It was a trembling experience for tech giant Google, yesterday, as thousands of its employees around the world briefly walked off their jobs to protest the company’s response to sexual harassment at workplaces. The protesters demanded that the company should address the rising concerns about workplace inequality.
The protests drew both Google contract workers as well as employees and took place as waves, beginning in Asia and then spreading across Europe and North America, with the final wave coming to Google’s headquarters at Mountain View, California. The Mountain View employees walked out chanting “women’s rights are workers rights,” and some wore blue ribbons in support of sexual harassment
The Google protests followed last week’s New York Times report that the company in 2014 gave a $90 million exit package to a Senior Vice President, Andy Rubin, after he was accused of sexual harassment. The employees spoke out that there are so many stories that they’ve heard for so long, and it’s time for action and change.
The demonstrations were organized by seven US employees and they called on Google parent Alphabet Inc to make the harassment investigations fairer for accusers, share pay-equity data with workers and add an employee representative to its board. They added that Google executives, like leaders at the dozens of companies affected by the #metoo movement, have been slow to address the numerous structural issues such as the unchecked power of male executives.
Regarding the protests, Google CEO Sundar Pichai commented that he was taking note of the “concrete steps” workers presented to improve the company’s culture and human resources processes.
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