Google employees protest against treatment of women

The past week was not a memorable one for Google with allegations of sexual harassment against the company's executives surfacing one after another. On Thursday, hundreds of Google employees around the world staged a walkout to mark their protest against the company’s lenient treatment of executives accused of sexual misconduct. From Zurich to Dublin to London and Tokyo, employees at Google's offices across at least 20 locations staged the demonstrations at 11am local time to protest against the treatment meted out to their women colleagues and called for a "commitment to end pay and opportunity inequity".

It all began with an explosive story by The New York Times that blamed Google of giving a "hero's farewell" to Andy Rubin, the creator of Android mobile software, who had to leave the company following a case of sexual harassment. This was followed by another allegation against Richard DeVaul, an executive at Google's X lab. After the allegation was made public, DeVaul left his post at Google in a hurry, apparently without any "exit package", unlike Rubin who received a $90 million severance package in 2014, even though Google concluded the sexual misconduct allegations against the latter were credible.

Following Rubin's expose, Google published a report last week claiming that the company had updated its sexual harassment at workplace policy in 2015 and has sacked 48 employees, including 13 senior managers, ever since. In fact, Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologised for the company's "past actions" in an email sent to employees on Tuesday. "I understand the anger and disappointment that many of you feel," Pichai wrote.

However, that did not deter Google employees from staging a protest. In addition to gender parity, more transparency and overall employee empowerment are the various demands put forth by the protesting employees.

Thursday's walkout could imply that a significant number of the 94,000 employees working for Google and its corporate parent Alphabet Inc. remained unconvinced that the company is doing enough to adhere to Alphabet's own edict urging all employees to "do the right thing ."