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All of their demands seem pretty reasonable. It looks like the big gripe is that basically there's no real process in place for situations of misconduct in the

by slivym 8y ago

All of their demands seem pretty reasonable. It looks like the big gripe is that basically there's no real process in place for situations of misconduct in the office. To draw an analogy, this would be like Google not having a process to investigate and resolve site outages - it would be unthinkable, so why aren't they treating their organisation with the same rigor they treat their website.

YorkshireSeason 8y ago
The salient difference is that outages are measurable. In contrast, "harassment" is an extremely controversial subject that nobody agrees upon, for example, in some legislations, calling a person with XY chromosomes "him" rather than "her" is considered a hate crime, a dramatic change from labelling conventions of just a few years ago. Indeed what constitutes harassment is a major point of contention between different parts of the political spectrum, and a core part of the culture wars. In addition, harassment is easily lied about. Indeed, what downsides are there for false harassment claims? If I was a Google competitor, and Machiavellian in moral outlook, I'd feed those flames to weaken Google, and hope that nobody did it to my organisation. Divide et Impera!
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Even if you believe that, why shouldn’t there be a process to investigate the claims? You think all harassment claims should be automatically dismissed as false instead?
  - sheepmullet 8y ago
    > Even if you believe that, why shouldn’t there be a process to investigate the claims? Because it quickly becomes a witch-hunt. It is hard enough to have a fair investigation within a proper court system and legal framework - it’s far more likely any Google process will end up as a kangaroo court than the process leading to any justice.
    - cimmanom 8y ago
      So you think all claims should be dismissed as false and people who are actually subjected to sexual harassment and coercion at work should have no recourse.
      - sheepmullet 8y ago
        > So you think all claims should be dismissed as false Why would you think that? I think the majority of claims need to go into the “not really sure” bucket where they belong. Acknowledging this basic truth does not mean you have to then do nothing.
        cimmanom 8y ago
        Which is why they merit investigation. For which there should be a process. Without an investigation process, what alternatives would you suggest for avoiding treating all claims as true or all claims as false?
        sheepmullet 8y ago
        > what alternatives would you suggest There are many well tested solutions but they all carry different trade offs. E.g. - Have a zero tolerance policy on relationships between colleagues. This works well in smaller to mid-size companies. Or, - When you receive a complaint move the accuser and accused into different teams. Etc.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > When you receive a complaint move the accuser and accused into different teams. That's a very good way to be found liable for both later harassment by the accused and, if you move the accuser, for retaliation; and also a PR nightmare when it is discovered to have been your policy or even a common practice to move accused wrongdoers without follow-up (just ask the Catholic Church.)
  - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
    all harassment claims should be No, of course not. Symmetrically, the should also not automatically accepted as true. There should be an objective, measurable process. Given the cul-de-sac that organisations like Google have been strong-armed into, I think the obvious next step is (1) to record all work-time interaction of all employees and store them for a long time, e.g. at least 10 years. (2) Give a absolutely clear-cut criteria as to what counts as acceptable behaviour and what doesn't.
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      >No, of course not. Symmetrically, the should also not automatically accepted as true. This. I imagine most are absolutely true, but there are some that absolutely are not. I've personally been accused by rape, online, of someone in another state that I've never even been to. Fortunately, no one took the claim serious but I imagine there are many innocent people that have been wrongly accused for whatever reason. I also had a friend, that was using OkCupid, reject a girl very politely in the first message or two. She then went on 'cheaterville' and posted that he gave her sexual transmitted diseases/infections and made multiple accounts alleging the same, one even as him with his name. He's an actor, he was up for a role and they retracted their offer when googling his name brought the cheaterville page up on the first page. Now if these two instances have happened to 2 guys from the midwest that have no power or money, I can only imagine there are quite a few false accusations regularly. I also imagine there are many many more TRUE accusations. We need to protect individuals regardless of race, gender and sexual orientation but at the same time we need to avoid workplace harassment turning into McCarthyism.
      - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
        I imagine most are absolutely true, I don't, for two reasons. (1) There is simply no agreement currently on what counts as harassment. (2) Anecdote: I've been involved in investigating a sexual harassment claim at a previous employer, at it was absolutely and categorically and provably false. turning into McCarthyism. Too late. That ship has sailed a long time ago. The situation has gotten so out of hand, that recording all employee interaction might indeed be the only way forward.
- pjc50 8y ago
  > what downsides are there for false harassment claims There are major downsides to making true harassment claims: you get denounced as a liar and a slut. This is the main reason why so many claims went unreported, and the #metoo movement is one of solidarity which makes it possible for people to actually report true claims without ruining their career. Actually deliberately making a false harassment claim is potentially career suicide. (Jacob Wohl thought it would be easy to bribe people into making false harassment claims, and this blew up in his face: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/robert-mueller-news-jacob-wohl-jack-burkman-surefire-intelligence-republican-trump-sexual-assault-a8610481.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/robert-mue... )
  - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
    liar and a slut How is that a "major downside"? I've been called both, and I can't say I care. I can imagine that loosing a job to a false accusation is a "major downside". #metoo movement Isn't that the movement whose leader Asia Argento has been has been accused by the New York Times as a sexual harasser [1, 2]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Argento#Alleged_sexual_assault_of_Jimmy_Bennett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Argento#Alleged_sexual_as... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/us/asia-argento-assault-jimmy-bennett.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/us/asia-argento-assault-j...
    - typon 8y ago
      So because Asia Argento has sexually harassed someone, the MeToo movement is discredited? Some of the comments in this thread are unbelievable
    - victoriasun 8y ago
      You know, just because you don't empathize with how in our culture and society a woman being called a "liar and a slut" can be both career and social suicide, doesn't mean that it isn't a major downside for other people... Does the actions of a leader discredit a movement? Can one even say that #MeToo has a single leader? Do you know anything about the #MeToo movement?
- majos 8y ago
  > Indeed, what downsides are there for false harassment claims? Many people who get harassed opt to change teams, companies, or professions rather than actually pursue a formal complaint against their harasser. Perhaps they are mistaken (I don't think so), but they seem to believe that there are real downsides to filing even true harassment claims, to the extent that the aforementioned career upheavals seem easier.
  - sheepmullet 8y ago
    > Perhaps they are mistaken, but they seem to believe that there are real downsides to filing even true harassment claims Why can’t both be true? For what you are implying to make any sense you have to assume some sort of equivalence: 1) Between the kind of woman who makes a false claim and the kind of woman who makes a true one. AND 2) Between the kind of man who is guilty and the kind of man who is falsely accused. I don’t think either of these two claims holds any water.
- lukev 8y ago
  And only a few short decades ago I could fire someone for being gay, or forbid my wife from opening a bank account. And it was a mere century ago that women literally couldn't vote. I don't see why the fact that social mores change invalidates the social standard we have today. Furthermore, why do you folk always jump straight to the "b..b..but false harassment!" argument? All it does is demonstrate that you actually don't care at all about the original problem. Experts place false sexual misconduct allegations at 2-10% (https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/ https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations...), and estimate that that number would be even lower if you include all the women who were harassed and never report to start with. So why are you willing to throw 90-98% of harassed women to the sharks, in order to protect 2-10% of accused men? Plus there's the whole strawman that allegations are always believed. Of course there should be fact checking. In fact, even in the #metoo era, men almost never face repercussions for false allegations (and often not for real ones.) Your statement that unfounded harassment claims do not lead to repercussions is flat out false. There is no company that would not discipline someone for bringing a harassment claim that was demonstrated to be false. In short: this argument demonstrates that what you really want to do is only to preserve the status quo and do in fact not give a shit about a major problem in our culture.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    > Experts place false sexual misconduct allegations at 2-10% (https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations... https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations...), and estimate that that number would be even lower if you include all the women who were harassed and never report to start with. Those numbers are specifically for rape, not sexual misconduct. I would hope that the false accusation rate for violent felonies is pretty low. Assuming this is still the case with lesser charges or non-criminal behavior is disingenuous.
  - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
    invalidates the social standard we have today. The social standards we have today include that false accusations of harassment largely have no repercussions, and amount to a destruction of standards of justice. I don't want to live in a totalitarian society where hate-mobs replace argument, why do you promote one? don't care at all about the original problem. I care about the original problem, but believe it to be marginal in comparison with the false accusation problem, and the decline of standards of justice. Experts place false sexual misconduct allegations at 2-10% The article you cite does not provide any evidence of this claim whatsoever, did you even read it? throw 90-98% of harassed women to the sharks, in order to protect 2-10% You seem to think that marginal inconveniences of women (let's not forget that the Google mob was protesting because some guy hit on some woman at a party!), is more important that human rights of men?
- astura 8y ago
  You do a chromosomal analysis on everyone before you use a gendered pronoun to describe them? Because you can't tell what their chromosomes are just by appearance.
  - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
    I can have an educated guess from just a brief glance -- especially if the other person doesn't actively tries to mislead me on such an important issue.
    - astura 8y ago
      And why the fuck do you care about other people's chromosomes?
      - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
        I don't care directly about chromosomes, they are put an extremely good proxy for one's reproductive abilities, hence an extremely good biological correlate for sex (i.e. reproductive role). I care about fertility, because reproduction is more-or-less the single most important duty every human has. It is also difficult a space to navigage, therefore all indicators and heuristics that help me appreciate his/her sex efficiently, makes navigating this difficult space much easier, hence is a friendly gesture. Here is an interesting question for you to ponder: Why do basic facts about human biology upset you so much, so much so in fact, that you use the act of procreation as an expletive?
anon1252 8y ago
> there's no real process in place for situations of misconduct in the office. There shouldn't be a "process" set by Google when it comes to sexual harassment, employees should be able to sue, that's the process,sexual harassment is a crime, they can't sue because Google force them into arbitration, which should be illegal for an employer to do that to an employee IMHO. this is a denial of justice.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >employees should be able to sue, that's the process, See eh. Does money fix the issue "biotic 1 told biotic 2 'nice lady bits why don't you sit on my man bits' now they want 2 amounts of monies" how does money fix the issue? How does money repair the damage? Is money a Men in Black neuralizer? Does it selectively delete the negative emotions from the event? Is it fair that shareholders in the case of Google, or the owner in a small business where some rogue employee decided he wanted to play grabass without the owner's consent or even knowledge, to have to shell out large sums of money that won't actually undo the damage? I don't think suing is a good solution here. If you are denied a job and have EVIDENCE it was based on your gender or sexual orientation, then suing somewhat makes sense however aside from lost wages there isn't much that would be productive here. If you sued for the actual job then everyone knows you as that person that got the job because a court of law said you get it and not necessarily because your skill and history make you the best candidate. >sexual harassment is a crime, Somewhat. Quid Pro Quo is a crime, not rectifying a hostile work environment (not reassigning the alleged offender, not investigating and terminating the alleged offender etc) is a crime. But biotic 1 telling biotic 2 that they have nice reproductive bits and bobs, is not an actual crime (perhaps it should be?) >they can't sue because Google force them into arbitration, which should be illegal for an employer to do that to an employee IMHO. this is a denial of justice. Money /= justice. If someone demands sexual favors, or regularly says sexually explicit things to you, a check doesn't give you justice, especially if it's from the employer. Take Google as an example. Google is owned, in part, by likely hundreds of millions of people (index funds, direct stock purchase, etc). Google has a board, it has various rungs of corporate management, then more localized management. Chances are none of those people have said "hey Don Draper, make sure you grab Megan's ass today when she comes in to dictate for you today and tell her what you want to do to her on your desk" and while Google does need to do something to employees that think such behavior is acceptable, and carry it out, why should they have to cut a check for hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars, for something a rogue employee did? Perhaps there should be some sort of penalty/tax that companies, when sufficient evidence is found to support a claim, they have to pay to an NGO that deals with rights equality and safe workspaces? Money doesn't undo the situation so I don't think the victim should be seeking large sums in damages, companies (unless supporting the behavior) shouldn't be penalized for large sums of money because of an employee that has free agency, however if an incident is reasonably provable perhaps they should have to cut a check, based on some sort of scale, say 100k$ for a company like Google to a regularly audited group that provides resources for victims to reach out to for both any required treatment and for help dealing with any potential workplace discrimination as a result of their claim.
Udik 8y ago
> this would be like Google not having a process to investigate and resolve site outages - it would be unthinkable, so why aren't they treating their organisation with the same rigor they treat their website. Because, Google is a company that builds products. I am interested in their products and in the fact that their products work, not much in the behaviour of the people building them- given the fact that they are located in a supposedly civilized country anyway, where serious misconducts should be prosecuted by law. The internal squabbles and complaints of the company are of very little relevance for their users, as it should be.
- slivym 8y ago
  It's worth noting that one of their demands is dropping the binding arbitration that essentially forces employees to forgo their right to legal recourse for civil matters. Not every instance of unacceptable behaviour is a criminal matter.
- victoriasun 8y ago
  If you're not interested in the internal workings of Google, then why bother? There are people who are, and they are the ones driving this conversation. Let them spend their energy and effort figuring it out while you enjoy the result of their work.
  - Udik 8y ago
    > why bother? Because I'm a bit annoyed by what seems to me a growing push towards confusing the judgement of someone's work with their moral qualities. I see it as fundamentally anti-intellectual, as it strives to bring extraneous criteria in the evaluation of what should stand and be judged on its own. A scientific theory or a work of art aren't less valuable because their authors or proponents are or aren't communists, or arians; a literary masterpiece isn't diminished by the fact that its author was an anti-semite, or sadist; a great movie director remains a great director even if she did horrible things in her private life. Very little of our past science and philosophy and arts would still be standing if we were to apply these criteria, and I very strongly doubt we'd gain something better. Every single time "political" criteria have been used to judge the value of intellectual products, it's been the indicator of serious troubles, both for the society doing it and for the overall quality of the disciplines.
gcc1993 8y ago
They definitely have a process in place (they advertise their process a lot during orientation) but the demands I saw explicitly say they aren't good enough.
sjg007 8y ago
Maybe they should unionize? They could then elect representatives and have a seat at the table with management.
- ardy42 8y ago
  > Maybe they should unionize? They could then elect representatives and have a seat at the table with management. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_VL4gqrCHc&t=392 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_VL4gqrCHc&t=392 But if they did that, they be giving up control over their careers and the right to deal with their problems with their supervisors, one on one. /s

by slivym 8y ago

YorkshireSeason 8y ago

The salient difference is that outages are measurable. In contrast, "harassment" is an extremely controversial subject that nobody agrees upon, for example, in some legislations, calling a person with XY chromosomes "him" rather than "her" is considered a hate crime, a dramatic change from labelling conventions of just a few years ago. Indeed what constitutes harassment is a major point of contention between different parts of the political spectrum, and a core part of the culture wars. In addition, harassment is easily lied about. Indeed, what downsides are there for false harassment claims? If I was a Google competitor, and Machiavellian in moral outlook, I'd feed those flames to weaken Google, and hope that nobody did it to my organisation. Divide et Impera!

cimmanom 8y ago
Even if you believe that, why shouldn’t there be a process to investigate the claims? You think all harassment claims should be automatically dismissed as false instead?
- sheepmullet 8y ago
  > Even if you believe that, why shouldn’t there be a process to investigate the claims? Because it quickly becomes a witch-hunt. It is hard enough to have a fair investigation within a proper court system and legal framework - it’s far more likely any Google process will end up as a kangaroo court than the process leading to any justice.
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    So you think all claims should be dismissed as false and people who are actually subjected to sexual harassment and coercion at work should have no recourse.
    - sheepmullet 8y ago
      > So you think all claims should be dismissed as false Why would you think that? I think the majority of claims need to go into the “not really sure” bucket where they belong. Acknowledging this basic truth does not mean you have to then do nothing.
      - cimmanom 8y ago
        Which is why they merit investigation. For which there should be a process. Without an investigation process, what alternatives would you suggest for avoiding treating all claims as true or all claims as false?
        sheepmullet 8y ago
        > what alternatives would you suggest There are many well tested solutions but they all carry different trade offs. E.g. - Have a zero tolerance policy on relationships between colleagues. This works well in smaller to mid-size companies. Or, - When you receive a complaint move the accuser and accused into different teams. Etc.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > When you receive a complaint move the accuser and accused into different teams. That's a very good way to be found liable for both later harassment by the accused and, if you move the accuser, for retaliation; and also a PR nightmare when it is discovered to have been your policy or even a common practice to move accused wrongdoers without follow-up (just ask the Catholic Church.)
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  all harassment claims should be No, of course not. Symmetrically, the should also not automatically accepted as true. There should be an objective, measurable process. Given the cul-de-sac that organisations like Google have been strong-armed into, I think the obvious next step is (1) to record all work-time interaction of all employees and store them for a long time, e.g. at least 10 years. (2) Give a absolutely clear-cut criteria as to what counts as acceptable behaviour and what doesn't.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    >No, of course not. Symmetrically, the should also not automatically accepted as true. This. I imagine most are absolutely true, but there are some that absolutely are not. I've personally been accused by rape, online, of someone in another state that I've never even been to. Fortunately, no one took the claim serious but I imagine there are many innocent people that have been wrongly accused for whatever reason. I also had a friend, that was using OkCupid, reject a girl very politely in the first message or two. She then went on 'cheaterville' and posted that he gave her sexual transmitted diseases/infections and made multiple accounts alleging the same, one even as him with his name. He's an actor, he was up for a role and they retracted their offer when googling his name brought the cheaterville page up on the first page. Now if these two instances have happened to 2 guys from the midwest that have no power or money, I can only imagine there are quite a few false accusations regularly. I also imagine there are many many more TRUE accusations. We need to protect individuals regardless of race, gender and sexual orientation but at the same time we need to avoid workplace harassment turning into McCarthyism.
    - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
      I imagine most are absolutely true, I don't, for two reasons. (1) There is simply no agreement currently on what counts as harassment. (2) Anecdote: I've been involved in investigating a sexual harassment claim at a previous employer, at it was absolutely and categorically and provably false. turning into McCarthyism. Too late. That ship has sailed a long time ago. The situation has gotten so out of hand, that recording all employee interaction might indeed be the only way forward.
pjc50 8y ago
> what downsides are there for false harassment claims There are major downsides to making true harassment claims: you get denounced as a liar and a slut. This is the main reason why so many claims went unreported, and the #metoo movement is one of solidarity which makes it possible for people to actually report true claims without ruining their career. Actually deliberately making a false harassment claim is potentially career suicide. (Jacob Wohl thought it would be easy to bribe people into making false harassment claims, and this blew up in his face: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/robert-mueller-news-jacob-wohl-jack-burkman-surefire-intelligence-republican-trump-sexual-assault-a8610481.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/robert-mue... )
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  liar and a slut How is that a "major downside"? I've been called both, and I can't say I care. I can imagine that loosing a job to a false accusation is a "major downside". #metoo movement Isn't that the movement whose leader Asia Argento has been has been accused by the New York Times as a sexual harasser [1, 2]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Argento#Alleged_sexual_assault_of_Jimmy_Bennett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Argento#Alleged_sexual_as... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/us/asia-argento-assault-jimmy-bennett.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/us/asia-argento-assault-j...
  - typon 8y ago
    So because Asia Argento has sexually harassed someone, the MeToo movement is discredited? Some of the comments in this thread are unbelievable
  - victoriasun 8y ago
    You know, just because you don't empathize with how in our culture and society a woman being called a "liar and a slut" can be both career and social suicide, doesn't mean that it isn't a major downside for other people... Does the actions of a leader discredit a movement? Can one even say that #MeToo has a single leader? Do you know anything about the #MeToo movement?
majos 8y ago
> Indeed, what downsides are there for false harassment claims? Many people who get harassed opt to change teams, companies, or professions rather than actually pursue a formal complaint against their harasser. Perhaps they are mistaken (I don't think so), but they seem to believe that there are real downsides to filing even true harassment claims, to the extent that the aforementioned career upheavals seem easier.
- sheepmullet 8y ago
  > Perhaps they are mistaken, but they seem to believe that there are real downsides to filing even true harassment claims Why can’t both be true? For what you are implying to make any sense you have to assume some sort of equivalence: 1) Between the kind of woman who makes a false claim and the kind of woman who makes a true one. AND 2) Between the kind of man who is guilty and the kind of man who is falsely accused. I don’t think either of these two claims holds any water.
lukev 8y ago
And only a few short decades ago I could fire someone for being gay, or forbid my wife from opening a bank account. And it was a mere century ago that women literally couldn't vote. I don't see why the fact that social mores change invalidates the social standard we have today. Furthermore, why do you folk always jump straight to the "b..b..but false harassment!" argument? All it does is demonstrate that you actually don't care at all about the original problem. Experts place false sexual misconduct allegations at 2-10% (https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/ https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations...), and estimate that that number would be even lower if you include all the women who were harassed and never report to start with. So why are you willing to throw 90-98% of harassed women to the sharks, in order to protect 2-10% of accused men? Plus there's the whole strawman that allegations are always believed. Of course there should be fact checking. In fact, even in the #metoo era, men almost never face repercussions for false allegations (and often not for real ones.) Your statement that unfounded harassment claims do not lead to repercussions is flat out false. There is no company that would not discipline someone for bringing a harassment claim that was demonstrated to be false. In short: this argument demonstrates that what you really want to do is only to preserve the status quo and do in fact not give a shit about a major problem in our culture.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  > Experts place false sexual misconduct allegations at 2-10% (https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations... https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations...), and estimate that that number would be even lower if you include all the women who were harassed and never report to start with. Those numbers are specifically for rape, not sexual misconduct. I would hope that the false accusation rate for violent felonies is pretty low. Assuming this is still the case with lesser charges or non-criminal behavior is disingenuous.
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  invalidates the social standard we have today. The social standards we have today include that false accusations of harassment largely have no repercussions, and amount to a destruction of standards of justice. I don't want to live in a totalitarian society where hate-mobs replace argument, why do you promote one? don't care at all about the original problem. I care about the original problem, but believe it to be marginal in comparison with the false accusation problem, and the decline of standards of justice. Experts place false sexual misconduct allegations at 2-10% The article you cite does not provide any evidence of this claim whatsoever, did you even read it? throw 90-98% of harassed women to the sharks, in order to protect 2-10% You seem to think that marginal inconveniences of women (let's not forget that the Google mob was protesting because some guy hit on some woman at a party!), is more important that human rights of men?
astura 8y ago
You do a chromosomal analysis on everyone before you use a gendered pronoun to describe them? Because you can't tell what their chromosomes are just by appearance.
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  I can have an educated guess from just a brief glance -- especially if the other person doesn't actively tries to mislead me on such an important issue.
  - astura 8y ago
    And why the fuck do you care about other people's chromosomes?
    - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
      I don't care directly about chromosomes, they are put an extremely good proxy for one's reproductive abilities, hence an extremely good biological correlate for sex (i.e. reproductive role). I care about fertility, because reproduction is more-or-less the single most important duty every human has. It is also difficult a space to navigage, therefore all indicators and heuristics that help me appreciate his/her sex efficiently, makes navigating this difficult space much easier, hence is a friendly gesture. Here is an interesting question for you to ponder: Why do basic facts about human biology upset you so much, so much so in fact, that you use the act of procreation as an expletive?

anon1252 8y ago

> there's no real process in place for situations of misconduct in the office. There shouldn't be a "process" set by Google when it comes to sexual harassment, employees should be able to sue, that's the process,sexual harassment is a crime, they can't sue because Google force them into arbitration, which should be illegal for an employer to do that to an employee IMHO. this is a denial of justice.

ryanmercer 8y ago
>employees should be able to sue, that's the process, See eh. Does money fix the issue "biotic 1 told biotic 2 'nice lady bits why don't you sit on my man bits' now they want 2 amounts of monies" how does money fix the issue? How does money repair the damage? Is money a Men in Black neuralizer? Does it selectively delete the negative emotions from the event? Is it fair that shareholders in the case of Google, or the owner in a small business where some rogue employee decided he wanted to play grabass without the owner's consent or even knowledge, to have to shell out large sums of money that won't actually undo the damage? I don't think suing is a good solution here. If you are denied a job and have EVIDENCE it was based on your gender or sexual orientation, then suing somewhat makes sense however aside from lost wages there isn't much that would be productive here. If you sued for the actual job then everyone knows you as that person that got the job because a court of law said you get it and not necessarily because your skill and history make you the best candidate. >sexual harassment is a crime, Somewhat. Quid Pro Quo is a crime, not rectifying a hostile work environment (not reassigning the alleged offender, not investigating and terminating the alleged offender etc) is a crime. But biotic 1 telling biotic 2 that they have nice reproductive bits and bobs, is not an actual crime (perhaps it should be?) >they can't sue because Google force them into arbitration, which should be illegal for an employer to do that to an employee IMHO. this is a denial of justice. Money /= justice. If someone demands sexual favors, or regularly says sexually explicit things to you, a check doesn't give you justice, especially if it's from the employer. Take Google as an example. Google is owned, in part, by likely hundreds of millions of people (index funds, direct stock purchase, etc). Google has a board, it has various rungs of corporate management, then more localized management. Chances are none of those people have said "hey Don Draper, make sure you grab Megan's ass today when she comes in to dictate for you today and tell her what you want to do to her on your desk" and while Google does need to do something to employees that think such behavior is acceptable, and carry it out, why should they have to cut a check for hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars, for something a rogue employee did? Perhaps there should be some sort of penalty/tax that companies, when sufficient evidence is found to support a claim, they have to pay to an NGO that deals with rights equality and safe workspaces? Money doesn't undo the situation so I don't think the victim should be seeking large sums in damages, companies (unless supporting the behavior) shouldn't be penalized for large sums of money because of an employee that has free agency, however if an incident is reasonably provable perhaps they should have to cut a check, based on some sort of scale, say 100k$ for a company like Google to a regularly audited group that provides resources for victims to reach out to for both any required treatment and for help dealing with any potential workplace discrimination as a result of their claim.

Udik 8y ago

> this would be like Google not having a process to investigate and resolve site outages - it would be unthinkable, so why aren't they treating their organisation with the same rigor they treat their website. Because, Google is a company that builds products. I am interested in their products and in the fact that their products work, not much in the behaviour of the people building them- given the fact that they are located in a supposedly civilized country anyway, where serious misconducts should be prosecuted by law. The internal squabbles and complaints of the company are of very little relevance for their users, as it should be.

slivym 8y ago
It's worth noting that one of their demands is dropping the binding arbitration that essentially forces employees to forgo their right to legal recourse for civil matters. Not every instance of unacceptable behaviour is a criminal matter.
victoriasun 8y ago
If you're not interested in the internal workings of Google, then why bother? There are people who are, and they are the ones driving this conversation. Let them spend their energy and effort figuring it out while you enjoy the result of their work.
- Udik 8y ago
  > why bother? Because I'm a bit annoyed by what seems to me a growing push towards confusing the judgement of someone's work with their moral qualities. I see it as fundamentally anti-intellectual, as it strives to bring extraneous criteria in the evaluation of what should stand and be judged on its own. A scientific theory or a work of art aren't less valuable because their authors or proponents are or aren't communists, or arians; a literary masterpiece isn't diminished by the fact that its author was an anti-semite, or sadist; a great movie director remains a great director even if she did horrible things in her private life. Very little of our past science and philosophy and arts would still be standing if we were to apply these criteria, and I very strongly doubt we'd gain something better. Every single time "political" criteria have been used to judge the value of intellectual products, it's been the indicator of serious troubles, both for the society doing it and for the overall quality of the disciplines.

gcc1993 8y ago

They definitely have a process in place (they advertise their process a lot during orientation) but the demands I saw explicitly say they aren't good enough.

sjg007 8y ago

Maybe they should unionize? They could then elect representatives and have a seat at the table with management.

ardy42 8y ago
> Maybe they should unionize? They could then elect representatives and have a seat at the table with management. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_VL4gqrCHc&t=392 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_VL4gqrCHc&t=392 But if they did that, they be giving up control over their careers and the right to deal with their problems with their supervisors, one on one. /s