The protest comes in response to the company reportedly giving lucrative exit packages to two senior executives who resigned over credible sexual misconduct charges. Employees at Google offices across the world plan to join the walkout.
Google employees are preparing a walkout at company offices on Thursday to protest the tech giant’s handling of workplace sexual harassment.
The huge payouts have been raising questions over whether Google has been taking workplace sexual harassment seriously. The protesting employees have started a Twitter account that’s been circulating their demands. Among them is a call for Google to « end pay and opportunity inequity, » and to start publishing a transparency report over sexual harassment cases at the company. The workers also want the ability to bring any workplace sexual harassment charges in court as opposed through company arbitration.
We, Google employees and contractors, will walkout on November 1 at 11:10am to demand these five real changes. #googlewalkout pic.twitter.com/amgTxK3IYw
In response to the protest, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement: « Yesterday, 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. »
« 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, » he added.
In the same email, they revealed that the company has fired 48 employees for sexual harassment over the past two years. Thirteen of the employees were senior managers or above, and none received an exit package. « We want to assure you that we review every single complaint about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct, we investigate and we take action, » Pichai and Naughton said in the email.
