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

Posted by BeauHD on from the cause-and-effect dept.

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.

12 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Why is this something for companies to solve? by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Why is this something for companies to solve? by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    2. Re:Why is this something for companies to solve? by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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!

    3. Re:Why is this something for companies to solve? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Why is this something for companies to solve? by rtb61 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:Why is this something for companies to solve? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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...

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

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    6. Re:Why is this something for companies to solve? by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

      As you sew, so shall you reap

      ITYM rip.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:Why is this something for companies to solve? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. SJW eat their own by sinij · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re: SJW eat their own by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Informative
      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

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  3. It won't work by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  4. Problem isn't the policies by Solandri · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.