Microsoft fires employees who organized vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza
Microsoft fires employees who organized vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza
Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel’s yearlong war with Hamas.
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.
We all knew that Microsoft wasn't a good company. Let this news motivate you to switch to GNU/Linux.
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
This seems like it should be more of a "write-up" type of offense, rather than skipping straight to terminating employment. This is a vigil, not a protest. Microsoft: "how dare you mourn those killed by a genocidal regime."
BTW - what is everyone's favorite non-MS suite of office programs? I've been using Only Office, but curious what others think.
100% LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org/
Seconded! Been using the suite for years and it rocks. It's also multi-OS compatible, which is super handy.
I am glad it's worked for so many. I wasn't able to adapt to it.
In authoritarian environments, any compassion you show the declared enemy is a grave offense and needs to be punished severely.
Israeli attaché said they wanted heads to roll...
All these mega crops got some wierd israeli advisors. Facebook recently got caught bragging about it, not a good look.
Microsoft makes a lot of money hosting the platform that enables the efficient leveling of Gaza. They're the new IBM in many ways.
As always, fuck Microsoft. Literally been saying this over 30 years already.
Don't use windows, switch to Linux. It's free, actually reasonably secure, actually works, won't spy on you, won't force shit on you just to make you pay more.
Don't use Microsoft azure. It's overpriced and runs in Linux anyway.
Don't use Microsoft 365 online shit. Outlook functions horrendously bad, teams is a sad joke. I unfortunately have to deal with teams every day because government customers thought it was a good idea and EVERY call there is some shit. People can't get in, people don't have audio, people ALWAYS have the wrong audio device selected no matter what and need to spend the first 5 minutes to get their audio and video working. It's shit quality compared to zoom or Google meet or open source alternatieves...
Stop giving this piece of shit your money
I need a practice laptop to learn Linux with...
Unionize
remember this when they talk about being gay friendly or anything else even remotely "woke"
I don't expect companies to be doing that much anymore.
Cancel culture strikes again... From the right as usual.
Can't wait to hear Bari Weiss' take on this.
🦗 🦗 🦗
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
You would think israel pays all of these mega corpos bills... Like holyshit it isba country of 7 million people... Do these mega corps get this bent out for US?
War Profiteering: It's not just for weapons manufacturers any more!
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.
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?
Well, given the kind of company, it's not like you'd obtain a consent if you asked. They're too busy getting that Israeli money.
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'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
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.
How do people have the time to organise vigils and get into "coalitions" and politics in the workplace?
Granted I don't work at Microsoft, but I feel me and everyone around me is overworked enough that when we have the time to stop working... We head home (or close the laptop if WFH) and rest, not engage in additional activities in the workplace.
In giant companies, there's a lot of wasted time and money.
For every hour of work/coding I do, there is probably 4 to 5 hours of waiting for shit to automatically compile, fetch, build, release, apply, get reviewed, approved, and deployed. The downtime is immense, I spend it helping other people with shit or planning company potlucks (I don't work for Microsoft).
IDK about you but half of the time I'm at work I'm not actually working. I have like 4 hours of insane productivity, but don't know which 4 hours those will be.
Microsoft should go macro-shaft themselves.
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.
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
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?
Politics is everything
They are right, why da fck someone organize a political vigil on a work place? People need to start using their brains
Political vigil... for genocide victims... for people murdered in a genocide... I guess having a holocaust remembrance day at work is a political act now?
Is the only vigil that's not political is for American white men that died?
Bro dont organize nothing in your work place, its common sense. You want a vigil? Nice, go to a public place and do it, first you are trying to drag the company to your fight and maybe the company just dont want to take sides, second: what is your target audience? The people that you can talk to on the rest room of the company? Cmon...
When the workplace is assisting the genocide of the people the vigil is for.