San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Google workers protest harassment response
Hundreds of workers at Google parent Alphabet signed a letter Friday demanding the company do more to protect victims of workplace harassment, after a former engineer wrote about her experience with harassment while at the company. More than 200 workers affixed their names to the letter, which said more than 520 had signed on.
“Alphabet does not provide a safe environment for those who face harassment in the workplace,” the letter signed by Alphabet employees read.
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Emi Nietfeld described her experience of alleged harassment at the hands of a male superior, saying she was forced to continue to work with the person and found little to no help from the company’s human resources department.
“We’re deeply aware of the importance of this issue. We work to support and protect people who report concerns, thoroughly investigate all claims and take firm actions against substantiated allegations,” a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We’ve made significant improvements to our overall process, including the way we handle and investigate employee concerns, and introducing new care programs for employees who report concerns. Reporting misconduct takes courage and we’ll continue our work to improve our processes and support for the people who do.”
Addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, the letter demands that harassers not be allowed to manage or lead any teams, and that where there are verified claims of harassment, that person be automatically moved to a different team so as to stop them from working with the person they harassed.
It pointed to Nietfeld’s example as the latest in a line of longrunning instances of sexual and harassment and misconduct at the company
Highprofile departures have included a payout worth a reported $90 million to the creator of Android mobile software, Andy Rubin, after a woman accused him of coercing her into sex acts.
Another former executive, Amit Singhal, reportedly received $35 million and was forced out under the cloud of a sexual assault investigation.
In 2018, 20,000 Google employees walked off the job to protest sexual harassment and what they said was a lack of transparency at the company, whose original founding ethos was “Don’t be evil.”
Since the walkout, the company has ended the practice of forcing employees to settle disputes with the company in private arbitration, allowing them to bring lawsuits in open court, among other options.
The letter posted Friday said that was not enough, pointing to the company’s large workforce of people who are not full employees who do not have the same rights.
“Alphabet has not changed, and did not meet any of the Google Walkout demands (temps, vendors, contractors, and workers from Alphabet companies other than Google are still forced into arbitration),” the employees wrote.
In part to address some of these demands and other workplace issues, several hundred Alphabet workers — employees and contractors alike — announced the formation of the Alphabet Workers Union earlier this year, in affiliation with the Communication Workers of America.
The letter released Friday was signed by union members but was not issued by the union.
While the walkout took thousands of Google workers across the world to get the company’s attention, advocating for change at the company though an organized union now takes hundreds, not thousands of voices. “We can move a lot faster because we have a body for it,” said Raksha Muthukumar, a software engineer who signed the open letter.
In a Twitter thread Friday morning, the union said: “Alphabet is not a safe place for those who suffer from harassment.” The union said it is “furious” after reading about Nietfeld’s experiences, adding, “Harassers should not have anyone directly report to them & must be removed from teams where they harassed coworkers.”