Around 150 Google India employees on Thursday staged a walkout from the office to protest against handling of issues related to women at the tech giant. This is part of a global movement, wherein Google employees across countries walked out of the office on Thursday.
The protests in India saw participation from three centres in India — Gurugram, Mumbai and Hyderabad. A Google executive confirmed the walkout, when contacted.
In a statement, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, “Yesterday, we let Googlers know that we are aware of the activities planned for Thursday and that employees will have the support they need if they wish to participate.”
He added that employees have raised constructive ideas for how Google can improve its policies and processes going forward. “We are taking in all their feedback so we can turn these ideas into action,” he said.
Among other things, the employees have sought an end to forced arbitration in cases of harassment and discrimination for all current and future employees, a commitment to end pay and opportunity inequity, a publicly disclosed sexual harassment transparency report and a uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously.
