[pron]

It's possible that the company's values or behaviour have changed, but, more importantly, the decision to work at a company is mutual: both sides want it (the company expects the value an employee will bring exceeds the cost of their employment; hiring someone is not a charity), and they enter into this relationship when neither side knows everything about the other, certainly not how they would behave in the future. Just as the company can and does exert pressure on employees to do something they might not want, so can the employees try and exert pressure on the company to change a decision.

[coward8675309]

I don't disagree with you. I was at an adtech startup, and I had bright lines — no payday loans or for-profit education. Luckily we never needed to blur or cross those lines, but as our business evolved, the way I delivered my — and my colleagues delivered their— preferences was not through laying down ultimatums but by having conversations.

Some people seem intent on creating drama and casting things not as their preferences but as Epic Struggles Between Good and Evil, where people who don't share their preferences are Evil. These people may not be offended by this characterization!

Life is complicated. I re-watched Schindler's List the other day, and assuming for a moment it's historically accurate, one could argue that by laboring in the factory, the workers were aiding the war effort and trading their own temporary safety for the lives of the people who would be victims of a Nazi war machine fed out of the factory's enamel pots. If someone were to actually argue that, I would just sort of stare at them like there were insane, despite not knowing how to rebut the argument except by blurting our words like "nuance" and "perspective" and "balance."

[loopercal]

"I re-watched Schindler's List..."

According to the movie the shells were all non-functional, so I'm not really sure why you brought that up.

"the way I delivered my — and my colleagues delivered their— preferences was not through laying down ultimatums but by having conversations..."

As a laborer, the greatest value you bring to the company is your labor. That's the only real thing that gives you leverage to negotiate the terms of your employment. At least, that's what I do when I'm looking for a new job, I'm not sure if you're just morally opposed to negotiating or something. It sounds like what happened here is this person spent a lot of time having these DEI discussions in which they did not feel heard, and that combined with an (allegedly) unprecedented change in the publication review process led to them concluding that these discussions weren't actually doing anything, so they tried to use their full leverage: the withdrawal of their labor.

It's neat that your discussions were always fruitful and you felt heard, but that isn't always the case.

[pron]

Maybe, but I don't know enough details or background about this situation to debate over its nuances. I'm just criticising the views I see expressed here, that are bizarre even from a capitalistic perspective, that a corporation may do anything legal and will be judged by the market, while employees doing the same -- whether it's smart or not -- is crossing some line.

[coward8675309]

I don't know what general principles people are arguing for here, but the facts at the heart of TFA relate to someone laying down an ultimatum to an employer — "do these things or I'm going to quit" — and the employer replying "sorry to hear that buh bye."

That accepted conditional resignation (as someone mellifluously put it in an earlier HN discussion) is being interpreted by some as a firing. Having read the original letter, it sure sounded like a conditional resignation to me and, as a manager, I would've done my best to get the writer of the letter out the door ASAP.

Keep in mind that as an IC, I once worked for a company that imposed a 10% across the board pay cut without consulting me. I resigned the day it was announced, because my compensation is a term of employment mutually agreed to by my employer and myself, not something imposed upon me. So I've been on both sides of this.

As a general life rule, I go nuclear on people who play hardball with me, whether I am the manager or the managed.

[pron]

> and the employer replying "sorry to hear that buh bye."

... and then other employees raising a stink, perhaps in the hope, misguided or not, that the company will reverse its decision or change its behaviour to help its PR. The employer can use whatever power they think they have, but so can the employees. It's one thing to say that what the employees did wasn't a wise way to achieve their goal, but it's a whole other thing to say that what they did is wrong.

[coward8675309]

You're bringing issues of morality into this when it seems to me that the employees are more focused on self-interest and the accumulation and exercise of raw power while Google is preoccupied with public relations.

[pron]

Both sides use their power to further their goals. To what extent each side's goals align with those of society at large is a separate question, but I find it perplexing that some here think that it's fine for a particularly politically active company to use its power to its advantage as long as it operates within the law, yet when employees do the same, only on a much smaller scale, that's considered as crossing a line.