Hacker News Reader

Comment by hackcasual | Hacker News Reader

What cause would he have for suing Google? It's at will employment, and writing anything is not a protected activity.

See this article: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/it-may-be-illegal-for-google...

Retaliation for <pick whatever argument his lawyers can make>. Remember, unless it this is dismissed with a summary judgement Google is going to have to deal with a discovery. Discovery with the other side knowing about internals of the company is a risk no company wants to take.

Summary judgement is for dismissing merit-less cases. If he sues for "Retaliation for X," where that is not an actual cause for a suit it will get dismissed.

No, Google was clear that he violated the code of conduct. Since it's plainly clear that he did, and since we can safely assume he's not a member of a protected class, any random assertion of retaliation will be thrown out. Any discovery requests will have to be tied to the code of conduct, which isn't particularly interesting even if it did get out.

That would probably be Google's position.

It could easily be defeated as it presumes the author would not be able to demonstrate that he could be a member ( does not have to be ) of a protected class. Remember, should that be the case authors goal is not to score a touch down, it is to get a new set of downs i.e. move forward with a lawsuit.

Judges are very reluctant to toss something out that early if there's even an ounce of a possibility there could be a merit in a case.

This is not as clear cut as it would seem.

California law has very strong protections for employees. And it seems that firing him for the memo may actually be illegal.

The crux of the argument is that Google may have "punished an employee for communicating with fellow employees about improving working conditions", which is illegal.

Also, "California law prohibits employers from threatening to fire employees to get them to adopt or refrain from adopting a particular political course of action."

Furthermore, "It is unlawful for an employer to discipline an employee for challenging conduct that the employee reasonably believed to be discriminatory, even when a court later determines the conduct was not actually prohibited by the discrimination laws".

Read here for more:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fi...

The document itself makes the claim that conservatives and classical liberals are discriminated against and actively silenced at Google. While I don't necessarily agree with this claim as per the the article he's set himself up into a position for being fired for commenting on his political beliefs. It's quite possible all he really needs to make a case is examples of political belief being shared and accepted without consequence in the same venue since it's pretty easy to find mainstream republicans who share these positions. Not saying the case is a winner, but it's pretty hard to not survive summary judgement when you can allege a reasonable basis for political discrimination. At that point I'd bet settling would be favourable to going through discovery.

Can you point me to some resources that describe political discrimination? I've never heard of it as a protected class especially when opinions are expressed at work.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-ballman/can-you-be-fired...

I think this comes down to is affirmative action policy a workplace condition. Discussion about workplace conditions is separate from discrimination law entirely so 'protected class' becomes a red herring here. I'm not sure this is the best article but I tried to find something from a left leaning source I find reasonably fair given that this seems to be an anti-right topic.

California has explicit legislation forbidding employer interference in employee political activity: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection....

Of course the punishment for violating this is a fine of no more than $5k, per http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection....

That said, it _may_ open the door for a civil lawsuit per http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection....

Whether any of that applies in this situation is entirely unclear to me, because it hinges on the definitions of "engaging or participating in politics" and so forth. You'd probably need to talk to a competent labor lawyer in California for anything resembling clarity here.

He got let go for saying certain coworkers were less qualified based on their gender. You can't wrap whatever you want in "politics!" and then scream when you get into trouble for it. Sorry.

Code of conduct is not above laws in the United States.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com