Worldwide Google walkout over sexual harassment, racism and pay inequality

More than 1,000 Google employees and contractors in Asia and Europe staged brief midday walkouts on Thursday, with more expected to follow at offices worldwide, amid complaints of sexism, racism and unchecked executive power in their workplaces.

In a statement late Wednesday, the organizers called on Google parent Alphabet Inc. to add an employee representative to its board of directors and to internally share pay equity data. They also asked for changes to Google’s human resources practices intended to make bringing harassment claims a fairer process.

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said in a statement that “employees have raised constructive ideas” and that the company was “taking in all their feedback so we can turn these ideas into action.”

Hundreds of workers filed out of its European headquarters in Dublin shortly after 11 a.m. local time, while organizers shared photographs on social media of hundreds more leaving Google offices in London, Zurich, Berlin, Tokyo and Singapore. (Reuters)

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