Rivers, a software engineer, was involved in petitioning the company to stop its work with governmental agencies like the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Customs and Border Protections. Berland was among a group of “Gayglers” to demand that the San Francisco Pride festival cut ties with Google after a YouTube controversy involving the Vox journalist Carlos Maza showed the platform’s unwillingness to police hate, homophobia, or harassment.
Google has long prided itself on that culture. Employees are encouraged to collaborate and peer in on each other’s work. For years, Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, has encouraged employees to speak freely in weekly all-hands meetings called TGIF.For the past year, though, internal tensions over a wide range of projects and policies have threatened to overturn that culture. Now there are no more TGIFs , and the company has hired a management firm, IRI Consultants, with a reputation for squashing worker unions.The turmoil reached a boiling point last fall, when thousands of Googlers organized to protest the company’s handling of sexual misconduct. In October, The New York Times revealed that Google had offered a hefty $90 million exit package to Andy Rubin, who created the Android operating system, after several credible accusations of sexual misconduct from employees. Employees balked, and in November, thousands of them staged walkouts at Google offices around the world. From Tokyo to Berlin, Googlers held signs to protest the company’s handling of sexual misconduct, with messages like “Time’s up, tech,” and “OK Google, really?”
