Claire Stapleton

Last updated

Claire Stapleton
Born1985or1986(age 38–39)
Education University of Pennsylvania (BA)
OccupationWriter
Known forWorkplace activism
Notable work 2018 Google walkouts

Claire Stapleton (born 1985 or 1986) [1] is an American writer and marketer known for her involvement in the 2018 Google Walkout for Real Change. [2] She is the author of the newsletter Tech Support.

Contents

Education

Stapleton earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania. [1]

Career and activism

Google (2007-2019)

Stapleton began working for Google in 2007, after briefly considering a role with Teach For America, [1] working on the internal communications team at their Mountain View, California campus. [2] [3]

During her communications work, Stapleton helped produce the company's weekly all-hands meeting, known as TGIF, hosted by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. [4] [5] She was also responsible for writing the company's talking points in weekly emails to employees. At her final TGIF in Mountain View in 2012, Page called Stapleton on stage and presented her with a wooden plaque that dubbed her "The Bard of Google". [1] [4]

Later, Stapleton joined YouTube's team as a marketing manager in New York City. [2]

On November 1, 2018, Stapleton, along with 20,000 Google workers across 50 cities, walked off the job in protest of Google's contracts with The Pentagon such as Project Maven, Project Dragonfly, and Project JEDI, and the company's handling of sexual harassment allegations, [2] including a $90 million exit package for Andy Rubin, [5] who allegedly coerced a junior employee into sexual contact. [6] Rubin referred to the report as a "wild exaggeration", and denies any misconduct. [7] The employees, led by Stapleton, Meredith Whittaker, a former Google Artificial Intelligence researcher, and five others also put together a list of demands for change, including addressing what they alleged was rampant sexism and racism, getting rid of mandatory arbitration, and better pay for contractors. [2] [8] According to Stapleton, the events themselves were not the catalyst of their strike, but rather the TGIF that followed the news of Rubin's resignation, which she said was dismissive and ignored the report about payouts to male executives accused of sexual misconduct, [9] though CEO Sundar Pichai and Page both reportedly apologized. Pichai also said that 48 employees had been terminated after investigations into harassment over the previous two years, none of whom received an exit package. Stapleton said the meeting sparked her to start an email list for women at the company, which she said quickly grew to more than 1,500 members. [7]

In the days following the walkout, Google responded in support, Pichai saying, "I take this responsibility very seriously and I’m committed to making the changes we need to improve", in a memo to employees. The memo also announced concession to some of the demands, including ending forced arbitration in cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment and overhaul the process for reporting sexual misconduct. [10] Stapleton and the other leaders acknowledged the progress in a note posted on the Google Walkout Medium account, but criticized leadership saying they, "troublingly erased [the demands] focused on racism, discrimination, and ... structural inequity", and for ignoring the request to elevate the diversity officer to the board. [11] When asked who should be leading addressing the remaining demands, Stapleton said, "Larry and Sergey, where are they?" [9]

In January 2019, Stapleton said she was demoted as part of a restructuring she said was vaguely communicated, losing half of her direct reports. She also said her work was reassigned to others and that her manager ignored her, and she was pushed to resign. [1] When Stapleton attempted to press human resources about the changes to her role and her work being delegated to other people, she said that the company advised her to go on medical leave, even though she wasn't ill. Stapleton hired an attorney, prompting a re-investigation into the demotion, and said that it was "walked back ... at least on paper." [2] [5]

In April 2019, Stapleton and Whittaker alleged their managers had retaliated against them for their participation in organizing the walkout, [2] [5] a claim that Google denied. [12] To Stapleton's allegations specifically, Google claimed that her allegations of retaliation was unsubstantiated because they had found that they gave her their team's Culture Award for her role in the walkout. [1] Stapleton, Whittaker, and others who had led the Google Walkout promoted a social media campaign under the hashtag #NotOkGoogle to gather additional stories of alleged retaliation, [13] and shared their experiences of alleged retaliation on Medium. [2] They said company had a culture of retaliation that disproportionately affected marginalized and underrepresented groups. [14] While the campaign gained fast momentum, Google announced they had created a new website for employees to report misconduct. [13]

On April 26, 2019, Stapleton and Whittaker held a "Retaliation Town Hall" [14] that was livestreamed to Google offices. Attendees reported that Stapleton shared emails she said were sent from the executives to thousands of her coworkers disputing that she had been demoted. While Google has maintained that it does not tolerate retaliation, employees who attended the town hall shared stories of their own alleged retaliation, and organized a sit-in protest on May 1, 2019 in response. [13] [15] Some employees took a sick day while staying at the office in honor of Stapleton's claim that she was urged to take medical leave when she said she was not sick. [13] Later, additional employees with public resignations also alleged retaliation due to what they believed was their involvement in organizing. [16] [17]

On May 31, 2019, while pregnant with her second child, [16] Stapleton resigned from the company [18] in exchange for severance. [19] A note she shared internally was published by the Google Walkout Medium account the following week, which gained media attention. In the note, Stapleton described how her perspective of the company shifted over her tenure from pride and inspiration until 2017, when she returned from maternity leave with her first child and felt the company had "lost its moral compass." She described her decision to quit saying, “If I stayed, I didn’t just worry that there’d be more public flogging, shunning, and stress, I expected it.” Stapleton said she was physically escorted off of the premises by security, who also confiscated her company devices, she also said this was unconventional for departing workers. [2] [5] Stapleton later warned potential Big Tech candidates to be wary of buying into the idea of changing the world from the inside saying, "...if you care about a company’s values, ethics and contributions to society, you should take your talents elsewhere." [1]

In an essay for Elle in December 2019, [1] Stapleton said that she became intimately familiar with how hostile Google's "famously open culture" was to outspoken workers, and that it was evidence of the lengths the company's leadership was willing to go to prevent staffers from holding the company accountable. [5] She also pointed out the façade of support around the walkout from Pichai and CFO Ruth Porat, who petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to limit protections for workers organizing via email a few days after the walkout. [4] [20]

2020

In May 2020, Stapleton started a newsletter for her agitated peers in tech called Tech Support, meant to offer guidance for other tech workers from her experiences over her 12 years at Google. [21]

Personal life

Stapleton was born in Berkeley, California. [22] She has two children. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

Criticism of Google includes concern for tax avoidance, misuse and manipulation of search results, its use of others' intellectual property, concerns that its compilation of data may violate people's privacy and collaboration with the US military on Google Earth to spy on users, censorship of search results and content, and the energy consumption of its servers as well as concerns over traditional business issues such as monopoly, restraint of trade, antitrust, patent infringement, indexing and presenting false information and propaganda in search results, and being an "Ideological Echo Chamber".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Rubin</span> American businessman

Andrew E. Rubin is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. Rubin founded Android Inc. in 2003, which was acquired by Google in 2005; Rubin served as a Google vice president for 9 years and led Google's efforts in creating and promoting the Android operating system for mobile phones and other devices during most of his tenure. Rubin left Google in 2014 after allegations of sexual misconduct, although it was presented as a voluntary departure rather than a dismissal at first. Rubin then served as co-founder and CEO of venture capital firm Playground Global from 2015–2019. Rubin also helped found Essential Products in 2015, a mobile phone start-up that closed in 2020 without finding a buyer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundar Pichai</span> Indian-American engineer and executive (born 1972)

Pichai Sundararajan, better known as Sundar Pichai, is an Indian-born American business executive. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meredith Whittaker</span> American artificial intelligence research scientist

Meredith Whittaker is the president of the Signal Foundation and serves on its board of directors. She was formerly the Minderoo Research Professor at New York University (NYU), and the co-founder and faculty director of the AI Now Institute. She also served as a senior advisor on AI to Chair Lina Khan at the Federal Trade Commission. Whittaker was employed at Google for 13 years, where she founded Google's Open Research group and co-founded the M-Lab. In 2018, she was a core organizer of the Google Walkouts and resigned from the company in July 2019.

The 2018 Google walkouts occurred on November 1, 2018 at approximately 11 am. The walkout had a large number of participants. The employees demanded five concrete changes from the company: an end to forced arbitration; a commitment to end pay inequality; a transparent sexual harassment report; an inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct; and elevate the Chief of Diversity to answer directly to the CEO and create an Employee Representative. A majority of the known organizers have left the company since the walkout and many continue to voice their concerns. Google agreed to end forced arbitration and create a private report of sexual assault, but has not provided any further details about the other demands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timnit Gebru</span> Computer scientist (born 1983)

Timnit Gebru is an Eritrean Ethiopian-born computer scientist who works in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), algorithmic bias and data mining. She is an advocate for diversity in technology and co-founder of Black in AI, a community of Black researchers working in AI. She is the founder of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR).

Tensions between the multinational technology company Google and its workers escalated in 2018 and 2019 as staff protested company decisions on a censored search engine for China, a military drone artificial intelligence, and internal sexual harassment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amazon worker organization</span> Collective worker action at the American e-commerce company

Some warehouse workers of Amazon, the largest American e-commerce retailer with 750,000 employees, have organized for workplace improvements in light of the company's scrutinized labor practices and stance against unions. Worker actions have included work stoppages and have won concessions including increased pay, safety precautions, and time off. There are unionized Amazon workers in both the United States and Europe.

Ifeoma Ozoma is an American public policy specialist and technology industry equity advocate. After two years working on public policy at Pinterest, Ozoma resigned and spoke out about mistreatment and racial discrimination she alleged she had experienced at the company. She subsequently began a consulting firm called Earthseed, and has worked to advocate for whistleblower protection legislation and other worker protections in the technology industry. She is the director of tech accountability at the University of California, LA Center on Race and Digital Justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alphabet Workers Union</span> Trade union of workers

Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), also informally referred to as the Google Union, is an American trade union of workers employed at Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, with a membership of over 800, in a company with 130,000 employees, not including temps, contractors, and vendors in the United States. It was announced on January 4, 2021 with an initial membership of over 400, after over a year of secret organizing, and the union includes all types of workers at Alphabet, including full-time, temporary, vendors and contractors of all job types.

The #MeToo movement emerged in China shortly after it originated in the United States. In mainland China, online MeToo posts were slowed by government censorship. On Weibo, #Metoo and #MetooinChina were both blocked for a period of time. To avoid the censorship, Chinese women using the #MeToo hashtag on social media began using bunny and bowl-of-rice emojis; "rice bunny" is pronounced mi-tu in Chinese. Feminist activist Xiao Qiqi originated the use of rice-bunny emojis for the movement. Another alternative is “River Crab” which indicates censorship. Generally, the #Metoo movement was only accessible to elite women and urban women.

<i>California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard</i> Ongoing anti-discrimination lawsuit

California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard is a current lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), now the Civil Rights Department (CRD) against video game developer Activision Blizzard in July 2021. The lawsuit asserts that management of Activision Blizzard allowed and at times encouraged sexual misconduct towards female employees, that the company maintained a "frat boy" culture, and that the company's hiring and employment practices were discriminatory against women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apple and unions</span> Apple Inc. related worker organizations and unions

Apple Inc. workers around the globe have been involved in organizing since the 1990s. Apple worker organizations have been made up of retail, corporate, and outsourced workers. Employees have joined trade unions and formed works councils in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cher Scarlett</span> American software engineer, writer, labor activist, and corporate whistleblower

Cher Scarlett is an American workers' rights activist, software engineer, and writer. She has organized staff at Apple, Activision Blizzard, and Starbucks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashley Gjøvik</span> Program manager and whistleblower

Ashley Gjøvik is an American program manager and activist who is known for her whistleblowing and labor complaints against Apple Inc. After she raised issues with the alleged mishandling of environmental concerns, employee privacy, harassment, and discrimination at Apple in 2021, she was terminated by the company for allegedly leaking confidential intellectual property, which Gjøvik denies, alleging her firing was retaliation for speaking out against the company.

ABK Workers Alliance is a group of organized workers from video game company Activision Blizzard. Formed in response to a July 2021 state lawsuit against the company for harassment and discriminatory work practices, the worker advocacy group A Better ABK organized walkouts and demonstrations against the company's policy and practices. The quality assurance workers of subsidiary Raven Software went on strike in December after part of the team was fired. The striking workers announced their union as the Game Workers Alliance in late January 2022 and offered to end the strike pending their union's recognition.

Chelsey Glasson is an American user researcher, author, and workers' rights advocate. She sued Google, her former employer, for pregnancy discrimination, which ended in an undisclosed settlement after two years of litigation. She has successfully lobbied for pregnancy anti-discrimination and labor rights laws in Washington State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Fong-Jones</span> American activist and software developer

Liz Fong-Jones is a site reliability engineer and developer advocate known for labor activism with her contributions to the Never Again pledge and her role in leading Google worker organization efforts. She is the president of the board of directors of the Solidarity Fund by Coworker, which she seeded with her own money. She is Honeycomb's field Chief Technology Officer.

Workers at Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), an American retail and outdoor recreation services co-op, have one recognized trade union. The company has faced accusations of being anti-union. In 2016, REI workers went public with organization efforts that had been growing over concerns about wages and working conditions in the Pacific Northwest, and the company has since faced increasing public criticism from its employees nationwide over issues including living wages, hourly worker policies, and safety protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers have organized at least five petitions since 2016. REI has maintained that it is committed to adjusting and improving working conditions for its employees.

Jessica Gonzalez is an American labor organizer working with CODE-CWA, the Communication Workers of America's Campaign to Organize Digital Employees. She is known for her work organizing in the video game industry and founding A Better ABK, the worker advocacy group at Activision Blizzard, and co-founding ABK Workers Alliance, a solidarity union, and Game Workers Alliance, the Raven Software union.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Goldberg, Emma (January 11, 2020). "'Techlash' Hits College Campuses". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 12, 2020. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Campbell, Alexia Fernández (June 7, 2019). "A Google walkout organizer just quit, saying she was branded with a "scarlet letter"". Vox . Archived from the original on June 8, 2019. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
  3. ↑ Garcia-Navarro, Lulu; Orme, Wyatt; Arthur, Derek; Bacon, Anabel; Pitkin, Kaari; McCusker, Pat; Jones, Isaac; Herrero, Sonia; Sabouraud, Carole (February 23, 2023). "Opinion | Google Changed Work Culture. Its Former Hype Woman Has Regrets". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved February 23, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 Stapleton, Claire (December 19, 2019). "Google Loved Me, Until I Pointed Out Everything That Sucked About It". ELLE. Archived from the original on January 7, 2022. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Statt, Nick (December 19, 2019). "Google Walkout organizer Claire Stapleton tells her story of the company's retaliation". The Verge. Archived from the original on December 20, 2019. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
  6. ↑ Wakabayashi, Daisuke; Benner, Katie (October 25, 2018). "How Google Protected Andy Rubin, the 'Father of Android'". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on October 25, 2018. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  7. 1 2 Conger, Kate; Wakabayashi, Daisuke; Benner, Katie (October 31, 2018). "Google Faces Internal Backlash Over Handling of Sexual Harassment". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  8. ↑ Gaber, Claire Stapleton, Tanuja Gupta, Meredith Whittaker, Celie O'Neil-Hart, Stephanie Parker, Erica Anderson, Amr (November 1, 2018). "We're the Organizers of the Google Walkout. Here Are Our Demands". The Cut . Archived from the original on November 1, 2018. Retrieved January 9, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. 1 2 Hamilton, Isobel Asher. "A Googler vividly described the 'disastrous' leadership meeting that sparked a giant protest over sexual misconduct". Business Insider . Archived from the original on November 21, 2018. Retrieved January 9, 2022.
  10. ↑ Conger, Kate; Wakabayashi, Daisuke (November 8, 2018). "Google Overhauls Sexual Misconduct Policy After Employee Walkout". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 10, 2022. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  11. ↑ Lawler, Opheli Garcia (November 8, 2018). "Google Walkout Organizers Aren't Satisfied With the Company's Response". The Cut . Archived from the original on November 15, 2018. Retrieved January 9, 2022.
  12. ↑ Campbell, Alexia Fernández (April 23, 2019). "Google employees say the company is punishing them for their activism". Vox. Archived from the original on October 10, 2019. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Hussain, Suhauna (May 1, 2019). "Google workers protest 'culture of retaliation' with sit-in". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 1, 2019. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  14. 1 2 Tiku, Nitasha. "Google Walkout Organizers Say They're Facing Retaliation". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028. Archived from the original on September 24, 2021. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  15. ↑ Tiku, Nitasha (April 26, 2019). "The Dispute Over Google's Alleged Retaliation Intensifies". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028. Archived from the original on May 10, 2021. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  16. 1 2 3 O'Brien, Sara Ashley (January 9, 2020). "One year after the Google walkout, key organizers reflect on the risk to their careers". CNN . Archived from the original on November 1, 2019. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  17. ↑ Nietfeld, Emi (April 7, 2021). "Opinion | After Working at Google, I'll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 13, 2022. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  18. ↑ Wong, Julia Carrie (June 7, 2019). "'I've paid a huge personal cost': Google walkout organizer resigns over alleged retaliation". The Guardian . Archived from the original on June 7, 2019. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  19. ↑ Copeland, Rob (August 1, 2019). "Fired by Google, a Republican Engineer Hits Back: 'There's Been a Lot of Bullying'". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660. Archived from the original on January 13, 2022. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  20. ↑ Eidelson, Josh; Kanu, Hassan; Bergen, Mark (January 24, 2019). "Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers". Bloomberg . Archived from the original on January 8, 2022. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  21. ↑ Elias, Jennifer (May 28, 2020). "Former Google activist Claire Stapleton is starting an advice newsletter for frustrated tech workers". CNBC . Archived from the original on May 29, 2020. Retrieved January 9, 2022.
  22. ↑ "You Should Know: Claire Stapleton". Guest of a Guest. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
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