It started during the opening keynote of Salesforce Company Kickoff 2015 on Tuesday in Las Vegas, delivered by its CEO, Marc Benioff.
It culminated in a fight that got out of control on a Slack group and an open letter seeking a response on behalf of one of the most recognisable chief executives in Silicon Valley.
The Salesforce staff is urging its CEO, Marc Benioff, to comment on the record about a statement regarding the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), following some remarks he made at the Salesforce annual kickoff party. The message, which could have been understood as a joke, has instead sparked a broader debate about corporate responsibility, political influence, and the ethical path of a technology giant.
Benioff opened the conference by asking all the employees who had come to America to stand. Then he joked that ICE police officers were inside the premises, keeping an eye on international workers as per reports.
The statement was met with a groan from many in the room, and soon after, employees communicated on internal Slack (a collaboration tool) that they were sceptical.
Several staff members referred to themselves as 'larval furious,' and one of them said that internal Slack channels had gone absolutely apeshit after the comments.
A large number of workers began grieving in a Slack channel named airing-of-grievances, and one worker created a meme featuring the phrase 'Are we the baddies?'
The words in this meme immediately spread to other Slack channels, and employees started wondering whether the company could apologise in some way to address the damage done.
To them, the uneasiness did not lie in the tone but in the fear that their colleagues would be affected by immigration enforcement agencies and in how they would protect their colleagues in neighbouring countries.
Workers began circulating an open letter encouraging him to speak up about what they labelled as unconstitutional actions by ICE.
Source: International Business Times UK
