Google Walkout: Employees Stage Protest over Handling of Sexual Misconduct Allegations

Hong Kong [Hong Kong], Nov 1 (ANI): Thousands of Google employees across the world staged an unprecedented series of walkouts to protest over how the company is dealing with sexual harassment allegations against women.

The demonstrations, dubbed "Google Walkout," comes after the New York Times came up with a detailed report chronicling the years of sexual misconduct allegations, multimillion-dollar severance packages for accused executives and a lack of transparency over such cases, CNN reported.

Several staffers left their workplaces and staged a walkout outside Google's offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London and Zurich. At various places in the United States, demonstrations were also reported.

The Google employees across the world walked out of their offices at 11:10 am (local time).

According to a Twitter post by the 'Google Walkout for Real Change', the employees are demanding - an end to forced arbitration in cases of harassment and discrimination, a commitment to end pay and opportunity inequity, a publicly disclosed sexual harassment transparency report, a clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously, and elevate the Chief Diversity Officer to answer directly to the CEO and make recommendations directly to the Board of Directors and in addition, appoint an employee representative to the board.

"We're walking out in support of those who've been harassed anywhere in the workplace, and to ensure that perpetrators are not rewarded and are not protected," Sam Dutton, a developer advocate at Google, told CNN in London.

The New York Times had reported that Google did not take cognisance about the sexual misconduct allegations against three executives over the past decade, including Android creator Andy Rubin, who resigned from the tech company in 2014.

The report had said that Rubin had allegedly received USD 90 million payouts after he left the firm and was accused of coercing a female employee with whom he was having a sexual affair. Later, the female employee's claim was found to be credible according to a Google investigation, after which the then company's CEO Larry Page had asked Rubin to put down his papers.

Reacting to the report, top executives of Google, in a statement, said that the tech company is "dead serious about making sure of providing a safe and inclusive workplace.

Backing the global walkouts, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told CNN, "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." (ANI)

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