Google employees ‘Walkout for Real Change’ today. These are their demands.

The frustration among the Google employees surfaced after the New York Times report brought to light the shocking allegations against Andy Rubin’s (creator of Android) sexual misconduct at Google. As per the report, Rubin was accused of misbehavior in 2014 and the allegations were confirmed by Google. Due to this, he was asked to leave by former Google CEO, Mr.Page, but what’s discreditable is the fact that Google paid him $90 million as an exit package. Moreover,  he also received a high profile well-respected farewell by Google in October 2014.

Also, the fact that senior executives such as Drummond, Chief Legal Officer, Alphabet, who were mentioned in the NY times report for indulging in “inappropriate relationships” within the organization continues to work in highly placed positions at Google and haven’t faced any real punitive action by Google for their past behavior.

“We don’t want to feel that we’re unequal or we’re not respected anymore. Google’s famous for its culture. But in reality, we’re not even meeting the basics of respect, justice, and fairness for every single person here”, Stapleton told the NY Times.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai had sent an email to all the Google employees, last Thursday, clarifying that the company has fired 48 people over the last two years for sexual harassment, out of whom, 13  were “senior managers and above”. He also mentioned how none of them received any exit packages.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, further apologized in an email obtained by Axios this Tuesday, saying that the “apology at TGIF didn’t come through, and it wasn’t enough”. Pichai also mentioned that he supports the engineers at Google who have organized a “walkout”.

“I am taking in all your feedback so we can turn these ideas into action. We will have more to share soon. In the meantime, Eileen will make sure managers are aware of the activities planned for Thursday and that you have the support you need”, wrote Pichai.

The very same day, news of Richard DeVaul, a director at unit X of Alphabet (Google’s parent company) whose name was also mentioned in the New York Times report, resigning from the company came to light. DeVaul had been accused of sexually harassing Star Simpson, a hardware engineer. DeVaul did not receive any exit package on his resignation.

Public response to the walkout has been largely positive:

https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1057859226100355072

https://twitter.com/amrtgaber/status/1057822987527761920

https://twitter.com/sparker2/status/1057846019122069508

https://twitter.com/LisaIronTongue/status/1057852658948595712

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