Google workers to protest against women colleagues' harassment

Mountain View (California), Oct 30: Google is in the news for something unique. A group comprising over 200 engineers at the technological giant are set to hold a company-wide "women's walk" in their support this week to protest the recent revelations that the company has shielded employees who were accused of sexual misconduct. Four persons having knowledge of the inside developments in Google have revealed, BuzzFeed News reported.

The protest is likely to take place on Thursday, November 1, and it came into prominence following a recent story by the New York Times that spoke about the alleged behaviour of Android creator Andy Rubin and other executives at Google, some of whom still hold eminent positions, the report added.

Google reportedly gave Rubin a $90 million exit package in 2014 following a probe into a charge that he had coerced a woman employee to perform oral ex on him. The investigation reportedly saw the allegation to be credible.

The general mood in Google was angry. One employee said on the condition of anonymity that powerful men were getting away with "awful behaviour" towards the women and even if they didn't, they were being let off. The employee also said leadership comprising mostly of men was taking decisions on the consequences.

Though Google's executives hosted a meeting last week where they tried to explain the treatment which was meted out to Rubin and apologised to the employees but it did little to pacify the angry employees and they voted for a post on internal forum suggesting that the employees organised a walkout in support of the women. By Monday morning, the post gathered enough votes and the number of workers who planned to participate was more than 200.