Google need not search for protesting staffers; on November 1, they planned to walkout of the company’s offices disgruntled over the handling of sexual harrasment allegations within the firm and claiming that the world’s most popular search engine company is “a workplace that doesn’t work for everyone.’
The protests come one week after the New York Times published an article revealing that Google’s handling of sexual misconduct claims against top executives amounted to silence once investigations proved the credibility of the accusations.
Additionally, instead of firing the executives, Google asked two of the accused persons to resign thereby precipitating hefty payouts to the guilty executives (one received Ksh9 billion). Another was retained on a highly compensated post within the company. Firing after due process would have cost Google close to nothing in payouts.
The investigative report that was published by the New York Times on October 25 goes on to mention various other instances of other Google top honchos who have had sexual misconduct claims alleged against them. The right of reply afforded to Google and the accused managers by the American newspaper yielded denials, no comments and other justifications for the action(s) or inaction(s) taken.
This has sparked outrage among Google employees whose planned protest for November 1 has been acknowledged by the company’s chief executive.
According to CNN, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, “We let Googlers know that we are aware of the activities planned for Thursday and that employees will have the support they need if they wish to participate.”
READ : UBER EXECUTIVE ALREADY PUNISHED FOR ALLEGED SEXUAL MISCONDUCT RESIGNS
The Google CEO added, “Employees have raised constructive ideas for how we can improve our policies and our processes going forward. We are taking in all their feedback so we can turn these ideas into action.”
An unverified account on Twitter named @GoogleWalkout released a photo of the walkout at Google’s Singapore offices.
The account also listed the demands of the Google staffers.
We, Google employees and contractors, will walkout on November 1 at 11:10am to demand these five real changes. #googlewalkout pic.twitter.com/amgTxK3IYw
— Google Walkout For Real Change (@GoogleWalkout) November 1, 2018
A hashtag #googlewalkout is also doing the rounds on social media.
SEE ALSO : WHY GOOGLE IS SHUTTING DOWN GOOGLE PLUS