Google fires fifth activist employee in three weeks; complaint filed

SAN FRANCISCO: Alphabet Inc’s Google fired a security engineer on Friday after she used an internal alert system to remind colleagues that they had the right to take collective action.

Kathryn Spiers, a two-year member of the security team recently working on the Chrome browser, said she had authority to use the system to alert employees to new policies. In this case, she was drawing attention to the company’s declaration that workers could organize and discuss various workplace issues without retribution.

Google posted a list of such rights in September, settling a complaint brought by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Spiers’ alert triggered a pop-up inside the Chrome browser if employees visited an internal policy page or the website of a firm involved in attempts to break unions elsewhere and recently consulted by Google.