Google walkout: Employees protest over allegations of sexual harassment, inequality at offices worldwide

At Google offices around the world, employees are walking around the job to protest what they call "a culture of complicity, dismissiveness and support for perpetrators".

The walkout comes a week after The New York Times revealed that Google had suppressed allegations of sexual misconduct against several executives, including Andy Rubin, the creator of the company's Android software. Rubin was reportedly paid $ 90 million when he left the company in 2014 after a sexual misconduct investigation. Rubin denied the Times story in a tweet, saying it was "part of a smear campaign" to disappear during a divorce and custody battle.

The Times story also exposed allegations of sexual harassment against Richard DeVaul, a director at Google's parent company, Alphabet. DeVaul resigned Tuesday, the Times reported.

"For every story in the New York Times," the walkout organizers wrote in a news release. "We are not going to stand for this anymore."

As the waves of #MeToo have been broken down by U.S. industry, the movement's presence in Silicon Valley has uncovered patterns of abuse, gender inequality and a hush-hush culture in a landscape known for its progressiveness.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai Responded to the Times reporting in the past 48 employees, including "13 senior managers and above" for sexual misconduct in the past two years. These people had not been given payouts, Pichai said.

Outrage about how the company handles these situations rippled as employees asked for change, both internally and on social media, culminating in global walkouts.

In an essay published on The Cut, the seven core organizers of the protest said that over 60 percent of Google's offices around the world were participating in the walkout, amounting to thousands of individual employees. The stories that appeared in the Times offered just a "narrow window" to tough realities of Google's culture.

"All employees and contract workers across the company deserve to be safe. Sadly, the executive team has shown that they do not have a priority, "the organizers wrote. "We have waited for leadership to fix these problems, but have come to this conclusion: no one is going to do it for us."

News of the walkout spread earlier this week, when BuzzFeed reported that a group of "200 engineers" were organizing a "women's walk" to protest the revelations in the Times. Since then, the movement has spread. Early Thursday, the walkout 's Twitter account, @GoogleWalkout, shared photos of employees protesting at Google offices worldwide, including Berlin, Dublin, London, Singapore, Tokyo and Zurich.

The protest, called "Walkout for Real Change," has five goals, including bringing an end to forced arbitration, improved processes for reporting sexual misconduct, and a publicly reported report on sexual harassment within the company.

In a statement emailed to The Post, Pichai

"Employees have raised constructive ideas for how we can improve our policies and our processes going forward," Pichai said. "We are taking in all their feedback so we can turn these ideas into action."

Google is a high-visibility company, present in the daily lives of millions or so, said Jeremy Robinson-Leon, president of Group Gordon, a corporate and crisis communications firm. But the company's livelihood does not depend on its ability to help its customers.

"If Google does not make the changes necessary, and does not meet the expectations of the people who are today and the others who share those feelings, that could not be a significant problem go away, "Robinson-Leon said.