Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO and co-founder, is facing growing criticism over a joke he made about US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) monitoring international employees during an event for the company.

Employees publicly expressed outrage about Benioff’s comments in his keynote address at an internal conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, and leaders at Slack, which Salesforce owns, have said he should apologize.

Benioff reportedly asked international employees to stand, before joking that ICE agents were present and monitoring them, drawing boos from the crowd, several employees told media outlets including Wired and 404Media. A recording of his speech published on an internal Salesforce site was edited to cut his remarks about ICE, Business Insider reported.

The incident comes as hundreds of Salesforce workers reportedly plan to urge Benioff to denounce ICE and cancel future business with the agency, Wired and CNBC reported.

  • stressballs@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    There are more than two classes.

    You’re defending Salesforce employees who are enriching the CEO and Trump, and they are working for ICE. These are not jobs they need at this company, They could literally go work for any company out there. This is not a burden placed in them by the class they belong to. Most of these people could take a year off any lose absolutely nothing but a few vacations.

    People who earn upwards of $200k/year do not deserve my forgiveness or my empathy for their blight, especially when they are willingly working for people like the CEO of Salesforce.

    Framing them as working class is absurd. Just because you have a job doesn’t mean you are working class.

    • CosmicTurtle0 [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      You know what the difference is between a million dollars and a billion dollars?

      A billion dollars.

      Those who make $200k have more in common with people in poverty than people who are billionaires.

      I make good money but I am not under any illusion that a bad accident or a medical issue will wipe out my savings in a heartbeat. Just because I can afford to go on vacation doesn’t mean that I don’t understand what it means to be “working class”.

      I am working class and their ally. All you’re doing is intentionally creating a wedge between “well off” people and the poor instead of coalescing together to attack the actual capital class.

      • stressballs@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        You don’t understand who is not your ally. The people enriching the oligarch class are also not our allies.

        For them it’s a choice, not a need. There is a very very large experience and knowledge gap between our perspectives and I’m not going to spend my time bridging backwards while you try to frame Salesforce managers as being trapped in their labor class.

        • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          The people enriching the oligarch class are also not our allies.

          Meaning everyone who’s ever bought anything from a corporation?

          • stressballs@lemmy.zip
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            2 days ago

            No. The people who willingly serve them. You are being like this on purpose. Go back to reddit.

            • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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              2 days ago

              So anyone who works for a corporation, meaning pretty much everyone?

              Being like what “on purpose?” I’m simply applying your own words to reality.

              • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                This thread is exactly what i’m talking about…

                We should be building guillotines together. Instead we wasted energy arguing and gatekeeping about which workers count as “working class”, playing some kind of oppression olympics on who has the shittiest working conditions, or who has the purest socialist ideology…

                “well this person has health benefits and 5 weeks vacation, NOT WORKING CLASS!!!”

                “that person hasnt read the communist manifesto and works for a publicly traded corporation, NOT WORKING CLASS!!”

                the irony is that the people who gatekeep the hardest about this shit are probably the ones suffering the most under our broken system. Yet they spend their energy alienating allies instead of including everyone

                • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  2 days ago

                  We cannot reasonably expect everyone to be an ally. Thetr is clearly 20-30% that will never be allies and must be treated as enemies or we’ll end up with knives in our backs. This upsets a lot of people because it’s a hard truth but we must move past it to have ant chance for progress.

                  • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
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                    2 days ago

                    20-30% will never be allies because the 0.001% has fooled you into wasting energy denouncing your fellow working class

                    (i probably fall into your strawman 20-30% that you think cannot be working class because i make more than minimum wage)

                    even though you dream about guillotining me when the glorious workers revolution happens in the future, i will fight for our cause today

        • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          The people enriching the oligarch class are also not our allies.

          you are not your own ally. would you like me to walk you through the economic proof, or do you understand?

          • stressballs@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            My objections are to people claiming that they are the working poor. That is beyond ridiculous.

            The 1% of weath owners own our society. You agree these are not our allies.

            The SALESFORCE EMPLOYEES are among the 1% of salary earners. Meanwhile they could make a very very comfortable living doing anything else. But they choose to serve Mark Benioff.

            My whole post is about Salesforce employees. You can’t see that. If you acknowledge that I’m happy to be educated about SALESFORCE EMPLOYEES.

            You know who else is the working class then? Managers working under oil execs, who own massive stake in the company. That’s our “labor class”??

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
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          2 days ago

          Wait. Since independently owned company A with 50 employees in Podunk, Oklahoma sold to holdings company B, those 50 employees who didn’t get fired but also have no savings and literally no other jobs to go to because of “AI replacing employees” don’t need their jobs? Maybe those employees get a whopping 20-30 hours of week of clopenings at 8.00-15.00 per hour.

          Please.