National Post (National Edition)
GOOGLE STAFFERS WALK OFF THE JOB
HANDLING OF SEX MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST EXECUTIVES
Carrying signs that included a mocking use of the company’s original “Don’t be evil” motto, thousands of Google employees around the world briefly walked off the job Thursday to protest what they said was the tech giant’s mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives.
From Tokyo, Singapore and London to New York, Seattle and San Francisco, highly paid engineers and other workers staged walkouts of about an hour, reflecting rising #Metoo-era frustration among women over frat-house behaviour and other misconduct in heavily male Silicon Valley.
In Dublin, organizers used megaphones to address the outdoor crowd of men
and women, while in other places, workers gathered in packed conference rooms or lobbies. In New York, there appeared to be as many men as women out in the streets, while in Cambridge, Mass., men outnumbered women by perhaps 6 to 1.
“Time is up on sexual harassment!” organizer Vicki Tardif Holland shouted, her voice hoarse, at a gathering of about 300 people in Cambridge. “Time is up on systemic racism. Time is up on abuses of power. Enough is enough!”
About 1,000 Google workers in San Francisco swarmed into a plaza in front of the city’s historic Ferry Building, chanting, “Women’s rights are workers’ rights!” Thousands turned out at Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.
The demonstrations reflected a sense among some of the 94,000 employees at
Google and its parent Alphabet Inc. that the company isn’t living up to its professed ideals, as expressed in its “Don’t be evil” slogan and its newer injunction in its corporate code of conduct: “Do the right thing.”
“We have the eyes of many companies looking at us,” Google employee Tanuja Gupta said in New York. “We’ve always been a vanguard company, so if we don’t lead the way, nobody else will.”
The protests unfolded a week after The New York Times detailed allegations of sexual misconduct against the creator of Google’s Android software. The newspaper said Andy Rubin received a Us$90-million severance in 2014 after Google concluded the accusations were credible. Rubin has denied the allegations.
The same story also disclosed allegations of sexual
misconduct against other executives, including Richard Devaul, a director at the Google-affiliated lab that created self-driving cars and internet-beaming balloons. Devaul had remained at the “X” lab after the accusations surfaced a few years ago, but resigned on Tuesday without severance, Google said.
In an unsigned statement, the Google protesters called for an end to forced arbitration in harassment and discrimination cases, a practice that requires employees to give up their right to sue and often includes confidentiality agreements.
The protest organizers also demanded more aggressive steps for gender pay equity and more inclusive hiring practices to reduce the high concentration of white and Asian men in the industry’s best-paying programming jobs.
Women account for 31 per
cent of Google’s employees worldwide, and it’s lower for leadership roles. The numbers are similar elsewhere in Silicon Valley.
“I have seen friends get hurt and have their careers destroyed by this, not just at Google but everywhere,” protester J.J. Wanda, a male software engineer, said in Mountain View. “We need to show that time’s up.”
In a statement, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is reviewing all the “constructive ideas” from employees to improve policies and practices.
Beyond Google, Facebook has faced criticism over pay inequity and discrimination. The appearance of a Facebook executive behind Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings also caused rifts inside the company.