- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
- iwwunion@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
- iwwunion@lemmy.ml
Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas.
The two employees told The Associated Press they were fired by phone call late Thursday, several hours after a lunchtime event they organized at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington.
Both workers were members of a coalition of employees called “No Azure for Apartheid” that has opposed Microsoft’s sale of its cloud-computing technology to the Israeli government. But they contended that Thursday’s event was similar to other Microsoft-sanctioned employee giving campaigns for people in need.
“We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends or loved ones,” said Abdo Mohamed, a researcher and data scientist. “But Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves.”
Microsoft said Friday it has “ended the employment of some individuals in accordance with internal policy” but declined to provide details.
Google earlier this year fired more than 50 workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war. The firings stemmed from internal turmoil and sit-in protests at Google offices centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.
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We all knew that Microsoft wasn’t a good company. Let this news motivate you to switch to GNU/Linux.
just deleted windows earlier and am no longer dual booting 👐 Linux is pain but the pain is worth it
For those who can’t for whatever reason, look into the LTSC version of windows at https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
Open-source Windows and Office activator featuring HWID, Ohook, KMS38, and Online KMS activation methods, along with advanced troubleshooting.
No reason to give Microsoft any money, every reason not to
I was going to. But then I found out that GNU’s not Unix.
What’s GNU stand for?
Heh it literally stands for “GNU’s Not Unix.”
It is recursive and the G has no ultimate referent except that it completes the acronym in a way that invokes an animal.
Cancel culture strikes again… From the right as usual.
Daily reminder, you have freedom of speech in that the government won’t do anything about your speech, but you don’t have freedom from speech. Going out and protesting your employer and their business relationships can and will get you fired, no matter how just the cause.
Because profits drive everything
remember this when they talk about being gay friendly or anything else even remotely “woke”
Unionize
I’m beginning to think this Microsoft company might fucking suck.
I mean…they organized in the company headquarters witbout any kind of authorization to do so. Almost any company would have fired those responsible. I don’t think it has to do with political opinion so much as unauthorized use of facilities.
I don’t really think Microsoft is at a fault though. If the US supports it, they are not taking a side as much as they are supporting the military
It’s a hard sell to say they aren’t at least complicit, BUT realistically what could they do?
They have heavy US contracting ties, who’s to say the US govt wouldn’t pull funding over non-support of Israel.
Oh I’m sure they would pull contracts. The government has contracts in probably every major cloud provider in the States and wouldn’t mind moving to any other.
Plus where do you draw the line if you’re a cloud provider? Can you support any military IT? Or just ones related to Israel? If you don’t provide cloud support to the US and to Israel, are you supporting Palestine? You basically just can’t win
Right, my daily reminder that the US doesn’t belive in human rights. Article 23 of the UN human rights declaration for anyone curious. This is also a fun, yet basic resource: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/countries-with-independent-national-human-rights-institution?time=latest
It’s sad that the west still glorifies this fucking homunculus that not only doesn’t try to adhere to any agreed principals and values, but actively goes against them. The republicans are against half the things written in there, while the dems “compromise” so hard that “barely making it” is the ultimate unachievable goal in the distance to aim towards. Fucking pathetic.
If it didn’t get approved, I can understand why the company would take that stance.
But I do think they should have just approved the event
Obviously, since they “fix their bugs” so much, they need people to not be distracted. Right? Right? It’s not because they’re probably racist assholes.
Why would you organise this on company headquarters without the consent of the company?
If you tell your employers that you hate the way they operate, what do you think is going to happen?
This is a Neoliberal anthem: rights are for citizens; employees need to sit down and STFU.
Why do we reject tyranny.gov, but embrace tyranny.com?
This.
You can go on a protest whenever you want. Don’t expect your employers to be enthusiastic about it if you organise one in your workplace, however.
I don’t think this is any of that though. Company property isn’t public property. The company can refuse service to people and require people to have permits for assembly. Employees don’t need to sit down and stfu, but there are ways to properly organize and do all the things they want without getting fired
It’s called a protest. Social movements protest to get a message across.
You think they’d get permission?
Also, this isn’t really a protest… A vigil. Microsoft is a trash corporation. None of this is surprising.
So hold it elsewhere? Why does it have to be at a business? Seems a weird place to have a vigil anyways. Why not somewhere more somber or respectful?
Microsoft doesn’t really care about the employees politics. The problem was that the employees were actively trying to lower profits by shrinking the market
I never understand how people are surprised with this sort of thing happens.
They did something on company property that the company probably would not approve of and got let go for it. And it sounds like they seem to think they company should be providing space to do it.
People really should learn to keep their political opinions out of the office where your opinions might run counter to the person that controls your ability to pay your bills.
I’m not surprised at all, the westerners supporting Hamas and HezzyB are dumb as fuck.
Honestly I don’t know much about the war over there because I’ve been actively avoiding info about it (just got enough problems without piling on a war I have no skin in) but organizing unsanctioned political events on company grounds sounds like it’s looking for heat. That’s a publicity traded company but not a government entity so freedom of speech isn’t really a shield there.
Grieving murdered family and friends is political?
They are right, why da fck someone organize a political vigil on a work place? People need to start using their brains
When the workplace is assisting the genocide of the people the vigil is for.
