OPINION
BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
I read yesterday (Nov. 1) several accounts of the protests at Google by employees who said they were outraged over sexual harassment at the company. They were particularly angered over the $90 million payout to former Android team leader Andy Rubin, who had been accused of sexual misconduct.
Thousands of Google’s 94,000 employees took part in the one-day walkout. There were protests at the Googleplex in Mountain View and at the company’s offices in San Francisco, among other locations.
But I didn’t see anything in those stories about Google employees resigning in protest.
Maybe I’m old school, but if I was disgusted with my employer, I’d resign. Who would want to work in a place that, according to the protesters, turns a blind eye toward sexual harassment? I’d be done with it and find a new job. Managers with that kind of attitude aren’t going to change.
And that leads me to my question: Does anyone know of any Google employees who quit yesterday in protest over sexual harassment at the company? If you know of one, email their name to me at [email protected].
It’s one thing to talk the talk, it’s another to walk the walk. It’s easy to protest, march around with signs, make mostly anonymous statements to the media, and then return to your cubicle the next day for another day on the job.
If they quit, these Google protesters wouldn’t have to worry about finding a new job. There’s a scarcity of people in their field. Other employers will pay them well.
Maybe, just maybe, these Googlers would quit and start their own search engine to compete with Google. Some good old-fashioned competition might cause Google to change its ways.
Dave Price is editor of the Daily Post. His email address is [email protected].
You’re spot on. This walk-out is all symbolism and no substance. These Google employees are mostly millennials who were brought up thinking that protests were they way to get things done. When it’s over, they feel better about themselves and are willing to return to work for managers they loathe. What a joke!
Mr. Price doesn’t understand the point of the walk-out … it was to change Google’s culture from inside … you can’t do much good if you resign and leave the job to others … while we disagree with management in important ways, we still love Google.
It’s all about virtue signalling. Nobody is going to give up their job over this.
Dave Price made the mistake of taking these protests seriously. These protests were just a bunch of grown-up children going outside for recess.
Google needs to be broken up. Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist who is credited with inventing the Web in 1989, thinks a break up is due because of the various privacy and fake news scandals at Google and Facebook. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-technology-www/father-of-web-says-tech-giants-may-have-to-be-split-up-idUSKCN1N63MV
These workers are trying to change Google from the inside. You should be applauding them for being upstanders.
I am split.
On one hand, the employees’ gesture is an empty “feel good” one against Google that is a rather “Progressive” workplace. The Andy Rubin case was “one-off” and there was a business need to resolve it amicably, even if the idiots demonstrating don’t get it.
On the other hand, I am happy about the walkout. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving company. Not because of its treatment of alleged harassment issues, but because it will show everyone that leaning backwards is not going to appease the new Jacobins. The guillotine is hungry! And Google has been a Progressive monoculture suppressing voices of dissent. So serves them right.
The walk out was well organized and probably approved by Google leadership because it is a gesture to show how they virtually support #MeToo without substantial actions. It’s a cheap way to cover their notorious track records.