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Google Businesses United States

Google Employees Stage Protest Over Handling of Sexual Harassment (nytimes.com) 271

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Employees at Google offices around the world held a wave of walkouts on Thursday to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment. The walkouts, which started in Asia and spread across continents, were planned for around 11 a.m. in their time zones. Protests were held through the day in Google offices in the United States. The backlash was prompted by an article in The New York Times last week that revealed that Google had paid millions of dollars in exit packages to male executives accused of harassment, while staying silent about the transgressions. As late morning arrived in different time zones on Thursday, Google employees walked away from their work at offices including Singapore; Hyderabad, India; Berlin; Zurich; Dublin; London; New York; and its headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Employees posted photos on social media, but it was unclear how long the protests lasted as many of those who stopped working stayed inside the buildings. The employees who organized the walkout have called on Google to end its use of private arbitration in cases of alleged sexual assault and harassment. They have also demanded the publication of a transparency report on instances of sexual harassment, further disclosures of salaries and compensation, an employee representative on the company board and a chief diversity officer who could speak directly to the board.

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Google Employees Stage Protest Over Handling of Sexual Harassment

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  • Still not Evil... nothing to see here...

  • An ad company (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Thursday November 01, 2018 @06:42PM (#57578030) Journal
    The workers worked so hard getting the best education.
    Loans. All the exams. That wealth someone paid for the best education.

    They found work at an .... ad company.
    Working for Communist China and helping de rank the internet...

    Start your own company with your own great ideas.
    Find a really great company that makes product and services you actually like working with.

    Thats what your education allows you to do.
    The freedom to find work all over the USA.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      College loans that you spend half your life paying back are mostly an American thing. Most of these protestors are outside the USA, where education is much more affordable. The downside is that they have no student rec centers with saunas, climbing walls, and acai bowl bars.

    • "an .... ad company"

      Google is a surveillance company. The ads are just a cover. They make the majority of their revenue from selling surveillance data to repressive governments.

    • Re:An ad company (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @06:04AM (#57579828)

      They found work at an .... ad company.

      Yes they did, and it completely irrelevant. You see the type of primary work a company does is completely irrelevant to a desire to work for a company unless your overriding decision is affected by some moral opinion about said company.

      What actually matters to most people:
      - The type of work.
      - The type of development opportunities.
      - The long term investment in the type of work.
      - The type of prestige.
      - Getting paid what you're worth

      This is why the likes of AI / image recognition experts will line up to be paid money with lots of zeros on the end to work at an "ad company". It's why datacentre designers and hardware experts line up to be paid money with lots of zeros by an "ad company".

      Start your own company with your own great ideas.

      If it were easy then everyone would do it. But it's not. It's far easier to be paid for your expertise than to branch out into something that you have no experience in. The fact that you actually suggested this shows that you've never started your own company before.

      Find a really great company that makes product and services you actually like working with.

      They did. Most educated and capable people do not work very long for a company they aren't happy with.

      Thats what your education allows you to do.
      The freedom to find work all over the USA.

      Which begs the question, why is it that you are more upset that these people work at an "ad company" than the people themselves?

      • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Re "The type of prestige"
        Ensuring users have to view ads? Stopping users from not viewing ads? Censorship for Communist China? Deranking search results?
        Ensuring any new encryption is ad ready?
        Development opportunities...
        Ads and censorship....
        • Re "The type of prestige"

          To make that clear we're talking about personal gain. It's amazing what having a company name does on your resume, especially when said company has famously high standards for employing technical people.

      • Which begs the question, why is it that you are more upset that these people work at an "ad company" than the people themselves?

        Stockholm syndrome.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 01, 2018 @06:47PM (#57578052)

    im pretty sure that Google Internal Security just face-recognized all of those social media posts, put all those workers on a blacklist, and will have them banned from the tech industry.

    young people these days don't seem to understand how mega corporations work. they are not your friend, they are not your community, they are not a family, they have no values, and they have no empathy. they are big, sociopathic lumbering expressions of greed and brutality. if slavery were legal, every single one of them would buy slaves. if murder were legal, every single one of them would engage in murder.

    stop trying to change Google. Quit google, and go work for some company that is not a monstrous leviathan of cruelty.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But they put nice colors on the walls and give meeting rooms cute names.

    • by Kiuas ( 1084567 )

      stop trying to change Google. Quit google, and go work for some company that is not a monstrous leviathan of cruelty.

      So you're advocating for people with moral differences working for megacorporations to just quit and go elsewhere. Okay. How do you think that'll play out in the long term? If the problem is, as you put it, that these corporations are 'big, sociopathic lumbering expressions of greed and brutality', do you think that situation will be made better or worse if people simply stop trying to change

      • If people had morals or spines, they'd leave in large numbers and Google, Facebook, etc. would crumble overnight.

    • im pretty sure that Google Internal Security just face-recognized all of those social media posts, put all those workers on a blacklist, and will have them banned from the tech industry.

      young people these days don't seem to understand how mega corporations work.

      I take it you're young then? It may surprise you that the employer employee relationship is something typically of benefit to both sides. Employers don't sit around looking for excuses to fire people. Google probably knows quite well who participated in the process, they will however do precisely nothing about it.

      Finding staff costs money.
      Training staff costs money.
      That doesn't even take into account the quality or capability of the staff in question.

      stop trying to change Google. Quit google, and go work for some company that is not a monstrous leviathan of cruelty.

      Or I could take the good (the reason I would work for a c

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      monstrous leviathan of cruelty

      Descriptions like that are so far divorced from reality that they undermine your argument.

      Google is unlikely to retaliate because it needs skilled workers, and has trouble recruiting them already. Blacklisting people is like salting the earth, you not only destroy your most important resource but ensure that it's extremely difficult to recover.

    • > they are big, sociopathic lumbering expressions of greed and brutality.
      I'd say this is true when any group of people gets above 10 or so, once there are enough people that you need a system to keep the group running, so people can just blame the system. Good luck trying to run a planet with 7 billion people without having these problems.

      > young people these days don't seem to understand how mega corporations work.
      They do what's in their own best interest, to create money and power for their owners/e

  • cannot live up to their own standards, should we really be taking pointers on how to implement equality from them?
    • I would like to know when Google claimed they were a perfect company, rather than a company trying to do better, that has a ways to go in spite of their efforts so far.

      No doubt you can easily find a citation, right?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
        They didn't claim they were perfect. They just acted like it when lecturing us and trying to force us into their morality through lobbying and propaganda.
      • I would like to know when Google claimed they were a perfect company, rather than a company trying to do better, that has a ways to go in spite of their efforts so far.

        In politics we call these people limousine liberals. The self-righteous, sanctimonious assholes that preach that they're better, their actions are better, and if you don't do what they tell you? You're a terrible person. This of course is while they're carrying on like normal or acting even worse then what they claim they're fighting for/against/etc.

        It's really no difference then the old catholic indulgence system. All sins can be forgiven as long as you virtue signal hard enough, and throw enough money at *insert special/pet cause* showing how "woke" you are.

  • What would you do? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Thursday November 01, 2018 @06:54PM (#57578104)
    Half of your co-workers are walking out. You either think they're wrong, or flat out don't care and would rather keep working. If you keep working you're The Enemy in a highly SJW work environment.

    wat do? Work, or fuckit take a break?
  • What’d they do... sit at their desks with their hands folded on their laps?

    • That's what I was going to ask. Did they not walk out because the weather was too uncomfortable? Big showing for your cause, taking a paid break to hang out w/ friends at the company in the company break room.
  • So, really everyone just went out to lunch? An 11am walkout is symbolic at best.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 01, 2018 @08:42PM (#57578554)

    Here's why: I worked at Google. At Google, today, you can't as much as argue with a feminist (and I'd bet money most of Google's female employees consider themselves that), let alone sexually harass anyone for real. I once called out a female SJW on internal Google+ for "kill all white men" type of rhetoric. This promptly resulted in her reporting me to HR for "harassment". This is the kind of offense threshold we're talking about here. Does Google have bad apples? Any company of 85K people has at least a few. Can you get fired for as much as looking at some female co-worker wrong? 100% you can, if you're not Andy Rubin or the like. There is "process" for that: you get reported to HR, and security will walk you out the door for a mere "credible" accusation, no evidence or physical contact required. So the whole thing is SJW bullying plain and simple. If you're not walking out with them, you're misogynist bigot and literally a Nazi. So glad I don't work there anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Here's why: I worked at Google ... So glad I don't work there anymore.

      So am I. Oh boy, so am I !!

      I was amongst the first batch hire by Google, some twenty odd years ago. It used to be fun and satisfying working there.

      The situation worsen, but at that time it was still 'tolerable', until the time they got that Indian on the helm, then all hell broke loose.

      That's the time I started packing, and never looked back.

  • by sentiblue ( 3535839 ) on Thursday November 01, 2018 @08:51PM (#57578596)
    I definitely don't get this for the life of me. In every country, whether it's legal or not, people can pay for sex. In this case, the guy in question has lots of money. He can pay for as many companies as he'd like. And in most (if not all) cases, he will get much more good looking ones than the ones he tried to harass. Why in the world would he go and try having sex with somebody at work knowing it will get him in trouble? This just doesn't make any sense.
    • If there's an element of exerting power and control involved as well as sex, then it makes perfect sense. Is there a better way to prove your absolute and complete dominance over a reasonably attractive female employee...maybe one with a husband or boyfriend...than to tell her to lie down and spread or watch her career go to hell?

      If you're that kind of scumbag, you're going to do this every time you think you have a chance of getting away with it.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      People want what they can't have. As you say, he has money, he can just pay for it... But that's less rewarding than having to work for it. There is less excitement, no will she/won't she uncertainty, making the payoff less satisfying.

    • While in some case this is about sex (think clumsy coworker flirting borderline harassment, type) in the case of an executive like that there is a very good chance it was about him using his power and feeling the rush of it, rather than the sex.
  • If employees feel they have to protest against their own employer fine

    BUT...

    I can guarantee you everyone single of them who walked out or protested or went on social media about it is has now effectively destroyed any career at Google. They won't be fired [especially in Europe] but they won't be promoted or advanced and will be first in line if it's redundancy time.

    Corporations are self-protecting entities.

    Also I'd suggest they Google [heh heh] the concept of "Biting the hand that feeds you"

    • Sometimes "the hand that feeds you" is also the one trying to get a finger up your fanny. If enough employees object, Google will actually have to reform its corporate culture to bring it more in line with the part of its original (now quietly emended) mission statement that said, "Don't be evil".

      In Europe, employees have a lot more tools at their disposal to fight back against employers who act the way you describe. In North America, they'd be toast. In Europe, they have a fighting chance.

  • Anonymous reporting (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rossz ( 67331 ) <ogreNO@SPAMgeekbiker.net> on Thursday November 01, 2018 @10:56PM (#57579036) Journal

    They want to be able to anonymously accuse someone of sexual harassment. I'm sure no one would abuse a system that would allow you to destroy someone's life without repercussions.

    • Many companies have something in place where employees can anonymously report ethics violations. It’s anonymous because the accused often is a boss or close co-worker of the person reporting the violation. This sort of stuff cannot go through the regular chain of command and should be anonymous for it to be effective

      The real question is: what happens with such accusations? Is there a proper investigation and a presumption of innocence until proven guilty? Or is it a #metoo witch hunt?
  • Reasons (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sproketboy ( 608031 )

    Leftie: "Everyone should go to University! It's a Human Right!"
    Normie: "Er, everyone can go to university. What's the problem?"
    Leftie: "NOOO! Poor Brown people can't because Poor, Brown, Misogyny, Racism, Patriarchy, NAZIS!"
    Normie: "Huh? We have bursary and scholarship programs. Kids with good grades can fill out a form and get their education paid for. So what's the problem?"
    Leftie: "REEEEEEEEEEEE! Everyone should go to University! It's a Human Right! REEEEEEEEEEEE!"
    Normie: (sigh) "Ok, assuming you're righ

  • Isn't that less of a protest and more of a long lunch? One you need to leave early for, because maybe you have a doctors appointment or need to run to the DMV.
    • It's California, they are just showing up to work for the day then. If you scheduled it at 10am, nobody would be there yet.....
  • The backlash was prompted by an article in The New York Times last week that revealed that Google had paid millions of dollars in exit packages to male executives accused of harassment, while staying silent about the transgressions.

    Isn't it an HR policy to NOT share personal information about someone? Wouldn't this be counter to a persons right of privacy?

    Yup, they're a pile of crap for what they did (if they did do it, and it wasn't just a baseless accusation), but does an employer really need to advertise why they got rid of someone? As far as the payouts, I'm sure there was something other than "Well, we think you're a good guy anyway, here, take a pile of money while we fire you for being accused of sexual harassment". Things a

The 11 is for people with the pride of a 10 and the pocketbook of an 8. -- R.B. Greenberg [referring to PDPs?]

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