Google Contractor Alleges Disability Discrimination In Mass Email (vice.com) 34
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A contractor who works on Google's G Suite for Higher Education/Google For Education team alleged Google discriminated and retaliated against her after she suffered a knee injury in 2019 by removing her from team meetings, in a complaint reviewed by Motherboard that was filed with the New York State Division of Human Rights on Wednesday. In a mass email sent on Wednesday to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and thousands of Google employees, a sales development representative for the vendor Vaco who works in Google's New York City office, wrote that in 2019 Google requested her employer Vaco place her on a continuous performance improvement plan for failing to attend meetings without prior warnings, write-ups, or documentation of the meetings she missed. She claims she never missed meetings with notifying her team beforehand.
According to the contractor's complaint filed with the New York State Division of Human Rights, Google discriminated against her for a "knee injury," by denying her training, giving her a disciplinary notice, denying her request for accommodation for her disability and benefits, and harassing and intimidating her. Motherboard agreed to keep the worker anonymous because she fears retaliation from future employers. "I received this [performance improvement plan] on 11/13/2019 the day before my scheduled Knee Surgery on 11/14/19," the contractor alleges in the complaint. "I believe this was intended to cause psychological harm. Google is aware that during this time I was disabled and needed surgery. Since receiving the [performance improvement plan, I have not been invited to Higher Ed Monthly meetings that included other [temps, vendors, and contractors]." [...] In the letter, she says that she plans to resign from her role on October 2, and hopes that her letter will result in meaningful changes for how Google administers performance improvement plans for TVCs and how it treats workers from marginalized groups.
According to the contractor's complaint filed with the New York State Division of Human Rights, Google discriminated against her for a "knee injury," by denying her training, giving her a disciplinary notice, denying her request for accommodation for her disability and benefits, and harassing and intimidating her. Motherboard agreed to keep the worker anonymous because she fears retaliation from future employers. "I received this [performance improvement plan] on 11/13/2019 the day before my scheduled Knee Surgery on 11/14/19," the contractor alleges in the complaint. "I believe this was intended to cause psychological harm. Google is aware that during this time I was disabled and needed surgery. Since receiving the [performance improvement plan, I have not been invited to Higher Ed Monthly meetings that included other [temps, vendors, and contractors]." [...] In the letter, she says that she plans to resign from her role on October 2, and hopes that her letter will result in meaningful changes for how Google administers performance improvement plans for TVCs and how it treats workers from marginalized groups.
Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Google treats a large majority their contractors like illegal immigrants. They know they need them to do labor for less, but they treat them with contempt because they have to deal with a "lesser-class" of people.
The identity of Americans is "work". If someone can't keep up in this rat race, they're immediately shunned and discarded.
we need more unions soon! (Score:2)
we need more unions soon!
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Right to hire laws or as I call them Right to fire laws need to be made unconstitutional. They are after all put in place to reduce a workers/citizens right to protect themselves from the unethical.
Finally unions can never prosper unless their leaders and the boards that
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Perception that they are corrupt is a very real problem
In my few dealings with Unions in the last 50 years I would actually say it is a reality not just a perception. I am yet to see a union that isn't inherently corrupt, I am sure they all start out with good intentions and many good people work for them, but like all positions of power the scum floats to the top and after a few years the scum is what controls them.
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> Unions will never succeed until they overcome a few things
This includes the frequent Communist foundations. Unions are an understandable political force, but too often they focus on equal treatment without competition. The successful competition from non-union labor and non-union shops are why unions have, sadly taken to dangerous anti-competitive tactics and even violence against "scabs" and their families.
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Nearly all corporations are governed like a communist government. Un-elected boards that decides among themselves whats good for everyone else. No difference at all. There is nothing in this country less democratic than a company board and their dictator/CEO.
Re: Not surprising (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)ve been working for at-will companies long enough to know not to judge people who are fired too harshly regardless of whether they deserved it or not. The details of the lawsuit may automatically put us on the side of the plaintiff or the defendant based on our personal politics, but Iâ(TM)m willing to look between the lines here and say that I wish this person luck on what they are doing.
I just donâ(TM)t think I have much pity when a company like Google takes the equivalent of
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The identity of Americans is "work". If someone can't keep up in this rat race, they're immediately shunned and discarded.
What a sad and pathetic state of affairs. Not that I disagree.
40 meetings an month? (Score:3)
40 meetings an month?
No evil here (Score:4, Insightful)
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I remember when Google was all about DO NO EVIL. Now? Worthless.
That was just the plan to fly under the radar until they were large enough. Now, they are very large _and_ evil, the worst possible outcome. And all those very smart useful idiots that believed the old motto made them what they are now.
Just more dead weight (Score:1, Troll)
The contractor goes on to allege that a coworker on her team went to her managers in February claiming she did not "say hello" to her, leading them to give the contractor a verbal warning. "I developed acute chest pain relating to stress from this incident, exacerbating my anxiety disorder," she writes in the complaint. Another team member she alleges refused to talk to her, "chang[ed] her role and responsibilities," and "would not refer to her as a member of the team, which caus[ed] confusion to others."
Sounds like all kinds of crazy to me. Why would she be discriminated against based on a knee injury? It doesn't even make any sense. Also, she developed acute chest pain related to her knee injury?
What does make sense is that she's a detriment rather than an asset in the workplace, and was dealt with accordingly.
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Nice to see we're still modding down people with whom we disagree rather than discussing the matter like adults. Good rebuttal.
Q.E.D. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you cc'd thousands of Google employees on your complaint email to Sundar Pichai, you've already established pretty convincingly that you are a clueless asshole. It's a safe bet that exactly none of those folks give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about your whinging - and spamming them is pretty much the least-effective strategy you could pursue to persuade them to take you and your ever-so-important issue seriously.
And claiming she's been discriminated against because she's "disabled" by a bum knee makes it clear that she doesn't understand the difference between being impaired (which is what happens when you have a bad knee) and being disabled. Being disabled is a condition that's subject to Federal Title IX protections. Having a bad knee doesn't quality.
This is, once again, Vice happily ignoring the facts (whiny, over-privileged pinhead blames Google for her actual employer cutting her out of meetings, when that is most likely due to her own personality defects making her someone none of her co-workers wants to be stuck having to listen to) in favor of a clickbaity headline and a nothingburger story.
Nothing to see here, folks. You may as well mosey along to the next TFS ...
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> Having a bad knee doesn't quality.
It can. I believe the court decision you'll need to review is https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/O... [uscourts.gov] .
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Read your own linked court decision. It talks about a care where injury was to both legs, and it was so severe, it would likely impede even usage of a wheel chair, and a complete lack of response by employer.
Here you have a person with knee surgery, which means you're more than able to walk with crutches, and then being not allowed on remote meetings specifically. Likely because of their attitude judging by what she did.
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The point is that a "bum knee", even a temporary one where a person can use crutches for basic mobility, can be covered by the protections of the American Disabilities Act. It dos not mean there was not something else going on. I've myself encountered people so busy protecting their rights that they did no work and made the workplace unpleasant for those who did.
The ADA is fascinating legislature. Many of its proponents and many of its detractors have struggled to be reasonable about it, and there have been
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My point that your case is simply not applicable to this one as a precedent stands on merit stated above that you refused to address.
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I opined:
> Having a bad knee doesn't quality.
Prompting Antique Geekmeister to respond:
It can. I believe the court decision you'll need to review is https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/O... [uscourts.gov] .
Thanks for calling that to my attention. I was not previously familiar with that case.
Nonetheless, it's entirely clear that Miss Whiney-pants was suffering from a temporary disability, which was expected to last six months or less. The ADAAA of 2008 explicitly exempts employers from having to make workplace accomodations for employees whose claimed disability meets that "temporary" standard. (Yes, I realize it seems out of character with various modification
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Nor ami I an attorney. But reading that case, it's an appellate court decision about some modified legislation, laws which Congress expanded specifically to cover shorter term disabilities. I think we can safely deduce from it that an employee with limited mobility, and the ability to work with some accommodation, can demand that accommodation even if the disability is temporary.
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Antique Geekmeister misspoke:
Nor ami I an attorney. But reading that case, it's an appellate court decision about some modified legislation, laws which Congress expanded specifically to cover shorter term disabilities. I think we can safely deduce from it that an employee with limited mobility, and the ability to work with some accommodation, can demand that accommodation even if the disability is temporary.
No [govinfo.gov], we can't [govinfo.gov].
Under the "regarded as" prong of the standard set forth in the ADAAA, no employer is required to provide accomodation for a claimed disability (as opposed to a formally-diagnosed disability, which is subject to the "actual disability" test, instead, and which must be accomodated under the Act) that is "temporary in nature" and expected to last for six months or less. Those are the actual words of the Act, as I already pointed out to you in the parent post - which y
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If I may say, I was not saying that _this_ particular case clearly falls into the ADA's requirements. I'm pointing out that it _can_ even if it's temporary. A "bum knee" is not a reliable measure of the degree of loss of function, nor is it a measure of how long the difficulty will last. Some "bum knees" are a life long problem, though modern surgical knee replacement has helped a great deal with that.
> the HR department of her employer would have provided accomodation to her without hesitation"
That assu
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If you cc'd thousands of Google employees on your complaint email to Sundar Pichai, you've already established pretty convincingly that you are a clueless asshole. It's a safe bet that exactly none of those folks give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about your whinging - and spamming them is pretty much the least-effective strategy you could pursue to persuade them to take you and your ever-so-important issue seriously.
that's clearly the actions of a T7-T9 visionary!
What? (Score:2)
Sound like my ex-wife (Score:2)
It is a shame that we are giving this story any time, without really knowing the facts.
I know it won't happen, but I would love to hear from the rest of the team to find out if she was doing a decent job.
My absolute worst employee is also the one who complains the most, has the most issues, does the least work and files frequent complaints. In the past 5 years she has been a net drag on the team- but right now there is a brand new desk in her office she needed (for an accommodation), but she can't work due
Re:Sound like my ex-wife (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone in the heavy lift engineering staff at google had someone who pointed that our a few years ago with some statistical basis behind his statement. He was shown the door if memory of endless Slashdot postings is correct.