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Google Will End Forced Arbitration

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Google employees outside of the Google headquarters

Google’s own employees protesting the company. Photo: James Martin/cnet

Finally, Google is caving to its employees. One of the demands of the 20,000+ employee walkout this year was an end to forced arbitration. This is the process that requires employees to deal with problems like sexual harassment in-house, instead of bringing in the police or a prosecutor. There’s no legal process, and no appeals. It hurts employees and allows businesses to take advantage of them. By finally allowing victims to go about their cases in the fashion they find most appropriate, Google is allowing victims to speak up about their abuse.

Google originally agreed to end forced arbitration for their own employees in sexual harassment cases shortly after the historic employee walkout. However, groups could not avoid the forced arbitration process and all other complaints still had to go through mandatory arbitration. Groups of women couldn’t come forward with a complaint about an individual, and no one could escape forced arbitration for other cases, like sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, ageism, or other biases in the workplace. The company also didn’t move to protect their contractors, only full-time employees.

That’s all changing with Google’s latest revision to their policy. Now, as long as individual contractors and temp agencies allow it, Google will not force arbitration for any cases.

Google’s new policy goes into effect on March 21st. It will not be retroactive. Those who have already settled disputes will be stuck with the decisions laid out during forced arbitration.

Google’s History of Sexual Harassment

Google has a long history of mishandling sexual harassment cases. The historic 20,000+ employee walkout was in response to news of Google’s $90 million golden parachute for Andy Rubin. Numerous women accused Rubin of sexual harassment and assault. There were text messages and other hard pieces of evidence that proved their case. Rather than fire him, as Google should have, they gave him a $90 million severance—enough to start another company—and sent him on his way. He wasn’t the only one. Google did this for many male executives at the company.

James Damore’s sexist screed only got him fired after it became public, and Google also fired someone for speaking out about toxic behavior at Google, like racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. They also ignored multiple complaints from women for years, like Loretta Lee, who Google fired for “poor performance.” However, her case was most likely one of sexism and retaliation for complaining about sexual harassment. The company has also been silent about an app they still host that allows men to track and prevent women’s travel in Saudi Arabia. Google is profiting from an app that actively oppresses women.

This is not a company that cares about women.

However, they do care about their employees and their image. A worldwide walkout or 20,000 employees is history making. Neither Google’s workforce nor its image could recover if over 20,000 employees left the company over this.

What Google Did (and Didn’t) Give Employees

Women stand, holding hands over their heads along with men and women holding protest signs and raising their fists in the air. The signs are "Walkout for real change" with the link go/walkout-info. Others have signs like "Time's up tech" and "Not OK Googoe #Don'tBeEvil"

Troy Wolverton/BusinessInsider

Finally, Google put an end to forced arbitration. This will extend to all work-related cases, including discrimination cases. Google will also allow contractors to escape the confines of forced arbitration.

There isn’t word yet on whether or not this specifically covers systematic cases, things that would be considered “class-action.” For example, if employees discover the company has discriminated against a large group, or if multiple victims come forward with harassment complaints about the same person. However, from Google’s wording, it seems as though these cases will be free to go to a real trial after all.

In a few short months, 20,000 Google employees came together. They finally got something they asked for in full.

Google’s Shortcomings

Google still hasn’t met all the demands the Walkout for Real Change leadership has shared. They still haven’t promoted the chief diversity officer (CDO) to a position that allows them to avoid restrictive oversight from anyone but the CEO. The “old guard” is still in place on Google’s board. The employees have not been able to elect new members to the board, and Google hasn’t given the CDO the ability to add or remove members on the board who contributed to Google’s sexism and harassment issues.

Google has not made commitments to diversity and promoting women and minorities. They also haven’t promised to make sexual harassment complaints public within the company after arbitration or rulings, which could help others avoid future problems with potentially problematic employees. It also allows Google to deny knowledge of repeat offenders.

Google took one large step towards making the workplace a more fair place for everyone. We should commend the company for this. They’re leading in a way that other tech companies can repeat. However, they still haven’t done enough.

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