Earlier this month, Google employees left work to attend global protests against their company for allegedly brushing aside claims of sexual misconduct against top executives.
The protests come after a recent article by the New York Times that reported the company hiding decades of sexual misconduct claims against senior male leaders at Google. Instead of firing these men, the report stated Google paid them million dollar exit packages to keep the information confidential.
On the day of the protests, thousands of Google employees left their offices around the world. Some of the most attended protests were in the India, Switzerland and the United States.
Protesters read personal and anonymous stories detailing sexual harassment within the company. Many of the stories cited abuse by people in leadership positions. Employees also cited issues of gender and racial discrimination tolerated by Google over the years.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai provided a statement to CNN a few days prior to the protests. Pichai stated that he supported the protests and that Google planned to look into and improve the current sexual harassment policies.
In the days following the walkouts, a few protestors met with the leadership at Google. As a result, Google has recently announced a revision of its sexual harassment and discrimination policies.
While Google does not plan to meet all the protestor’s requests, Pichai noted to CNN that there will be more “transparency” when it comes to issues of sexual misconduct. Additionally, employees can now take sexual harassment claims to court and will no longer be forced to settle matters privately like in the past.
Unfortunately, workplace sexual harassment and discrimination concerns are not exclusive to Google. If you are a victim of sexual harassment at your workplace, consider speaking to an experienced employment law attorney today.
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