-monopoly activities, new systems, revolutions and nuclear wars) it finally becomes normal, there will be unions.
Another symptom of extremely silo’d educations. As someone in a STEM field who took a couple years extra to graduate because they didn’t declare a major for two years, I see this shit constantly. Clearly, very intelligent people who have been once again let down by our education system, but this time at the University level.
To the point where I will probably get downvotes and angry replies about how learning that other stuff is useless. But I can tell you that it’s absolutely not. I’m an engineer, and “Logic and Language” is still, by far, the most important course I’ve ever taken…
Tech types are very often libertarian minded.
Swing and a miss
No? Higher levels of education are generally correlated with more liberal attitudes. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/
Unless that’s not what you meant, or I am missing something?
Being Liberal is not the same as being an American Libertarian. The latter thinks tax is theft and has diverse views on whether children should be regarded as property under the law.
Great counter point
/s
Just in case you didn’t know, libertarians are not against unions.
Actually libertarians are more in favor of unions than the rest because vertical regulation is unacceptable for them.
Also people who think they can attribute every bad idea they can think of to libertarians are usually wrong and really dumb.
Libertarianism is properly a socialist philosophy, but it’s been coopted by the far right in America who then started exporting their bullshit to the rest of the world. It’s entirely possible for two people to call themselves “libertarian” and have next to nothing in common in their understanding of what that means.
Most libertarian support of unions in America is a bad joke. It’s meaningless feel-good rhetoric that completely ignores the entire history of unions in America. Corporations have a million ways to crush unions and union organizers. Without government regulations requiring corporations to engage with unions, unions are next to impossible in reality. But that’s just fine with the kind of people attracted to the Libertarian party, because they don’t live in reality.
Libertarianism is a socialist philosophy - false. Or more precisely, meaningless. When people mean libertarianism, they mean primate of liberty. That at some point people in favor of it hugely intersected with socialists is a fact that doesn’t necessarily invalidate libertarians who are not in any way socialist.
Libertarianism has nothing to do with the Libertarian party of the USA - true.
Without government regulations unions being powerless - false. Or more precisely, government regulations work the way governments want. Today’s governments are working in favor of corporations, not sitting idle, so the reality confirms that centralizing power is a bad idea. Or maybe you are going to tell me how you are going to persuade power working against you to work for you.
Excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on libertarianism:
And
Don’t feel too bad. Having no fucking idea what you are talking about just makes you a typical American style libertarian.
As for centralizing power, corporate personhood and broad deregulation are about the most radical systems for centralizing power that have ever existed. You are still ignoring the entire history of conflict between unions and corporations. Unions had their day using the “libertarian” model and all that came from it was disaster. It wasn’t until the labor movement gained political power and had pro-union regulations put in place that unions had any real ability to negotiate with corporate power. But that’s all reality so it’s irrelevant I guess.
You should re-read the first paragraph of the comment you were answering.
Also you are writing nonsense exposing your ignorance of … really everything, but you know that yourself, judging by it starting with an attempt to snatch the word “libertarianism” from under me instead of actually addressing what I say.
Also you should be more modest, drop that pretentious tone and not enter arguments with leftist moonspeak.
Arrogance is the only language that ever penetrates with people who think in platitudes. It’s not my general attitude, it’s a tool that sometimes wakes up zombies. American libertarians are always surprised to find someone more arrogant then themselves.
What you believe to be a political philosophy is nothing but empty rhetoric assembled by powerful elitists for the express purpose of consolidating and extending their power. It’s intended from the outset to neuter actual libertarian movements. Wake the fuck up zombie.
You should have used the word “sheeple” to complete the impression from your second paragraph.
You don’t know shit of what I believe to be a political philosophy in the first place.
You were doing so well until you went ad hominem and your true self came through.
I repeat. People
are usually wrong and really dumb. My true self comes through this no more than through the beginning.
And I see you fared even worse in your other comments. Too bad you can’t say what you think without making it personal.
Fool blocked.
I don’t think even being in a union would help you there, unless you got the entire union on board.
I also don’t understand why you’d even want to work for a company whose work you feel so strongly against.
Work is a lot rarer to find than people make it out to be.
Depends how much you think you need to make, and where you think you should live.