Global Google walkout
Fury at tech giant’s action on sex harassment
THOUSANDS of Google employees joined a co-ordinated global walkout yesterday in protest at the US tech giant’s handling of sexual harassment.
As Google staff poured out of the Silicon Valley “Googleplex” in solidarity with workers around the world, the company’s chief vowed “concrete steps are coming”.
The protest took shape after Google revealed it had fired 48 employees in the past two years — including 13 senior ex- ecutives — as a result of allegations of sexual misconduct.
Demonstrators waved signs bearing messages such as “Time’s Up Tech” and “Happy to quit for $90 million — no sexual harassment required.”
The California action was the final stage of a global walkout that began in Asia and spread to offices in Europe.
Pictures, videos and com- ments flooded a “Google Walkout For Real Change” account on Twitter.
“There’s been anger and frustration within the company,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said.
“At Google, we set a very high bar, and we clearly didn’t live up to our expectations.”
He told the New York Times Google had “drawn a very hard line” on improper behaviour in recent years but that “moments like this show we didn’t always do it right.”
The paper reported that a senior Google employee, Android creator Andy Rubin, received an exit package worth $90 million as he faced allegations of misconduct, and claimed Google covered up other sexual harassment claims.
Mr Rubin has denied the allegations, claiming he was the victim of a “smear campaign.”
Protesters said women made up only about 31 per cent of the workforce and 25 per cent of executives at Google.
Demma Rodriguez, head of equity engineering and a seven-year Google employee, said the protest was an important part of bringing fairness to the technology colossus. “We have an aspiration to be the best company in the world,” Ms Rodriguez said. “But we also have goals as a company and we can’t decide we are going to miss those.”
Mr Pichai sent a message to employees saying he had heard from many employees on the subject of inappropriate behaviour at work and was “deeply sorry for the past actions and the pain they have caused employees.”