Google workers stage #MeToo walkout
SAN FRANCISCO — 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.
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 frathouse behavior and other misconduct in heavily male 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 gathered indoors, in 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.
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, Mass.
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 walkouts reflected doubts among some of the 94,000 employees at Google and its corporate parent Alphabet Inc. that the company is adhering to its own dictum in the Alphabet corporate code of conduct: “Do the right thing.”
Protest 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 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 end 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 accusations against him were credible.
Rubin denied the allegations on Twitter.
The same story also disclosed allegations of sexual misconduct against other executives, including Richard DeVaul, a director at the Google-affiliated lab that created such projects as self-driving cars and internet-beaming balloons. DeVaul had remained at the “X” lab after the allegations surfaced about him a few years ago, but he resigned on Tuesday without severance, Google said.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologized for the company’s “past actions” in an email sent to employees Tuesday.
“I understand the anger and disappointment that many of you feel,” Pichai wrote.
Pichai indicated that Google wouldn’t interfere with protest plans and would ensure that “you have the support you need.”
Last week, Pichai and Google’s personnel chief sought to assure employees that the company had cracked down on sexual misconduct since Rubin’s departure four years ago. They said Google had fired 48 employeeswithout giving any of them severance packages.