Google workers walk out to protest sexual misconduct
Thousands of Google workers walked out of offices around the world to protest how the tech giant has handled sexual misconduct by some of its top executives.
Starting in Asia and spreading across Europe, photos posted with the hashtag #GoogleWalkout began flooding Twitter as employees gathered outside Google offices in Zurich, Dublin, Singapore, London and Hyderabad, India. In the U.S., walkouts around the country began at 11:10 a.m. in New York, including at Google’s Manhattan offices and in Atlanta. The employee group, Google Walkout For Real Change, said 47 offices worldwide were participating Thursday.
The mass walkout was sparked by a recent New York Times report that said Google gave millions of dollars to some executives in secret exit packages after they were accused of sexual misconduct. The article, published last week, said Andy Rubin, the brainchild of the Android mobile software, was given a $90 million exit package after the company verified a misconduct claim against him was credible. Rubin said in response to the report that he “never coerced a woman to have sex in a hotel room. Also, I am deeply troubled that anonymous Google executives are commenting about my personnel file and misrepresenting the facts.”
