Google employees walk out to protest men’s exploitation of female subordinates
Workers seen staging walkouts at offices from Tokyo and Singapore to London and Dublin
Hundreds of Google engineers and other workers around the world walked off the job yesterday to protest the internet company’s lenient treatment of executives accused of sexual misconduct.
It is the latest expression of a backlash against men’s exploitation of female subordinates in a business, entertainment and politics. In Silicon Valley, women also are becoming fed up with the male-dominated composition of the technology industry’s workforce — a glaring imbalance that critics say fosters unsavory behaviour akin to a college fraternity house.
Employees were seen staging walkouts at offices from Tokyo and Singapore to London and Dublin.
The Google protest, billed “Walkout For Real Change,” is unfolding a week after a New York Times story detailed allegations of sexual misconduct about creator of its Android software, Andy Rubin. The report said Rubin received a $90 million severance package in 2014 even though Google concluded the sexual misconduct allegations against him were credible.
Rubin derided the Times story article as inaccurate and denied the allegations in a tweet.
The same story also disclosed allegations of sexual misconduct of other executives, including Richard DeVaul, a director at the same Google-affiliated lab that created far-flung projects such as self-driving cars and internetbeaming balloons. DeVaul had remained at the “X’’ lab after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced about him a few years ago, but he resigned on Tuesday without severance, Google confirmed on Wednesday.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologised for the company’s “past actions” in an email sent to employees on Tuesday. “I understand the anger and disappointment that many of you feel,” Pichai wrote. “I feel it as well, and I am fully committed to making progress on an issue that has persisted for far too long in our society. and, yes, here at Google, too.”
The email didn’t mention the reported incidents involving Rubin, DeVaul or anyone else, but Pichai didn’t dispute anything in the Times story.
In an email last week, Pichai and Eileen Naughton, Google’s executive in charge of personnel issues, sought to reassure workers that the company had cracked down on sexual misconduct since Rubin’s departure.