Greg Sandoval/Business Insider
Google CEO Sundar Pichai
- Google employees are planning a walkout Thursday to protest the company's handling of sexual misconduct allegations, Buzzfeed News reported.
- The "women's walk" protest, which more than 200 Google employees are reportedly planning to participate in, originated from an internal forum where workers shared their frustration with the tech giant.
- The New York Times reported last week that former employee Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, was paid a $90 million exit package when he left the company following a sexual misconduct investigation.
- According to Buzzfeed, Google executives held a company-wide meeting last week after the news broke to try to explain their behavior.
More than 200 employees at Google are planning a walkout later this week following a report that described a culture of sexual misconduct by senior executives at the company, according to Buzzfeed News.
The protest, scheduled for Thursday, is in response to a New York Times report that detailed how Google handled allegations of sexual misconduct against its employees. The report described incidents involving several current and former executives, most notably Android creator Andy Rubin, who left Google with a $90 million exit package even after an investigation found that allegations against him were "credible."
Google responded to the Times' story by publicizing a company-wide email, where CEO Sundar Pichai wrote that 48 people had been fired for sexual harassment over the past two years. But internally, according to Buzzfeed, Google executives held an all-hands meeting where they apologized to employees and tried to explain how they dealt with Rubin.
Over the weekend, Google employees took to an internal forum afterwards to voice their frustration, Buzzfeed reports, where the idea to organize a walkout gained traction. Google employees on the forum criticized what they called a pattern of "powerful men getting away with awful behavior towards women" at the company.
Rubin disputed the Times' report last week, and accused the publication of a "smear campaign" that contained "numerous inaccuracies."
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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