Overthrow a Government
Can a company fire you for leading an overthrow of a government? Wael Ghonim, Google’s head of marketing in the Middle East, did just that. His job for Google is to sell to the Egyptian government. He took some time off to overthrow that government - which is a very large customer of Google. Google has a very famous “do no evil” policy. Should the company terminate the employee because he helped cause a revolt? He did it on his own personal time.
According to one blog post:
“Many revolutionaries weren’t always revolutionaries before the revolution. Patrick Henry was a failed planter and a lawyer. Paul Revere was a silversmith. George Washington was a farmer. Ben Franklin was a printer (and, by all accounts, had serious chops when it came to having a good time).”
Publicly, Google has said they were concerned while Ghonim was held captive. Recently, Google’s official Twitter account claimed they were “incredibly proud” of Ghonim. Is this statement an official reflection of Google or just a Google employee which is a fan of Ghonim?
Can Google fire Ghonim? Should they fire him? Did he break the “do no evil” policy of Google? And what about the global impact? “At will” employment (in all states except Montana) means an employee may leave at any time, and a company can terminate at any time. Does that apply to Egypt? Egyptian Labour Act states an employer can terminate if the employee “acted negligently, causing the employer considerable loss, provided the employer informs the competent authorities of the incident within 24 hours of becoming aware of it”. My thought is that Ghonim could be fired, but given the publicity of this event Google will not terminate Ghonim.