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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

#381

Post by orf »

malvosenior wrote: post #367
orf wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're clearly arguing in bad faith with him and you clearly have not read the article. The sections titled "Women earn less than men at every wage level" and "How might discrimination—in the form of norms and expectations—be affecting the wage gap by constraining women’s choices?" might be enlightening to you, given your original cherry picked issue.

How am I arguing in bad faith? He responded to my comment with link to a far left think tank that uses an alternate definition of wage gap than what were talking about. > "Women earn less than men at every wage level" It's utterly useless to compare wage levels across different roles. I read the article, I strongly disagree with it. Do you really think comparing the pay of people in different roles is useful? It's ap…

No, he responded with a 12,000 word article with over 60 references. Your reply was nitpicking a single thing that you feel is something important. Its not, the discussion is wider and deeper than that. By the way your point is dealt with in the article itself. The one you definitely read

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#382

Post by hrktb »

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.

What if the facts can be independently verified ?(existence of material proof or witnesses etc)

I imagine the right process would be to receive a claim and investigate it. The initial report doesn’t need to pinned to a specific employee, and it can even be a bystander that way. If enough evidence rise from the investigation, outing the reporter doesn’t bring much to the table.

You’re right that it’s more tricky when it’s a “he says she says” situation, those would warrant more direct confrontation I guess ?

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#383

Post by Bartweiss »

gnode wrote: post #190
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…

In these situations, companies aren't sued for harassment, but for having a hostile work environment; allowing harassment to persist (e.g. by retaining harassing employees). If an employer has effective mechanisms to deal with cases of harassment, then it shouldn't be liable. Even if a harasser was prosecuted or sued successfully, if the company retained them, that would create a hostile work environment for the hara…

I'm surprised at how many other responses here are saying "because the police don't have the resources to investigate" and similar.

This reply gets to the more fundamental point: companies are doing a different thing than police investigations or even civil suits over harassment. They can't undo the harassment, they can't punish the harasser (beyond termination with cause), or force the harasser to compensate their victim.

Rather, the goal is to create a workplace where employees are not harassed. This is good for both legal reasons (hostile work environment suits) and obvious moral (harassment is bad) and practical (people will quit) reasons.

If a coworker mocked or punched me every day at work, it might or might not produce a complaint to the police or a civil suit against the coworker. But it would certainly be something that made my employment untenable and a reasonable employer would react to that. People are in general not demanding that employers act in place of the police, they're demanding that they act to stop sex-related hostility at least as thoroughly as they would act against other hostility. It's the purview of the company because it's a completely different task than what courts or police would do.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#384

Post by DisruptiveDave »

stale2002 wrote: post #363
DisruptiveDave wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if they are innocent? That investigation will come with an impact to the accused. A serious one.

If they are innocent then nothing will happen to them as the investigation won't find anything. That's how it should work. If someone gets accused of something, there should be an investigation. And if they did something wrong it will be outstanding obvious. If they didn't, then they won't find anything. It is ridiculous to complain about an investigation, which should be the entire goal. To investigate and figure ou…

The problem here, in this naive view, is how you define an "investigation." The moment that "investigation" goes public around the topic of sexual harassment (or worse), the accused is done. That's the real world. I've seen it, several times over. That's important. You shouldn't have the power to significantly wreck someone's life by just making an accusation. There needs to be as much protection for the accused as there is for the accuser.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#385

Post by PopsiclePete »

The DeVaul guy from Division X actually made sexual advances towards someone being interviewed for a job where he'd have been the manager. Has called it "an error in judgement".

I'm sorry, DeVaul, but that's not "an error in judgement", that is pure harassment, and I'd pay $2000 to watch you try your "moves" on someone who'd knock your teeth in for that.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#386

Post by dragonwriter »

bradenb wrote: post #347
billylindeman wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: claim that due process includes the right to confront accuser]

> In the courts, yes

In the US, this is only true in criminal courts. Even when it reaches beyond company process to the courts, sexual harassment is a civil matter.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#387

Post by XorNot »

jshevek wrote: post #352
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 have trouble imagining truly complete anonymity being helpful. This is an invitation to abuse the system. Abuse could result from personal conflicts and office politics, or even people who wish to undermine the system itself by entering bad data.

The point of an anonymous system is to encourage people to speak up without a first-mover problem, because in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior.

Someone receiving exactly 1 report is probably not a problem. Someone who accumulates reports continuously as team members change probably is.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#388

Post by PopsiclePete »

smacktoward wrote: post #175
kamaal wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most under rated comment in this thread. Don't know what the Google management is thinking at this point in time. But I'm damn sure, unless you are making it rain hundreds of millions in dollars, and you are a part of these pre-unionizing exercises- You are very likely getting marked up as a trouble maker, and may be already a part of purge lists. This is also a small industry. You don't want your name to…

> This is also a small industry. You don't want your name to smeared as a person who comes with a high trouble/contribution ratio. What you are suggesting is called "blacklisting." You may be interested to learn that in many states it is illegal behavior itself. See https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-... . > Nobody wants to hire people to do their jobs, and get employees running their part ti…

>What you are suggesting is called "blacklisting." You may be interested to learn that in many states it is illegal behavior itself.

Sadly, impossible to prove.

I can choose to not hire for you a plethora of reasons. I can just give you a few bullshit questions that you can't answer correctly and use that as an excuse.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#389

Post by PopsiclePete »

pjc50 wrote: post #152
kamaal wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most under rated comment in this thread. Don't know what the Google management is thinking at this point in time. But I'm damn sure, unless you are making it rain hundreds of millions in dollars, and you are a part of these pre-unionizing exercises- You are very likely getting marked up as a trouble maker, and may be already a part of purge lists. This is also a small industry. You don't want your name to…

> You are very likely getting marked up as a trouble maker, and may be already a part of purge lists. This is also extremely illegal in the EU. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36242312

That's ridiculous though. You can't prove that I, having looked at some super-secret "purge list" and proceeded to not hire you, did it because of the "purge list"?

I'll just say you weren't a good fit for the "company culture" and that'll be that.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#390

Post by pjc50 »

PopsiclePete wrote: post #389
pjc50 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are very likely getting marked up as a trouble maker, and may be already a part of purge lists. This is also extremely illegal in the EU. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36242312

That's ridiculous though. You can't prove that I, having looked at some super-secret "purge list" and proceeded to not hire you, did it because of the "purge list"? I'll just say you weren't a good fit for the "company culture" and that'll be that.

Having the blacklist at all was deemed to be a violation of data protection law.
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