Google Pledges To Overhaul Its Sexual Harassment Policy After Global Protests (theguardian.com)

In an email to staff on Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company would overhaul its sexual harassment policies, "meeting some of the demands of employees who organized historic walkouts across the globe," the Guardian reports. "Pichai said Google would end forced arbitration of sexual miconduct claims, revamp its investigations process, share data on harassment claims and outcomes, and provide new support systems for people who come forward. From the report: Some critics, however, said the commitments were inadequate, failed to address pay disparities, and ignored demands to improve the rights of temporary employees and contractors. Pichai said Google would now make arbitration "optional for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims," but noted that employees could still choose to keep their claims confidential. [...] Pichai also said Google would disclose trends about investigations and disciplinary actions and would create "one dedicated site" that included "live support" for people with complaints. Google would now also offer "extra care and resources" to employees, including counseling and "career support" and a "support person," the CEO added.

Comments

Why is this something for companies to solve?

[gerald.edward.butler]

If someone commits a crime against you, call the police and charge them with a crime; otherwise, shut the fuck up.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[aardvarkjoe]

Because "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't satisfy the mob.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[Dutch Gun]

You know, lots of things can occur outside the bounds of decent and proper behavior at a workplace which don't happen to be a crime.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[gerald.edward.butler]

Yes. Then why are they trying to make it a "crime" in the workplace. Either it's a crime or it isn't. I'm offended every damn day by the shit-hole this country is becoming at the hands of professional victimization industry. Fuck all of you. It's time to take back the agenda. No FUCK YOU! Your feelings don't mean shit to me! Do your fucking job and let me do my job and shut the fuck up.

It's time for people to stand up and say enough is enough. We're stopping you. You shall not go no further. Fuck your goddamn victimhood. Stop being such a fucking piece of shit always demanding everyone else suffer for your inability to assert yourself and stand up for yourself. You are thieves who only seek to steal power that you haven't earned. Fuck you!

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[ShanghaiBill]

You know, lots of things can occur outside the bounds of decent and proper behavior at a workplace which don't happen to be a crime.

The incident being protested occurred in a hotel room, and it happened between two people that were in a pre-existing consensual relationship. They both worked for Google, but they were not at work, and I am not sure why Google felt any obligation to get involved. I'll bet they are now wishing they hadn't.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[rtb61]

Google deserves every little bit of it. They wanted to play the deep state and shadow government, divide and conquer, SJW bullshit activist and mass censor game and it is turning right around and biting them on the ass, hard, funny and fuck. As you sew, so shall you reap and they are being reaped hard, right up the economic ass and it is going to get worse, the SJW freaks at Google are empowered now. We all shall mock and laugh and don't the shit heads at Alphabet deserve it, corrupt propagandistic shadow government asshats.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[Gravis Zero]

Yes. Then why are they trying to make it a "crime" in the workplace. Either it's a crime or it isn't.

I'm sorry you are such a snowflake when it comes to following the rules but these are private businesses and they make their own rules. If you don't like it then you can make your own business where anything goes. You may find this hard to believe but society frowns upon such things.

Frankly, I don't know anyone who want's to go to work and deal with people like you who say shit like...

• * It looks like you have a dog's dick in your ass and it's shit in your mouth. Gross! You really need to be more hygienic.
• * Anonymous Child Molesters like yourself should shut the fuck up until you pay penance for all the children you've molested anonymously.
• * Do you actually have his dick-froth in your mouth? Gross.
• * Your mom's pussy is a great joke. Kind of like a giant GREAT cave! Vast! God she has a big pussy....God she has a big pussy! (No, I didn't say that twice). Tell your mom to stop using 2-liter bottles as dildos! Oh, and you stop it too! Nobody wants to see your Goatse!
• * If I've told you once, I've told you twice: STOP molesting children. Call the police now and report yourself. Better yet, just kill yourself now and save the state the trouble. Pedo.
• * You haven't said anything clever in your life. You are pathetic. You don't like the truth so you bury your head in the sand like the cuck coward that you are. Go eat the shit out of your father's asshole like you always do and leave the talking to your betters. Loser.

And that's only a few of the most recent things you have written.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[Hognoxious]

As you sew, so shall you reap

ITYM rip.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[Opportunist]

Works just the other way around, too. Do I want to work in an environment where I have to wonder and worry what I can or cannot say, no matter how innocent, because some self proclaimed Cardinal Richelieu made it his or her mission to collect 6 lines from everyone to hang them for?

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[squiggleslash]

What states do you think classify sexual harassment as a crime?

One thing I've noticed about many anti-feminists is that they tend to conflate three or four different things, I don't know if it's malicious or reflects genuine confusion, but they tend to assume rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment to be all the same thing, often adding in hostile workplaces and so on. While you can argue, I guess, that rape is an example of all of the above, it's not the same in the other direction: groping someone is not rape. Wolf whistling is not sexual assault. Ignoring someone's ideas, or constantly unfairly belittling them, and spreading unsavory rumors about them is not (necessarily) sexual harassment.

Sexual assault and rape very definitely are criminal acts in most of the Western world. Sexual harassment? For the most part, no, it can rise to being a civil matter in certain contexts, such as employment, as it's usually under the umbrella of sexual discrimination. Criminal? A very small number of countries have sanctions for some specific types of harassment, such as public catcalling, but most jurisdictions have no laws at all in place.

So, I don't know if that helps, but if you are under the serious impression that sexual harassment is a crime in most places, well, it isn't. It probably shouldn't be on the grounds that most "Be a decent person" principles shouldn't need to be enshrined in criminal law so I doubt there'll be a movement to change that any time soon.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[AmiMoJo]

Google had to get involved because a relationship between a superior and their subordinate is always a problem. At the very least the superior should excuse themselves and move to a position where they are no influence over the subordinate, and that didn't happen.

Otherwise it presents two problems. Firstly other employees may feel that the subordinate is getting unfair treatment. Even if a promotion is deserved, there will be suspicion that it was influenced by the relationship. Secondly if the relationship breaks down it could create an extremely awkward situation, and makes it hard for the company to avoid accusations of a hostile environment if the superior later needs to give a bad review or discipline the subordinate.

For that reason many companies have an explicit policy on this, requiring people to declare relationships with subordinates and be moved to resolve the issue. In the case of C level execs moving is often impossible so if they want to pursue it they have to resign.

Re:Why is this something for companies to solve?

[jeff4747]

In what state or country is sexual harassment not a crime?

All of them. Sexual Harassment (in the workplace) is a civil offense, not a crime. You can't go to jail for it.

The reason a company has to get involved is they don't want the civil liability caused by doing nothing about it.

SJW eat their own

[sinij]

Let this be a lesson to any organization that tries to embrace identity politics. SJW eat their own and if you are with them, you are just as likely to be the next meal.

Re: SJW eat their own

[DNS-and-BIND]

For any who doubt the truth of this, go read this amazing true story of an SJW on Quillette. Entitled "I Was the Mob Until the Mob Came for Me". It's an amazing insight on what it's like to be an SJW and why their culture is thriving at Google right now.

In my previous life, I was a self-righteous social justice crusader. I would use my mid-sized Twitter and Facebook platforms to signal my wokeness on topics such as LGBT rights, rape culture, and racial injustice. Many of the opinions I held then are still opinions that I hold today. But I now realize that my social-media hyperactivity was, in reality, doing more harm than good.

Within the world created by the various apps I used, I got plenty of shares and retweets. But this masked how ineffective I had become outside, in the real world. The only causes I was actually contributing to were the causes of mobbing and public shaming. Real change does not stem from these tactics. They only cause division, alienation, and bitterness.

How did I become that person? It happened because it was exhilarating. Every time I would call someone racist or sexist, I would get a rush. That rush would then be reaffirmed and sustained by the stars, hearts, and thumbs-up that constitute the nickels and dimes of social media validation. The people giving me these stars, hearts, and thumbs-up were engaging in their own cynical game: A fear of being targeted by the mob induces us to signal publicly that we are part of it.

Then one day, suddenly, I was accused of some of the very transgressions Iâ(TM)d called out in others. I was guilty, of course: Thereâ(TM)s no such thing as due process in this world. And once judgment has been rendered against you, the mob starts combing through your past, looking for similar transgressions that might have been missed at the time. I was now told that Iâ(TM)d been creating a toxic environment for years at my workplace; that Iâ(TM)d been making the space around me unsafe through microaggressions and macroaggressions alike.

I mobbed and shamed people for incidents that became front page news. But when they were vindicated or exonerated by some real-world investigation, it was treated as a footnote by my online community. If someone survives a social justice callout, it simply means that the mob has moved on to someone new. No one ever apologizes for a false accusation, and everyone has a selective memory regarding what theyâ(TM)ve done.

See also Jamie Kilstein talking the SJW mob turning on him on the Joe Rogan Experience. Kilstein had the same thing happen to him. Only, he wasn't just an SJW, but he was an SJW leader. He targeted dissenters for harassment and the mob followed his lead. He did real harm to people. But...eventually his own mob turned on him. Let's listen to his own words when he actually meets his former enemies for the first time in his life:

I met Knowles while I was getting makeup done. He was warm and hilarious. In my former life, I'd never have pictured a Republican laughing at anything except the plight of the poor. Then his producer came in. His Latino female producer. I made direct eye contact in case she wanted to blink out some S.O.S kidnap code. But nothing. Just another goddamn nice, and funny, conservative.

At one point, someone brought in a gift from a fan to present to Knowles. Was it a hat emblazoned with the words "Grab 'em by the pussy?" The gun used in the Parkland massacre? Nope. It was a tasteful painting of him and his wife on their wedding day. Then the producer walked out from behind a curtain, where she'd been pumping milk for their newborn baby. Turns out the party of family values occasionally attracts people who actually embrace family valu

It won't work

[DNS-and-BIND]

Google is trying to appease the SJW mob. This never works. It just energizes them and makes them sure to make even more extreme demands of the future. We've seen this again and again.

You know what we've seen works? Ignoring them. They get sullen and bitter and move on to the next cause. Nothing worse than throwing a protest and nobody cares. The opposite of SJW hate is not love. The opposite is indifference.

Problem isn't the policies

[Solandri]

If any line employment had done the same things, they would've been fired immediately sent packing, with a note added to their HR record to deny them severance and unemployment. But a high-level executive does it, and the company tries to cover it up, and when they can't anymore the person is let go with a $90 million golden parachute.

The problem isn't the policies. It's the uneven application of the policies. It's not limited to sexual harassment either. High-level execs regularly seem to be let go with a golden parachute following a myriad of things (fraud, embezzlement, etc) that would sink the career of a regular employee.* Revamping the policies won't make the slightest difference if they're still not applied evenly.

* This makes me suspect we need a law saying being let go for unethical behavior automatically nullifies any severance terms you've negotiated in your employment contract.

Re:Seriously

[Whibla]

I confess I haven't read the article - for topics like this it's the comments that inspire the largest laughs. Having said that, and sorry to interject a 'modicum' of reason, I thought the topic was sexual harassment not sexual assault. So...

It's nothing more than the old "She was asking for it" canard, so, yes, I believe that he DID say that.

"That" being it's "OK to grab anything", no, he didn't say that. He said nothing about what the 'man' did, he merely commented on the deliberated allure of the women. It's still perhaps a rather 'self-centered caveman' attitude, as it completely ignores the distinct possibility that the women are dressing for themselves and gave no consideration to the effect it might have on men, but it is still a valid perspective.

It all boils down to What part of "Look but don't touch without permission" do you fail to understand?

Honestly I can't speak for the original poster but I'm pretty sure that ninety nine to the several nines percent of men understand and abide by this, even the mentally ill ones who disagree, if only out of fear not compassion, empathy, moral reasoning or understanding.

The 'understanding' that's considerably less clear is when, and in what manner, is it OK to make a pass at a colleague? The boundaries of social decorum are vague, and pretty damn wide when it comes to different people. I still remember watching a woman in an interview for a documentary on harassment, apparently oblivious to the irony, state that it's fine for a colleague you fancy to ask you out, but if a colleague you don't find attractive does so it's harassment. To my mind this is crazy talk, yet any number of people now seem to believe in this 'definition' of harassment. Given this it should come as no surprise that people have begun to strenuously push back against what might be seen as society's slide into collective madness.

(That they go too far in their reaction should also come as no surprise, but that's a discussion for another day).

I just wish we all, men and women (and unspecified others), would take a moment to see things from the other's perspective before the knee-jerk disagreement or 'violent' reaction. If the poles get much further apart lines are likely to snap, and the 'energy' released in that moment will cause unpredictable damage to society.

They're not protesting the incident

[rsilvergun]

they protesting the forced arbitration.

If I may go off on a tangent here (feel free to stop readying if you're not into a libtard libtarding out) I've been complaining about our right wing media narratives for years. Workers are understandably angry that a sexual harassment claim is forced into binding arbitration instead of being litigated as it should. Workers have lost a valuable right. This is barely discussed in most media outlets (CNN, to their credit, did) in favor of a focus on the part most likely to rile up the anti-SJW crowd. This is what I mean about the right wing media bias.

Another amazing example. Fiat-Chrysler just got caught bribing Union leaders to weaken worker benefits and pay. The news stories all ran it as a Union Corruption scandal and did everything they could to gloss over the fact that Fiat-Chrysler was the one paying the bribes. The message is loud and clear: Unions are bad because they are corrupt. Again, right wing narrative at play.

The media is a bit left on a few social issues. A bit. They (like Hilary Clinton I might add) opposed Gay marriage until changing times forced their hand. I'm sick of it. It's like living in bizzaro world where everyone around me clamors on about the left wing media meanwhile I watch stories like the above unfold over and over again...