SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Google is under federal investigation over its labor practices.The National Labor Relations Board said Monday it's looking into whether Google broke labor law when it recently fired four employees.
The NLRB investigation also will investigate whether Google discouraged employees from engaging in union activities.
The four claim they were terminated for trying to organize a union, which is protected under federal law.
According to a joint statement, “Google explicitly encourages us to pursue exactly these goals. The company’s code of conduct states unequivocally: “don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right — speak up!” And we did”
They said their first step will be to file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.
The statement said, “ We come from different offices. We have different roles, managers, and life stories. What brought us all together is that we’ve stepped up to help organize our colleagues, to work together for a better, safer, fairer, and more ethical workplace.”
The four had worked at Google for between nearly two and eleven years.
The statement was signed by Laurence Berland (Senior Site Reliability Engineer, 11 years at Google), Paul Duke (Software Engineer III, 8+ years at Google), Rebecca Rivers (Software Engineer II, 4 years at Google) and Sophie Waldman (Software Engineer II, 1 year 10 months at Google)