ICYMI: Words of the week, Google's union, the beach
4 comms things and one zen thing
I can’t believe I’m opening the first edition of Mister Editorial 2021 with this…
insurrection: The act or an instance of open revolt against civil authority or a constituted government.
sedition: Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.
coup d'état: The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.
riot: 1. A wild or turbulent disturbance created by a large number of people. 2. Law A violent disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled for a common purpose.
mob: A large and often disorderly crowd.
In other news…
1. Google’s Minority Union
More than 400 employees have formed the Alphabet Workers Union. The group is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America, a union that represents workers in telecommunications and media in the United States and Canada.
The union is a so-called minority union that represents a fraction of the company’s more than 260,000 full-time employees and contractors. Workers said it was primarily an effort to give structure and longevity to activism at Google, rather than to negotiate for a contract. (Read more on NYT.)
The union’s website features a rotation of social justice-related descriptors, such as BIPOC, empathetic, and “fight against totalitarianism.”
💭 My thought: More than any of its Silicon Valley peers — Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft especially — Google is regularly in the news because of employee revolt. Most recently is the uproar over the firing of a high-profile data ethicist. Googlers have also signed petitions against how the company runs its business and staged virtual and real walkouts over harassment issues.
Clearly there is a communications problem at Google between leadership and regular employees. The union was inevitable.
2. Legal Questions About Coronavirus at Work
Kiplinger’s asked a couple of lawyers who specialize in employment law to weigh in with some practical advice about confronting coronavirus at work.
Can a business require workers and/or customers to wear masks?
I want to keep working from home: Can I insist?
Can your employer force you to go to work?
Do you have a legal responsibility to inform others if you later test positive?
3. Poppulo Says
My three-part series on making the business case for internal communications was among Poppulo’s most popular content in 2020.
Bonus: “Think Differently: How to Ensure Your Employee Communications Drive Business Outcomes,” a Poppulo-hosted webinar in which I participated.
📢 Paid subscribers to Mister Editorial get access to exclusive content, such as:
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel (6 places to steal ideas from)
Two Easy Ways to Increase Open Rates for Your Employee Newsletter (get a 5-7% bump)
4. How Employers Use Technology to Surveil Employees
According to a report from The Brookings Institution:
Companies have the legal ability to use keylogger software on business computers, deploy video surveillance cameras, monitor worker attentiveness, track physical movements through geolocation software, compile lists of visited websites and applications, monitor emails, social media posts, and collaboration tools, and compile productivity data on how workers are spending their time and how long it takes them to finish particular tasks.
Bottom line: The article’s author says companies “should recognize that employees have expectations of privacy in the workplace and they need practices that respect those expectations.”
5. Take Me There
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