User:Hannahfitsum/sandbox

Lead

Background

The Walkout

Ongoing activism

Retaliation and Union Busting

Impact and Outcome

LEAD:

The Google Walkouts occurred on November 1, 2018 at approximately 11 am at each individual participating Google building. The walkout had huge numbers of participants. The employees demanded 5 concrete changes from the company: an end to forced arbitration, a commitment to end pay inequality, a transparent sexual harassment report, an inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct, and elevate the Chief of Diversity to answer directly to the CEO and create an Employee Representative. A majority of the known organizers have left the company since the walkout and many continue to voice their concerns. Google agreed to end forced arbitration and create a private report of sexual assault, but has not provided any further details about the other demands.

BACKGROUND:

This walkout started as a "day without women" and later evolved when a larger mass of attendees accumulated. There were 7 main organizers that asked for an end to sexual harassment, discrimination, and systematic racism. There has been a history of women that were minimized and discriminated against in the technology industry. Four of those seven women have left the company, including Claire Stapleton and Meredith Whittaker. Stapleton worked in the communications department and worked closely with both co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Whittaker was a researcher and public voice. Another organizer, Tanuja Gupta, worked in a group called "Googlers for Ending Force of Arbitration" which aided in the growth of momentum towards the sexual assault issue.

WALKOUT:

The walkout itself was held all over the world, from New York to India and Berlin on November 1, 2018 at around 11 am at each countries' respective times. The main demand was the act of transparency from a company, the presence of an employee representative, and the public fillings of each sexual assault case. The protest was started when 48 people over the course of 2 years were fired due to sexual assault, but were paid severance, a lot of which were in the millions of dollars. A former Android executive, Andy Rubin, was paid $90 Million after being fired from the company. There were many signs that were held up during the course of the protest. One said "What do I do at Google? I work hard every day so the company can afford $90,000,000 payouts to execs who sexually harass my co-workers", another said "Don't be evil" which was a former logo of the company. When reporters approached the protester's many shied away from answering or talking to the reporters due to the potential retaliation from the company, even though Google claims to not retaliate against its employees and tries all claims that are stated against the company.

IMPACT/OUTCOME:

With the demands that were made by the employees only few were met. Many of Google's responses included the reiteration of commitment to past diversity objectives and the improvement of the process to report harassment. The two resolutions that met closest with the employees' demands were the publishing of sexual assault cases, although the company opted for a private, internal report rather than a public one, and increased transparency of sexual assault. In February of 2019 Google announced the end of forced arbitration for employees for all claims.