Google and Facebook employees demonstrate sit-in protests

Over the last few months we have seen various protests and demonstrations in large companies. For some, the employees have been raising questions on the company’s military contracting, for some it is sexual harassment cases and for some it is the treatment towards temporary workforce and contract workers.

On May 1, activists at Google and Facebook staged a sit-in protest which they call a retaliation against people who are involved in such activism.

At many of the Alphabet Inc’s Google offices in the US, workers staged sit-in protests where hundreds of people joined in. Employees shared personal stories of suffering retaliation and forming a union.

At the Google’s headquarters in California, an employee distributed flyers and discouraged workers from talking to the reporters. In New York, where workers gathered in large numbers clicked group photographs and posted it on twitter with their blurred faces.

The tech industry has always been tolerant of outspoken employees which is an aspect of its culture and power of a highly skilled workforce. However, for the way these companies have handled internal and external business, it has resulted into an outrage by the employees.

The sit-in protest took place on May day which is celebrated as labour day, a tribute to all workers. It also marked the six-month anniversary of the walkout that unofficially kicked off the current round of employee activism at Google.

Last year on November 1, 20,000 Google employees demonstrated a walkout for misconducting sexual harassment cases at workplace. Inspired by the same, employees at Microsoft also raised a protest, and forced the CEO to address sexual harassment cases.

Facebook employees who are associated with workers to workers, an advocacy group for workers at social network, posted anonymous stories of retaliation on its website. Organisers passed out flyers outside the San Francisco office accusing Flagship Facility Services, a vendor which provides cafeteria services to Facebook for firing a worker for labour activism.