transparency

The Google Walkout to Protest Sexual Harassment: How Change Is Happening in Silicon Valley

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Daisuke Wakabayashi, Erin Griffith, Amie Tsang, and Kate Conger of the New York Times report that Google employees organized the walkout in less than one week to protest the company’s handling of sexual harassment. Employee discontent had been simmering for quite some time over the inequitable treatment of female employees, but it boiled over when the New York Times reported that Google had given an executive, Andy Rubin, a $90 million exit package after finding sexual harassment claims against him credible. The release of this information led to calls for a walkout. Demands for change in how Google handles sexual harassment included the following:

  • End the use of forced arbitration, which silences victims and protects abusers.
  • Publish a transparency report on cases of sexual harassment.
  • Further disclose salaries and compensation.
  • Ensure employee representation on the company board.
  • Appoint a chief diversity officer who speaks directly to the board.
Noam Scheiber writes that the most remarkable aspect of the Google walkout was the way the organizers identified their action with a broader movement throughout the United States including teachers, fast-food workers, and others. The tech sector has never before identified with unions or unionized workers because compensation in the field is relatively high. While Google has methods in place to allow employees to communicate with senior management, Scheiber notes that some tech employees have come to realize that having a platform for the unregulated exchange of ideas does not result in lasting change. They have now experienced the sense of agency and power to affect decision making that can come when twenty thousand people walk out of a company together, impacting productivity and the organization’s reputation. Because competition for talent is fierce in Silicon Valley, a walkout can negatively impact an organization’s ability to recruit, putting other tech companies on notice as well. Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times notes that protests are now an important avenue for pressure that is likely to create lasting change in Silicon Valley and the technology sector. On November 8, 2018, Conger and Wakabayashi reported (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/technology/google-arbitration-sexual-harassment.html) that Google agreed to the following:
  • End the practice of forced arbitration.
  • Overhaul reporting practices for sexual harassment.
  • Provide more transparency.
Facebook followed Google’s lead and dropped mandatory arbitration clauses one day after the Google walkout. Why do these changes matter? Wakabayashi and Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times explain that until now, harassment has often gone unpunished due to forced arbitration clauses included in the fine print of most employment contracts. As a result, claims are kept secret to protect the abusers and the company’s reputation. Victims receive smaller settlements than would be the case in open court, and harassers can easily move to other jobs without warning to future victims. In this way, companies keep their employees and the public in the dark about bad behavior. Arbitration clauses were put in place to prevent employees and customers from banding together in class-action lawsuits to fight deep-pocketed corporations over unfair business and labor practices. While the focus at the moment is on sexual harassment and assault claims, these arbitration clauses exist in the fine print of contracts of all sorts. But class-action lawsuits and protests are the best ways to bring pressure for change. Microsoft and Uber both changed their policies on forced arbitration clauses earlier this year after facing proposed class-action suits from women. Apple, reading the tea leaves of change, also eliminated the clause from employment contracts a few months ago. Collective action is an important avenue for change. It is good to see Silicon Valley employees discovering the power that they have to create more ethical and inclusive organizations.   Photo courtesy of Yoel.]]>

How You Can Take Steps to Close the Gender Pay Gap in Your Company

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Research indicates that pay transparency does result in smaller pay gaps. At the very least, if employees are aware of pay discrepancies in the company, women and people of color can confidently negotiate for higher salaries than those offered. But most companies keep salary information secret and are not transparent. That is why the step taken by employees at Google is so important—they took matters into their own hands to create transparency. Daisuke Wakabayashi of the New York Times reports that in 2015, a female engineer at Google created a self-reported salary spreadsheet that employees are still using. In 2017, twelve hundred United States Google employees posted their salary and bonus information to this spreadsheet, which shows that female employees are paid less than male staff members in comparable jobs at most levels. The spreadsheet does not cover all levels and is admittedly incomplete. Nonetheless, since Google’s board voted against making pay transparent for women’s and men’s salaries, and Google is in a court battle with the United States Department of Labor because it is refusing to hand over data as part of a routine audit of its pay practices, the self-reported data is the only source of transparency for Google employees. Without the spreadsheet, Google would not be held accountable at all. Now, more than ever, employees need to self-organize to collect salary data and make it transparent to expose pay gaps. Why? Because, as Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times reports, the Trump administration just reversed a regulation that the Obama administration put into place to address the pay gap. Miller explains that the Obama administration regulation, which was about to take effect, would have “required companies to report how much they paid people, along with their sex and race.” Europe and Britain require companies to report this information, but now, under the Trump administration, we do not. Without this pressure from the Federal government, companies have no incentive to close the pay gaps and will continue to keep salary information secret and, accordingly, to hide discrimination and avoid accountability. Miller reports that, according to an analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Pew Research Center, we know the following general statistics about the pay gap in the United States:

  • White women’s median hourly earnings are 82 percent of those of white men
  • Asian women earn 87 percent of what white men earn
  • Black women earn 65 percent of what white men earn
  • Hispanic women earn 58 percent of what white men earn
  • Black and Hispanic men earn less than white men, while Asian men outearn them
An example of the importance of transparency recently occurred in Britain at the BBC. Britain only recently implemented a new regulation requiring that companies report salary data. Steven Erlanger of the New York Times explains that when the government forced the BBC to publish the salary ranges of its highest paid employees, the resulting report showed significant disparities. An open letter signed by forty-two employees stated that the report confirmed a long-held suspicion that “women at the BBC are being paid less than men for the same work.” Until the data was made public, no confirmation of those suspicions was possible. Employees and the government are now pressuring the BBC to close this gender pay gap. If your company does not make salary data public, you could consider following the example of the Google employees and organizing a way for employees to self-report so that people have some information available to them when it is time for them to negotiate for salary increases. I recommend that a group of people, including both women and men, get together to organize this collection of information. If the company finds out and is unhappy, a group is at less risk than an individual when taking steps that the company may find threatening. The gender and race pay gaps will never close if we don’t take some steps to bring disparities to light. Let us know if you have been successful at creating pay transparency in your company. Photo courtesy of businessforward (CC by 2.0)]]>

Sexual Harassment and the Culture of Masculinity at Fox News, Uber, and in Society

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Why is sexual harassment so widespread? Recent headlines reveal sexual harassment scandals at Fox News—against Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly—and a long list of technology and financial organizations including Uber and Tesla. Additional offenders play on sports teams at multiple universities. Frank Bruni of the New York Times writes that we need to take a close look at the culture of masculinity in the United States to understand the source and the pervasiveness of sexual harassment. Bruni explains that the US culture of masculinity teaches that a man must be “a force of nature with untamable appetites” for conquering women, bullying opponents, and avoiding domestic chores such as changing diapers. He notes that Donald J. Trump won millions of votes by projecting a classic masculine persona, indicating that a large segment of Americans find this notion of manhood familiar and acceptable. Bruni cites a new study by Promundo, a nonprofit organization promoting gender equity, showing that the messages young men receive today about how to be a man have not changed. For example, in a sample of thirteen hundred American men between the ages of eighteen and thirty, 75 percent said they are supposed to act strong even when they are scared or nervous, 63 percent said that they’re exhorted to seize sex whenever available, and 46 percent said that they’re waved away from household chores. Bruni notes that the results of this study reflect “a constricted concept of manhood that includes aggression, hypersexuality, supreme authority, and utter self-sufficiency,” described by some sociologists as the “man box.” Bruni reflects that the cost to men of living in the “man box” is that these men are “more likely to act out in self-destructive ways such as substance abuse and online bullying.” Condoning a hypermasculine concept of manhood actively damages our society. President Trump currently

  • Surrounds himself with generals
  • Increases the military budget
  • Cuts funding for arts, science, healthcare, and the social safety net
Let’s not forget the message he is sending to men and boys when he defends Bill O’Reilly as “doing nothing wrong” by sexually harassing women. Fox News provides an example of a company culture that affirms hypermasculinity and condones sexual harassment. Emily Steel and Michael S. Schmidt write that the company stood behind O’Reilly for two decades while legally silencing multiple women and quietly paying millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment claims against him—even after dismissing Roger Ailes last summer and vowing “not (to) tolerate behavior that disrespects women.” Fox News continued to tolerate O’Reilly. Two of O’Reilly’s settlements occurred after the dismissal of Ailes, yet Fox didn’t punish O’Reilly. I wrote in a previous article about the ways that organizations like Fox News perpetuate cultures that condone sexual harassment. As long as organizations silence women and allow women’s careers to be ruined while protecting powerful men, sexual harassment will continue unabated. Uber is another example of a masculine culture negatively impacting women, but a glimmer of hope for change appears possible. Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times reports that revelations about the culture of sexism and sexual harassment at Uber were no surprise to women in other Silicon Valley organizations because
  • Sexual harassment is rampant in technology companies
  • The men responsible for sexual harassment are rarely punished
  • Nothing changes because of a deeply entrenched “bro culture,” described by Sam Polk in the New York Times
Manjoo says that Uber’s competition provides a glimmer of hope. He cites Karen Catlin, an advocate for women in the tech industry, who explained that there is a “heightened awareness of the issues women face due to misogynistic men” since the Women’s March in January 2017. The March marshalled grassroots social media energy to pressure Uber to change (#deleteUber). Uber lost many customers to competitors because of this pressure. Certain key investors have declared their intention to hold Uber accountable for change. Manjoo writes, “It could take years of careful and publicly embarrassing actions for Uber and other companies to become more hospitable to women.” Note the key concept here: publicly embarrassing actions. Transparency and accountability are essential. We must eliminate nondisclosure forms that silence women and prevent accountability. Maybe Uber will lead the way in creating a corporate culture more hospitable to women. Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen at Fox News.   Photo courtesy of futureatlas.com/blog. CC by 2.0]]>