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

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.

8 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. An ad company by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

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  2. And the whole thing is horseshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:And the whole thing is horseshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:And the whole thing is horseshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I wasn't "terminated", but I did have a sit-down with HR. Some time later I left on my own. I suspect I'm on a blacklist somewhere now, marked as "do not rehire".

      Try it. Find an example of the obviously extremist rhetoric on internal G+ and try to call out the person on it. Better yet, post a clever meme on Memegen ("constant struggle" would do the job). You'll see for yourself. Google is brimming with SJWs who are constantly on the lookout for new things to be offended by. If you do not constantly signal your virtue by supporting their dogma you will be ostracized.

  3. Something cannot be explained by sentiblue · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  4. Anonymous reporting by rossz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  5. Re:What is next? by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What's wrong with a company being forced to do something other than being a psychopathic profit driven machine?

    Nothing of course. But ask yourself why you'd want your company to start operating like Mizzou or Evergreen Collage. Then ask exactly how such environments are going to keep people happy and productive, when it degenerates into hostile cliques of people who witch hunt others because they're triggered.

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  6. Re: Hire stupid harassers by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I love how here any such claims, no matter how wild, get modded up high. Now I expect to be modded down for pointing this out, despite it being true. If there's one thing the "anti SJW" can't stand it's dissent.

    Do you work for a company with more then 300 people, a Fortune company, or company listed on a major stock exchange that has annual profits greater than $15m/year? How about been to a university in Canada, US, or Europe in the last 15 years? Can you name the last time you had mandatory workshops on any of the following: Sexual harassment/workplace etiquette/triggers/trigger-words/micro-aggressions/politically (in)correct language/politically correct speech/politically correct terminology.

    Has your HR dept or student life/student union/professor published memo's outlining speech guidelines, improper speech, improper word usage in essays/papers, warnings against particular types of speech in the university and/or aggressively made restricted speech in a public university which is backed by the university president and/or dean of students. Thinking on the university, can you or can you or not remember at any point in the last 4 years where a TA, professor or tenured professor has been unofficially or officially sanctioned by either other professors, or adjoining body, or open protests by students for wanting to show full arguments/open discussion/defense of speech/views protected by charter/constitutional law/students rights charter/employment act/student union protections on an issue.

    If the answer is no. Then you haven't interacted with mainstream education, or corporate culture in the last decade in any western country. In turn, you're ignorant of what's going on around you. If yes, then you're either accepting of these views or you're either not paying attention or are simply lowering your head so much to not make any waves, you've accepted the abnormal as normal.

    Feel free to read campusreform, Fire, or anything similar for universities. Go on and read up about the Title IX abuses and abuse of students with no due process for indictable offences/felonies. Feel free to read the employment manual and/or the up to 20 supplemental documents at a major company. Read The Guardian, Vox, Vice, The Root, Huffpo, and read the articles that led to those same policies you're now skimming over. Look at the universities that are primary hires at these major companies, then go take a look at the googlers and their statements. Notice anything yet?

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