ATLANTA – A few dozen employees at the Google office in downtown Atlanta walked out Thursday morning to protest allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment in the company.
About 200 employees work at Atlanta’s Google office on 10th Street NE in Atlanta, workers told 11Alive.
The employees walked a few blocks to the plaza outside the Federal Reserve building down the street. A few employees spoke – sharing personal and anonymous stories from Google workers who experienced harassment at work, supplied by the Google walkout organizers that promoted walkouts happening all over the world today.
Google employees walk out in Atlanta over sexual harassment allegations
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The walkout follows a report last month by The New York Times which said the company handed Android mobile software creator Andy Rubin a $90 million exit package, but failed to disclose it was because an employee accused him of sexual misconduct.
In an email to employees Oct. 25 — the same day the Times story published — Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is "dead serious" about providing a safe workplace for all employees.
"In the last two years, 48 people have been terminated for sexual harassment, including 13 who were senior managers and above," Pichai said. "None of these individuals received an exit package."
Rubin denied the allegations in the story on Twitter: "These false allegations are part of a smear campaign to disparage me during a divorce and custody battle," he wrote.
According to The New York Times, more than 1,500 employees plan to participate in the walkout, at 11:10 a.m. local time Thursday.
Among changes employees at Google want to see, according to the Twitter feed: No more forced arbitration in cases of harassment and discrimination, an end to "pay and opportunity inequality" and a better process for reporting harassment.
"As the recent article and the executive response make clear, these problems go all the way to the top," organizers of the walkout said in a statement. "While Google has championed the language of diversity and inclusion, substantive actions to address systemic racism, increase equity, and stop sexual harassment have been few and far between."