Highlights:
- Google’s parent Alphabet settles sexual misconduct lawsuit
- Alphabet Inc. faced the lawsuit from its shareholders in early 2019
- The suit cited a $90 million severance package given to Andy Rubin
- The settlement includes Google and Alphabet’s “Other Bets” divisions
On Friday, the parent company of Google, Alphabet Inc., announced that it moves to address the sexual misconduct at Google and its other operating divisions, putting in place changes worked out to settle a lawsuit filed by its shareholders.
Under terms of the settlement, the tech giant will have to spend $ 310 million (around Rs 2,284 crores) on the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and will also let employees use courts instead of private arbitration to resolve the disputes over how they are treated.
Eileen Naughton, Vice President (VP) of Alphabet Inc., in an email said, “Over the past several years, we have been taking a harder line on inappropriate conduct, and have worked to provide better support to the people who report it,” to it workers.
Naughton added, “Protecting our workplace and culture means getting both of these things right, and in recent years we’ve worked hard to set and uphold higher standards for the whole company.”
Company’s shareholders filed a lawsuit against it in early 2019, not long after thousands of Google employees joined a coordinated worldwide walkout showing their protest against the US based tech giant’s handling of sexual harassment.
Since then the company has implemented policy changes and taken other steps to address these concerns.
According to the settlement, “A practice instituted after the protests of not giving severance packages to executives fired for misconduct will be expanded to include those being looked at in pending investigations of sexual misconduct or retaliation claims,”.
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The lawsuit from the shareholder argued that the board of Alphabet along with its senior executives improperly awarded multi-million-dollar packages to several male executives accused of sexually harassing female employees, even though the internal investigations found accusations to be credible.
“The suit cited a $90 million (roughly Rs. 663 crores) severance package given to Andy Rubin, considered the ‘father of Android’ for his role in the creation of the widely used mobile operating system backed by Google,” a report wrote.
The lawsuit said that an internal investigation has confirmed sexual harassment allegation against Rubin who had consistently denied of having done anything inappropriate.
Demonstrators who had streamed across the Mountain View campus during the walkout in late 2018 waved signs which had messages written on them including, “Happy to quit for $90 million — no sexual harassment required.”
The protests took share when Google issued a statement saying it had fired 48 of its employees in the last 2 years – which includes 13 top level executives – as a result of allegations of sexual misconducts.
The concerns at Google were part of a united voice which denounced the existence of a sexist culture budding in the Silicon Valley which is dominated by males.
In the email to the employees, Naughton said that Alphabet Inc. is setting up a diversity, equality and inclusion advisory council which is going to include members from the outside of the company, and outlined guiding principles being instituted.
The changes include refining Alphabet’s policy about excessive drinking of alcohol at work-related events in order to curb chances of inappropriate behaviour.
The settlement also includes Google and Alphabet’s “Other Bets” divisions which include the Waymo autonomous car unit and Verily life sciences initiative, among others.
