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c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

Reuters [reuters.com]

Staff on Google’s Ethical AI research team on Wednesday demanded the company sideline a vice president and commit to greater academic freedom, escalating a confrontation with management following this month’s termination of scientist Timnit Gebru.

The personnel called on Vice President Megan Kacholia to be removed from the team’s management chain after she allegedly excluded Gebru’s boss from the decision to fire her, according to an internal document seen by Reuters.
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The document also demanded an explanation of the dismissal, transparency into reviews of staff papers, and an investigation into how Google handles employee complaints about working conditions, like those Gebru raised while at the company.

Separately, U.S. Representative Yvette Clarke, Senator Elizabeth Warren and seven other members of Congress wrote a public letter on Wednesday to Google-parent Alphabet Inc Chief Executive Sundar Pichai asking about plans to review Gebru’s firing and policies for publishing research.
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It was unclear how many people authored the demands, which followed a prior petition for academic freedom that garnered signatures from more than 2,600 people at the company.

In other new Google hires new personnel head amid rising worker tensions [apnews.com]

Google has hired a top executive from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to oversee its personnel policies amid ongoing tensions with many employees who are upset with the company’s policies.

The hiring of Fiona Cicconi also comes while Google sets up plans to allow people to continue to work from home for at least eight more months.

The Mountain View, California, internet search giant announced late Tuesday that Cicconi is leaving AstraZeneca to become its head of people operations during a meeting with employees.
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...Google has decided to allow its roughly 130,000 employees to continue to work from home until Sept. 1 if they want, extending a previous plan to allow people to stay away from the office until July.

Cicconi will face the challenge of making sure those workers have their needs met while remaining productive, and then oversee the eventual transition to their return to Google offices scattered throughout the world, in addition to its Silicon Valley hub.

The company currently envisions relying on a system that designates certain days that workers on the same teams will come into the office while remaining at home or other remote locations on other days.

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