Google Walkout: 17,000 Google employees protested sexual misconduct

Google staff walk out in
San Francisco.
Katie Canales/Business
Insider

• Googlers all over the world walked out en masse on
  Thursday in protest of the company’s record on sexual
  misconduct.
• The protest followed a bombshell article in
  the New York Times that detailed sexual misconduct
  allegations against senior executives, specifically against
  Android creator Andy Rubin, though he has denied the
  claims.
• The organisers behind the protest said that nearly
  17,000 Google employees took part in the walkout, and they
  aren’t done counting yet.

Thousands of Google staff around the world voiced their
discontent on Thursday by leaving their desks at 11 a.m. to
protest Google’s record of sexual misconduct, in what appeared to
the first coordinated global walkout at a major tech firm.

The protest, which organiser Claire Stapleton told journalist
Katie Couric was a “grassroots, groundswell movement,” took place
after staff dismay at a
New York Times report which detailed allegations of sexual
misconduct levelled at senior executives and apparent protection
from Google. One notable figure at the centre of sexual
misconduct allegations was Andy Rubin creator of Android, who

reportedly received a $90 million exit package. Rubin has
denied any misconduct.

Read more:

As employees walked out, Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologized
again for how it handled sexual misconduct allegations: “We
didn’t always get it right”

The first walkout happened in Singapore, and then swept around
the globe all the way to
Google’s headquarters in California.

The tenor of the protest
varied with their location, with
hundreds of Googlers walking out of the firm’s Mountain View
headquarters in the US and holding up signs and shouting
slogans. Employees across Google’s offices in London were more
muted, mostly staging their protest indoors and briefly exiting
the building in the pouring rain. 

The protesting Googlers had
a list of five demands for changes the corporate culture at
Google:

1. An end to Forced Arbitration in cases of harassment and
   discrimination.
2. A commitment to end pay and opportunity inequity.
3. A publicly disclosed sexual harassment transparency report.
4. A clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting
   sexual misconduct safely and anonymously.
5. Elevate the Chief Diversity Officer to answer directly to the
   CEO and make recommendations directly to the Board of Directors.
   Appoint an Employee Rep to the Board.

The movement’s official Twitter account said that all in all
nearly 17,000 Googlers took part in the walkout, but wasn’t done
counting when it published that figure.

Business Insider has contacted the Google Walkout organisers for
its most up-to-date figure.