(Image source from: News.sky.com)
The search engine giant Google announced that it has dismissed 48 employees for sexual harassment during the past two years and sent them away without severance packages, hours after a news report that it had protected some male executives facing sexual misconduct allegations and offered them large sums to leave the company.
The surprise revelation on Thursday came in an email to Google employees from Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai.
It was a direct response to a New York Times report that the company had fired the executive in charge of its Android software for sexual wrongdoing in 2014 and paid him handsomely to depart.
A spokesperson for Andy Rubin, the former Android executive, said he left on his own accord and has never been informed of any accusations of sexual misconduct. Rubin acknowledges having consensual sexual relationships with Google employees that didn't report to him, adhering to the boundaries drawn by Google policy at that time, according to the spokesperson, Sam Singer.
The Times story was based on unidentified people and court documents, as well as some filed in an ongoing divorce between Rubin and his wife. The Times reported that Google as well protected two else executives accused of sexual misconduct, ousting one with a severance package while holding another.
In his email, Pichai said Google adopted tougher policies in 2015. Those rules require all of Google's vice presidents and senior vice presidents to disclose any relationship with an employee, even if they don't work in the same department or have any other potential conflict.
Although Pichai did not directly address the allegations against Rubin and other executives, he admitted the Times story "was difficult to read" and did not debate it.
"We are dead serious about making sure we provide a safe and inclusive workplace," Pichai wrote.
In an apparent attempt to assure employees that things had changed since Rubin's departure, Pichai said 13 of the 48 workers that Google had fired for violating the company's sexual harassment policies were either senior managers or executives. None of those 13 received severance packages, Pichai wrote.
-Sowmya Sangam
