Hundreds of Google Employees Strike in Protest Against Sexual Harassment

Hundreds of engineers and employees at Google staged a walkout on Thursday, November 1, in protest against the company's 'generosity' towards executives accused of sexual harassment. Google employees in Tokyo, Singapore, London, and Dublin left the company's buildings as a sign of protest. Reuters reported that employees in New York expressed their dissent by silently walking for 10 minutes in the company's courtyard, and shortly after, over a thousand employees and individuals outside the Google team gathered in a park nearby. These protests come a week after the New York Times reported that Google had bought out several executives, including Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, due to sexual harassment allegations. Mr. Rubin received $90 million in compensation from Google in 2014 when he left the company, despite Google’s investigations indicating that the allegations against him were credible. In this context, the Washington Post noted that Mr. Rubin denied the allegations, claiming that reports of the payout were 'greatly exaggerated' and that the report was a 'campaign to tarnish his reputation.' Reports also indicate that an executive at Alphabet, Google's parent company, who was recently dismissed, faced sexual harassment accusations. Following this report, 200 female employees with similar experiences issued a call for their colleagues to strike, leading to protests on Thursday across various Google offices from Asia to Europe and America. Thomas Nyland, a software engineer who started working at Google three years ago, told Reuters, 'This is Google, and we are capable of solving the toughest problems.' Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, stated in a statement that 'employees have raised constructive ideas, and we intend to turn these ideas into reality.' He also mentioned that in the past two years, 48 employees had been dismissed for sexual harassment, 12 of whom were senior officials. Reuters reported that hundreds also struck in Google's European offices, with photos of their protests shared on social media from offices in London, Zurich, Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore. The report adds that over the past two decades since Google began its operations, it has always been known for its 'transparency.' Google employees say the company should transparently publish accurate statistics on incidents of harassment and sexual abuse.