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Over 200 Google employees might walk out in response to alleged sexual misconduct
- Over 200 Google employees reportedly plan to walk-out on November 1.
- The walk-out is in response to Google’s alleged payouts to Andy Rubin and other employees involved in sexual misconduct.
- Rubin called the report and Google’s response to the report a “smear campaign.”
Even though Google tried to play damage control in response to last week’s damning report, it looks like that was not enough. Buzzfeed News reported that over 200 engineers plan to organize a company-wide “women’s walk” later this week in response to the alleged sexual misconduct from several former Google employees.
According to four people familiar with the situation, Google executives brought everyone together to explain how it treated Android co-founder Andy Rubin and apologized to employees. Last week’s report alleged that Google gave Rubin a $90 million exit package in 2014, even though Rubin’s alleged forced exit was due to him having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a female subordinate.
Making matters worse, Google allegedly either paid or kept two other male Google executives that had credible claims of sexual misconduct against them.
Some Google employees were understandably angry in light of the report. Unfortunately for Google, the all-hands meeting reportedly did not smooth out those frustrations. Over the weekend, frustrated employees in a group for women engineers upvoted a post in an internal forum.
The post called for employees to organize a walk-out and garnered hundreds of upvotes. Soon enough, over 200 employees started plans to participate in a walk-out.
An anonymous Google employee said they were furious with the “pattern of powerful men getting away with awful behavior towards women at Google.” They were also frustrated that these men either got away with it, get a “slap on the wrist,” or get “sent away with a golden parachute.”
The walk-out was not the only topic of conversation among employees, however. Some refused to participate in screening interviews for potential new Google hires as a form of protest. Others reportedly even had internal discussions about the possible removal of senior executives mentioned in the report due to their inappropriate relationships.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded to the report and said Google fired 48 employees in the last two years for problems related to sexual misconduct. 13 of those 48 fired employees were “senior managers and above.” None of the fired employees received an exit package.
Rubin also responded to the report and said it “contains numerous inaccuracies about my employment at Google and wild exaggerations about my compensation.” Rubin also said that the “false allegations” are part of a “smear campaign” against him. Rubin is currently in a divorce and custody battle.