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Google staff walk out over women's treatment

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#221

Post by belorn »

jib wrote: post #193
shados wrote: post #179

Something Ive never understood (not in the sense of I dont agree. What I really mean is I'm uneducated on the topic and would like to find out more, but my searches returned little, since it's a pretty heated topic), is why the company should be the primary responsible entity for this. Maybe for light cases where someone just need a stern talking to, but a lot of the cases are downright criminal acts. Having a privat…

The police are not primarily there to solve civil disputes and disagreements. There is a pretty wide area where things are not illegal and possible to convict, but you would probably want to do something. The police’s mindset (at least the ones I’ve interacted with) is one of three things: 1. Deterrance from crimes to be committed (doesn’t apply here) 2. Achieve convictions for crimes (would also not apply in your si…

The question the parent comment made was not if the law allows an employer to fire someone for a situation like that, but if we want employers to investigate and prosecute crime when the police drop a case. Is that the role that employers should have in society, yes or no?

> They do not have the same burden of proof

That is a key point. At the same time we want the legal system to have a high burden of proof, but then when someone goes free we want someone else with lower burden of proof to step in and let the hammer fall on the guilty. If we changed the law and gave the police the power to fire someone without having a chain of evidence proving beyond reasonable doubt (this which we are asking the HR departments to do), then I would personally trust the police to do a better job with less bias than a HR department of a large company. It would also create a better political environment where the justice system would be discuses without extrajudicial punishment being used openly as an accepted alternative when we find the legal system lacking.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#222

Post by dkarl »

shados wrote: post #179

Something Ive never understood (not in the sense of I dont agree. What I really mean is I'm uneducated on the topic and would like to find out more, but my searches returned little, since it's a pretty heated topic), is why the company should be the primary responsible entity for this. Maybe for light cases where someone just need a stern talking to, but a lot of the cases are downright criminal acts. Having a privat…

The reason is that the bar is simply too low. Or rather, the bar for taking legal action is so high that it would not in a million years create an acceptable work environment at Google.

Think about it from another perspective. If Google wants to cherry-pick the brightest and best educated people from society, they're going to have to meet a higher standard themselves. Would you want that standard encoded in law for the rest of the state? If so, how would you, in a democracy, impose a standard crafted by a subset of the cultural elite for themselves on the rest of the state or the country? Changing cultural norms drag the law behind them, not the other way around. The legal standard will lag behind for a long time, and Google's employees are part of the force that will be leading it forward.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#223

Post by UncleMeat »

sublupo wrote: post #73
maaaats wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to see what kind of difference there is between the sexes when comparing like-for-like jobs. What if the pay is equal for like-for-like jobs, but for the higher paying jobs one sex is vastly underrepresented? Not saying it is, just that discrimination and bias often runs deeper than some simple comparison.

What if one gender has a higher variance than another gender? Just don't say that to Google or you may get fired.

The measured difference in distributions is very small.

And if we believed that this was the cause, you'd need to think that Googlers were wildly off the norm in terms of ability. They've got like 90000 employees. They aren't exclusively hiring mega geniuses.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#224

Post by HillaryBriss »

shados wrote: post #179

Something Ive never understood (not in the sense of I dont agree. What I really mean is I'm uneducated on the topic and would like to find out more, but my searches returned little, since it's a pretty heated topic), is why the company should be the primary responsible entity for this. Maybe for light cases where someone just need a stern talking to, but a lot of the cases are downright criminal acts. Having a privat…

> I ended up having to quit.

wow. that sounds like a really bad situation. i mean, did you quit because of an ongoing threat of violence from this individual? the company should have offered other remedies before it came to that.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#225

Post by sjg007 »

duxup wrote: post #173

To clarify I'm not disagreeing with the walk out. I do wonder if any reporting process at a company can ever really be trusted to have the employee's interests in mind. HR, legal, and etc all are there to protect the company. They're not there for your standard employee. Again, not disagreeing with having a process, I just wonder if a process handled by the typical parties really can be trusted. I've never felt that…

They aren't there for you but for the company. They are really only there for you in any way that protects the company. Having a neutral third party would be one idea. It would have to be funded by employee and employer contributions though. Outside of that you have the EEOC in the US that has some authority.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#226

Post by HillaryBriss »

geofft wrote: post #168
StudentStuff wrote: post #125

There is no will from upper management to handle these issues appropriately, which is part of why Google as an organization is in its current state. Google has been able to paper over issues with copious amounts of money thus far, but that is breaking down as time goes on.

I think it is more than that: there is a will from upper management to actively prevent such issues from being handled appropriately. > Larry and Sergey had like this gaggle of girls who were hot, and all become like their little harem of admins, I call them the L&S Harem, yes. All those girls are now different heads of departments in that company, years later. > Sergey’s the Google playboy. He was known for getting…

holy shit. i hadn't seen that before. HR seems to have been completely captured by the forces it was supposed to resist.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#227

Post by belorn »

notyourwork wrote: post #220
jamiegreen wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sadly *Thankfully

You're probably more correct, I was trying to empathize with OP but I do agree I don't think the police are the right party for this mediation.

What if we created a new government organization to fill where we find that the police is not the right party to address illegal behavior. We could call them peace officer which mediate in disputes with power to fire and discipline people with the exact same requirement and behavior that we want out of the perfect HR department. This way we would raise the standard to be equal for all people that are employed regardless of company.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#229

Post by sunir »

cjslep wrote: post #188
sunir wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prosecution is one method of deterring thieves from robbing my store blind. I have also tried locked doors, security cameras and not leaving the store unattended. I like your argument that it is cheaper to just let people rob me blind and then burn time and energy catching them, prosecuting time, and hoping for a conviction as a deterrent. With any luck using your system crime will magically disappear on it’s own. I…

Comparing sexual assault to a store robbery in a tone of sarcasm is at best a poor judgement call. I agree that assaulters need to take responsibility for their actions. However, when they don't, the law needs to be there to protect the victims.

I think it is poor judgment to create an organization that does nothing to secure its people from sexual harassment. Not sure why you would disagree but if that is what you intended I do not want to work for you.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#230

Post by shareometry »

justaguyhere wrote: post #174

How is this handled at other biggies in the valley - Apple, Microsoft etc? Do they also have the arbitration thing? There was an awesome site on the front page yesterday, that compared career levels in the companies. Someone should make one comparing these companies on things like - treatment of women/minorities, age discrimination, side project policies, access to upper management etc

I have never understood why employees accept the restrictive clauses which assign ownership for any side projects to the employer. I am not a lawyer, but this has always struck me as amounting to a type of serfdom. If you are seen as a 24/7 unit of the company, and anything at all that you creatively produce can be claimed by the company, then your working capacity and creative capacity is essentially owned entirely by the company while you are employed there. You are not being paid just for your time and the work product you produce during that time. Rather you are literally selling an aspect of yourself. Does that sound reasonable at all? (of course, California has some protections against this. but that's just one state)

I would really like to see people rallying against many more things like this.

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