Google workers angry about the firm’s employment practices and its handling of internal criticism held two protest actions Wednesday, fighting forced arbitration and alleged retaliation against organizers of a massive walkout in November. At one protest site, there were “tears and talk of unions,” according to an organizer.
Defiant employees held sit-ins at a number of Google offices over alleged retaliation by the Mountain View technology giant against two organizers of the walkout, which saw an estimated 20,000 Googlers world-wide leave their desks in a protest against the firm’s handling of sexual misconduct claims.
Google artificial intelligence research leader and walkout organizer Meredith Whittaker claimed last month that the company punished her by demanding she quit working on AI ethics and for the AI institute she co-founded that studies social impacts of the technology. Claire Stapleton, a YouTube marketing manager, alleged she was told she would be demoted for her role in organizing the walkout. Google has denied retaliation occurred, and on Wednesday said it prohibits such behavior.
“To make sure that no complaint raised goes unheard at Google, we give employees multiple channels to report concerns, including anonymously, and investigate all allegations of retaliation,” Google said.
Wednesday’s sit-in drew participation from hundreds of people in New York City, Whittaker tweeted.
“So many brave people shared their stories,” she wrote. “There were tears and talk of unions.”
One 32-year-old Googler described alleged retaliation by a manager, saying, “He said he did not want to fire me, but wanted me to start behaving like ‘a good girl,’” according to Whittaker.
By mid-day Wednesday, sit-ins were also occurring at Google offices in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and London, England, Whittaker tweeted.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, a separate group of Googlers organized a phone-call campaign intended to deluge members of the U.S. Congress and Senate with demands for an end to forced arbitration of workplace disputes in businesses across the country. Employment contracts compelling workers to address disputes through arbitration instead of the courts allow companies to violate federal regulations and get away with discrimination, wage theft, wrongful termination and improper responses to misconduct, said Tanuja Gupta, a call-campaign organizer and program manager at Google in New York City. Organizers were asking callers to tell their member of Congress to support passage of The Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act.
“Considering that over 60 million Americans are under some kind of clause like this it would be huge,” Gupta said. “All these companies would have to change their labor policies.”
How many calls were made, and whether they went to politicians’ voicemail or were answered won’t be known for a day or two until the organizers receive a report from the service they’re using to track call volumes and results, Gupta said. The organizers relied heavily on social media to spur phone calls from Google employees and others, and also distributed flyers and talked to people in person to help generate calls to Congress and the Senate, she said.
“It’s grassroots activism,” Gupta said. “It’s talking to people. It’s educating them about the issue and them moving them to be angry about the issue but then you have to turn the anger into action.”
In February, Google bowed to pressure from its employees and banned forced arbitration for workers it employs directly. It has not required companies supplying it with contract and temporary employees to stop demanding such agreements from their workers, but Gupta and other employees want that to change. The company said Wednesday it would not tell other companies, including suppliers of workers, how to deal with employee disputes. Some of its suppliers employ unionized workers whose union membership requires arbitration for certain workplace issues, Google said.
This week, the American Civil Liberties Association took aim in a blog post at the alleged retaliation against Whittaker and Stapleton, about a week after the National Labor Relations Board filed a charge against Google alleging the company retaliated against a worker for the employee’s protest against employment conditions. The name of the worker was redacted, with the board saying personal information is redacted in cases where a hearing has not occurred.
The two employee actions, on a day sometimes known as “Workers’ Day,” followed previous revolts against Google over its plan to provide a censored search engine to China and help the Pentagon use AI in military drones.
— Bay Area News Group reporter Levi Sumagaysay contributed to this report.
