Google employees walk out
Mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives criticized
Carrying signs with messages such as “Don’t be evil,” several hundred Google employees around the world briefly walked off the job Thursday in a protest against what they said is the tech company’s mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against executives.
Employees staged walkouts at offices from Tokyo and Singapore to London and New York, with more expected to do so in California later in the day, reflecting a growing #MeToo-style backlash among women against frat-house misbehaviour in heavily maledominated Silicon Valley.
In Dublin, organizers used megaphones to address the crowd of men and women to express their support for victims of sexual harassment. Other workers shied away from the media spotlight, with people gathering instead indoors, in packed conference rooms or lobbies, to show their solidarity with abuse victims.
Protesters in New York carried signs with such messages as “Not OK Google” and “Don’t Be Evil” — a mocking reference to Google’s one-time motto.
]Many demonstrators cited fears about their job security in refusing to talk, but one woman who did speak, designer Leeung Li Jo, said in New York that she wanted to show support for the #MeToo movement “so we can have a comfortable working environment.”
“Time is up on sexual harassment, time is up on systemic racism, time is up on abuses of power. Enough is enough,” organizer Vicki Tardif Holland shouted, her voice hoarse, at a gathering of about 300 people in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Thursday’s walkout could signal that a significant number of the 94,000 employees working for Google and its corporate parent Alphabet Inc. remain unconvinced that the company is doing enough to adhere to Alphabet’s own advice to employees in its corporate code of conduct: “Do the right thing.”
The organizers said Google has publicly championed diversity and inclusion but hasn’t done enough to put words into action.
In an unsigned statement from organizers, 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.
They also want Google to commit to ending pay inequity, issue a report on sexual harassment inside the company and adopt a clearer process for reporting complaints.
The Google protest unfolded a week after a New York Times story detailed allegations of sexual misconduct about the creator of Google’s Android software, Andy Rubin.
The report said Rubin received a $90 million severance package in 2014 after Google concluded the sexual misconduct allegations against him were credible.
Rubin denied the allegations in a tweet.