Thousands with Google walk out
Workers protest company’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct
SAN FRANCISCO — 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, workers staged walkouts of around an hour, reflecting rising #Metoo-era frustration among women over frat-house behavior 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, Massachusetts, men outnumbered women by perhaps 6 to 1.
“Time is up on sexual harassment!” organizer Vicki Tardif Holland shouted at a gathering of about 300 in Cambridge. “Time is up on systemic racism.”
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, California, 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.”
The protests unfolded a week after The New York Times detailed allegations of sexual misconduct involving the creator of Google’s Android software, Andy Rubin. The newspaper said Rubin received a $90 million severance package 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.