Google workers around the world protest harassment and inequality

DUBLIN / NEW YORK (Reuters) – More than 1,000 Google employees and contractors in Asia, Europe, and the United States on Thursday organized brief work-outs at midday, with others scheduled to follow. at the California headquarters, following complaints of badism, racism and uncontrolled executive power. at their place of work.

Hundreds of women and men came out of Google's office in New York and silently walked around the neighborhood for about 10 minutes around 11:00 am ET. Some sheets of paper with messages including "Respect for Women".

Two blocks away, a larger crowd of 1,000 or more, including Google employees and New Yorkers who do not work for the company, filled a small park. Some had larger signs than the Google desktop, with more conflicting messages, including "Time's up Tech".

"That's Google. We solve the most difficult problems here. We all know that the status quo is unacceptable and that if a company can solve this problem, I think it's Google, "said Thomas Kneeland, a software engineer who said he was working at Google for three years.

Google employees have recently received numerous e-mails from their managers and colleagues, he said. Around 11 am, people started forming groups to leave the building. "Engineers from our team have brought their pagers since their call, but that's what we thought of the walkout. It's important. "

The protests followed a New York Times report last week that Google had awarded Andy Rubin a $ 90 million exit package after the then vice president was accused of badual harbadment.

Rubin denied the allegation contained in the article, which would also have contained "senseless exaggerations" about his compensation. Google did not dispute the report.

The report spurred a multi-month move within Google to increase diversity and improve the treatment of women and minorities.

In a late statement on Wednesday, the organizers used Google Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O) to add an employee representative to its board of directors and to internally share the data related to pay equity. They also requested changes to Google's human resources practices to make the processing of harbadment requests more equitable.

Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, said in a statement that "the employees have raised constructive ideas" and that the company "takes into account all their comments so that we can realize these ideas".

GLOBAL ACTION

Hundreds of other people left their European headquarters in Dublin shortly after 11 am, while organizers shared media photos on social networks from hundreds of other people leaving Google's offices in London, Zurich, Berlin, Tokyo and Singapore.

Irish employees left a note on their desk: "I'm not at my office because I'm going out with other entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs to protest badual harbadment, misconduct, lack of transparency and a culture of work that does not work for everyone, reported the national broadcaster RTE.

Google employs 7,000 people in Dublin, its largest site outside the United States.

The dissatisfaction of the 94,000 employees of Alphabet and tens of thousands of subcontractors did not significantly affect the company's shares. However, employees expect Alphabet to face recruitment and retention issues if its concerns are not resolved.

At the beginning of the year, recruitment was largely in-house, including petitioning campaigns, brainstorming sessions with the highest officials and training provided by the Workers' Rights Group. Coworker.org.

Since its inception two decades ago, Google is known for being transparent to workers. The objectives of the managers and their understanding of the corporate strategy were made available to all employees.

However, the organizers said that Google executives, like leaders of other companies affected by the #metoo movement, have been slow to solve some structural problems.

"While Google has championed the language of diversity and inclusion, there has been little substantive action to combat systemic racism, increase equity and end badual harbadment." declared the organizers.

They said Google had to publish its statistics on badual harbadment and put an end to forced arbitration in cases of harbadment. In addition, they requested that the Diversity Officer be able to advise the Board directly.