Google staff walk out over women's treatment • Hacker News Board

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#341

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:46 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #308

solipsism wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words are cheap.

So is grandstanding by people with well paid, cushy as hell jobs who are happy to point fingers. My mother always told me "When you point a finger at others, you have three fingers pointing back at you." What are these people personally doing to ensure that they are respecting women, creating the right kind of social climate at work, etc? Because all the policy in the world can't per se fix a shitty culture. Shitty c…

That escalated quickly, to the extent that it reflects poorly on your original question.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#342

Post by r_smart » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #85

PunchTornado wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men under 30 earn much less than women under 30. No one cares either.

Yes, younger women friends post on Facebook how they're stopping work for the year in October (?) to make up for the pay-gap. I assume maybe that's true to some extent in USA -- they're certainly sold on the idea all the men around them are getting an easy deal.

Doesn't that just mean they'll widen the pay gap by not getting paid in October? Then next year they'll need to take two months off, and so on.

At least they'll have plenty of time to post about it on Facebook :)

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#343

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:49 PM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #314

"A clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously " Can anyone help me understand the rationale behind the anonymous part, with respect to due process and how the framework for anonymous accusations can be abused by bad actors? Edit - I have a question about the anonymous nature of reporting to HR, with respect to due process for the accuser and accused, maybe some o…

> I really hope that due process is involved

Outside of civil service jobs, in the US there are no “due process” rights in employment decisions; what process is due is a matter of employment contract (which for non-unionized rank-and-file, and even non-executive management, employees usually means no process is due, because of “at-will” employment.)

Given that, and given that employers are legally bound to prevent retribution against reporters, anonymity for reporters is strongly incentivized.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#344

Post by stale2002 » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

gambler wrote: post #212

jib wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Their job is not to dispense justice, or make sure you get your revenge. This shouldn't be the job of HR either. What you describe is what civil courts are for. From societal perspective, it is their exact purpose: to dispense justice and prevent revenge. If they don't work, they need to be made to work, instead of relegating this function to random people with random training and random incentives following random…

There are lots of things that are inappropriate for the work place and yet aren't illegal.

And employer is absolutely responsible for dispering judgement on inappropriate, but legal things that happen while at work.

If I go to a co-worker and start yelling slurs at them, I should expect the be fired, even if my behavior wasn't illegal. The same is true for inappropriate sexual actions.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#345

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

rurban wrote: post #131

Sounds like pre-unionizing to me. Wonder where this will lead to...

Let's hope to swelling membership in the Tech Worker's Coalition for one.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#346

Post by sah2ed » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #309

Write a contrarian opinion - get publicly fired zero tolerance style, coerce for sex using the force of your position - get quietly paid $90M. Looks like Google thinks that the former is much worse than the latter. Either that, or they apply different sexual harassment policies for rank-and-file employees and executives.

The first (Damore) was an engineer. The second (Rubin) was an executive.

To Google, executive >> engineer hence the outrage by rank and file.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#347

Post by bradenb » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:52 PM UTC

billylindeman wrote: post #339

gingerbread-man wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total anonymity for accusers is indeed a concerning policy, but partial anonymity (i.e. from one's own team) isn't unreasonable. It ought to be possible to properly investigate misconduct allegations while minimizing the potential for gossip and recriminations.

I think that due process should include the right to face your accuser.

In the courts, yes, but in an office?

EDIT: I should add that I am 100% for eliminating sexual harassment from the workplace (and in life), but unfortunately there's nothing that forces a company to give employees due process. I would guess that in most cases, even the appearance of inpropriety is enough to warrant termination for at-will employees.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#348

Post by DoreenMichele » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #341

DoreenMichele wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is grandstanding by people with well paid, cushy as hell jobs who are happy to point fingers. My mother always told me "When you point a finger at others, you have three fingers pointing back at you." What are these people personally doing to ensure that they are respecting women, creating the right kind of social climate at work, etc? Because all the policy in the world can't per se fix a shitty culture. Shitty c…

That escalated quickly, to the extent that it reflects poorly on your original question.

You aren't anyone I particularly care to hear criticism from of me personally for any reason whatsoever, especially not publicly on HN.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#349

Post by jshevek » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:54 PM UTC

patrickg_zill wrote: post #155

ChrisRR wrote: post #10

So the first demand is "A commitment to end pay and opportunity inequality" I'd like to see the actual data behind this constant inequality claim. I would be genuinely interested to see what kind of difference there is between the sexes when comparing like-for-like jobs. I've heard speculation that women don't argue for higher salaries as much as men, I've also heard that the data is never accurate because it doesn't…

Combining "pay inequality" and "opportunity inequality" makes it more difficult to discuss the issue. We know already that "pay inequality" is fictitious at this point. So by elimination, that leaves opportunity - however as anyone who has ever worked in a large company knows, it is very difficult, except in a very regimented corporate culture like the military, to have equivalent opportunity spread around evenly. I…

How are you defining "pay inequality" while claiming it isn't real?

If I interpret "pay inequality" as "the average pay for women ages 20-60 is less than it is for men 20-60 in the US in 2018" then I've seen data suggesting it is real.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#350

Post by DoreenMichele » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 7:55 PM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #340

DoreenMichele wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, cool. Is there some reason this piece couldn't be done after hours? (Or, alternately) Is there some reason this couldn't be framed as "We are taking time off to discuss this amongst ourselves and better understand the problem space" without it being framed as a walk-out with a flyer left on the desk filled with their opinion? Do these things have to go hand in hand?

The company created a problem. It makes sense that their employees are using company time to work on fixing it.

Yes, and the comment you are replying to allows for that as a possibility without it being framed as "a walk-out."

I'm not suggesting they shouldn't take company time. I'm wondering why this can't be done differently. And so far the replies I'm getting don't actually address such inquiries.