On Thursday, Google employees across the globe walked out in protest over the tech giant’s dissatisfying response to accusations of sexual misconduct.
Forbes
The protesting Google employees had stories to share: images of naked women included in office presentations. A manager telling two female employees not to “les out.” Denying benefits for minority groups.
In downtown San Francisco just after 11 AM Thursday morning, dozens of Google employees — in coordination with staff from the Internet giant’s offices around the world — gathered to protest how Google has handled sexual harassment allegations. The walkout followed a New York Times report that Google had quietly given a $90 million exit package to former executive Andy Rubin after a colleague accused him of sexual coercion and Google found her claim credible.
Rubin has called the allegations “a smear campaign.” Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Thursday said, “moments like this show that we didn’t always get it right and so we are committed to doing better.”
That assurance hasn’t gone far enough for the workers exiting Google’s offices in London, Tokyo, Mountain View, Calif. and elsewhere, the latest employee backlash Pichai and Alphabet CEO Larry Page have faced. In the last year, as a wave of employee activism has rolled through West Coast tech companies, Pichai has dealt with protests over the company’s military contracts, its nascent plans for a Chinese search engine and how it’s handled efforts to diversify its mostly male, white and Asian workforce.
Chants in San Francisco’s palm-tree ringed plaza were led by Google product manager, Cathy Bi, who asked the crowd, “how many of you have a story that hasn’t been told because you were scared, didn’t feel safe, feared retaliation?” Bi said she hasn’t come forward with her own allegations due to fear of retaliation.
Organizers of the protest have shared a list of demands: equal pay, an end to forced arbitration in cases of harassment and discrimination and a more structured reporting process for harassment, including a publicly disclosed sexual harassment transparency report.
Google employees gathered at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco to voice frustrations over mishandling of misconduct allegations at the tech giant #GoogleWalkout pic.twitter.com/2vqwqeJrht
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The leaders of the protest read anonymous stories shared by fellow Googlers: “In 2014, there was a boy’s club culture on the team I was on. I personally reported a manager on the team for including a gif of a lighter shaped as a naked woman in his presentation. When the lighter was turned on the breasts would light up, and this team LOVED it. I sent that presentation to HR and talked to them about it. He was given a warning and that same year he was given manager of the year award.”
Men and women in the crowd outside San Francisco’s Ferry Building held signs that read “I reported, and he got promoted” and “Happy to quit for $90M – no sexual harassment required.”
Others wore T-shirts that read “Black Lives Matter” and “Phenomenal Latina.” Holding a sign that read “Black women matter” was Google marketer Christian Boyd, who said she walked out because she felt that her demographic’s voice gets washed out. “It’s really important for me to be a representation of black women at this company because we are the most underrepresented group at Google,” said Boyd. “I’ll be very disappointed if Google doesn’t make changes.”
Google employee, Rana Abdelhamid protests sexual misconduct at #GoogleWalkout Forbes
Pichai’s initial response, when disclosed Google had fired 48 people for sexual harassment without exit packages, didn’t satisfy employees, which prompted a second apology from the CEO. Protesters said the situation reflects structural problems with the company.
“I walked out today because currently the way our workplace is organized it’s not a safe space for all women, especially for women who live at the intersections of various identities,” said Google Cloud marketer Rana Abdelhamid. “We want more than just the intention of saying that things are going to happen, we need to see structures developing in order to make reporting more accessible,” said Abdelhamid.
I’m the SF based assistant editor on the Forbes tech team. I write about tech as it pertains to the MENA region, diversity and developing countries. Before joining Forbes, I was a Cairo based senior staff writer for Scoop Empire and contributed to BuzzFeed, Elite Daily and T…
Follow Samar on Twitter at @HellaSamar or email her at smarwan[at]forbes.com.
