Human Capital: Labor issues at GitHub, Facebook’s new civil rights exec and a legal battle against Prop 22

This week kicked off with a report of a GitHub worker who was fired after cautioning his coworkers in the DC area to stay safe from Nazis during the assault on the U.S. Capitol. Meanwhile, Facebook created a new executive role pertaining to civil rights and California's Proposition 22 faced its first legal challenge this year.

All that and more in this week's edition of Human Capital.

Facebook hired Roy Austin to become its first-ever VP of Civil Rights and Deputy General Counsel to create a new civil rights organization within the company. Austin is set to start on January 19 and will be based in Washington, DC.

Austin most recently served as a civil rights lawyer at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP. Prior to that, Austin co-authored a report on big data and civil rights and worked with President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

A group of rideshare drivers in California and the Service Employees International Union filed a lawsuit alleging Proposition 22 violates California's constitution. The goal of the suit is to overturn Prop 22, which classifies gig workers as independent contractors in California.

The suit, filed in California's Supreme Court, argues Prop 22 makes it harder for the state's legislature to create and enforce a workers' compensation system for gig workers. It also argues Prop 22 violates the rule that limits ballot measures to a single issue, as well as unconstitutionally defines what would count as an amendment to the measure. As it stands today, Prop 22 requires a seven-eights legislative supermajority in order to amend the measure.

Glassdoor released its annual ranking of the best companies to work for in 2021. We broke out the top 10 tech companies from the list of large businesses (1,000+ employees) as well as from the small to medium-sized business list.

Despite recent allegations of wrongful firings and demands of better workplace conditions, Google ranked number three on the list of best tech companies, while Facebook ranked fifth.

This was not the first time Netflix had shared this type of data, but the company had not put a bow on it until now.

Worldwide, women make up 47.1% of Netflix's workforce. Since 2017, representation of white and Asian employees has been on a slow decline, while representation of Hispanic or Latinx, Black, mixed race and folks from native populations has been on the rise. In the U.S., Netflix is 8.1% Hispanic or Latinx, 8% Black and 5.1% of its employees are mixed race, while 1.3% of employees are either Native American, Native Alaskan, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and/or from the Middle East or North Africa.

On the day a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, a worried GitHub employee warned his co-workers in the D.C. area to be safe. In an interview with TechCrunch, the now-former employee said he was genuinely concerned about his co-workers in the area, in addition to his Jewish family members.

TechCrunch agreed to keep the identity of the terminated employee confidential due to fears of his and his family's safety.

After making a comment in Slack saying, stay safe homies, Nazis are about," a fellow employee took offense, saying that type of rhetoric wasn't good for work, the former employee told me. Two days later, he was fired, with a human relations representative citing a pattern of behavior that is not conducive to company policy" as the rationale for his termination, he told me.

Now, the terminated employee says he is currently seeking counsel to ensure his family is protected, as well as figure out if he can receive damages or some other form of reconciliation. The fired employee said GitHub has reached out to him for help in the internal investigation, but is waiting to engage with the company until he has legal representation in place.

You can read the full story here.

Dropbox laid off 11% of its global workforce, which comes to 315 people affected. In an email to employees, CEO Drew Houston said the company simply doesn't need as much in-office support due to the shift to remote work, so we're scaling back that investment and redeploying those resources to drive our ambitious product roadmap

In the note, Houston said the changes will make Dropbox more efficient and nimble this year.

Apple unveiled a few key projects as part of its $100 million commitment to racial equity and justice.

The first is a $25 million investment in the Propel Center, an innovation and learning hub for HBCUS. As part of the investment into the Propel Center, Apple employees will help to develop the curriculum and offer mentorship to students.

In Detroit, Apple will launch a developer academy for young Black entrepreneurs in collaboration with Michigan State University. In all, Apple hopes to reach 1,000 students per year in Detroit.

Additionally, Apple invested $10 million in VC firm Harlem Capital, $25 million in Siebert Williams Shank's Clear Vision Impact Fund and donated an undisclosed amount to the King Center.

The National Labor Relations Board has scheduled a mail-in voting process for Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama to begin on February 8 and end March 29. Workers at the facility will decide whether or not to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The bargaining unit includes about 6,000 workers, including hourly full-time and regular part-time fulfillment workers, as well as the hundreds of Amazon's seasonal workers, and others.