L.A. Times: "Black and brown tech workers share their experiences of racism on the job"
Alphabet workers news
In what reporter Johana Bhuiyan has indicated will be "one of a two-part package" about the lack of Big Tech diversity, the L.A. Times has published a collection of worker stories about the pervasive influence of both personal and systemic racism within tech firms.
The article is also a good example of how speaking to a reporter, not to corporate HR, is often the best way to pressure companies to act. Seven days prior to this story and its racist-badge-check vignette, Google's CEO announced in a blog post that "we will end the practice of Googlers badge-checking each other and rely on our already robust security infrastructure." It's unlikely that this announcement is a coincidence -- rather, it's more likely that through the L.A. Times' courtesy request for a response -- which Google refused to provide -- Google became aware that the Times was about to run the story, and quickly arranged for Pichai to announce a public update to its badge-check policy as a way to frontrun the article. Large corporations don't change their behavior until they're exposed to public scrutiny.
The article includes stories from Google, Pinterest, Snap, and several other firms. Some extracts below.
- Bruce
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https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-06-24/diversity-in-tech-tech-workers-tell-their-story
"Black and brown tech workers share their experiences of racism on the job"
... while large tech and venture capital firms have promised to do better, little has changed in how Black people and other people of color are treated as job candidates, employees and investors.
Some of the common experiences detailed in survey responses: enduring daily microaggressions; feeling targeted by superiors or external critics; being trotted out to defend a company’s diversity practices; being tasked with extra work typically reserved for diversity and inclusion officers. Respondents described companies where people of color are severely underrepresented in both rank-and-file and executive roles and corporate cultures that can feel hostile to anyone who is not a heterosexual, cisgender white male...
In September 2019, [former Google engineering directory Leslie] Miley rode an elevator in Google’s New York office with a white male coworker. Miley’s employee badge was visible on his right hip, visible to the man, who stood to his right. The two exited the elevator into a small lobby giving onto a security door. Miley allowed his co-worker to swipe his badge and enter first. As Miley badged in, the man attempted to push the door shut behind him.
“I stick my hand out and walk in the door,” Miley said. “The person’s like, ‘Can I see your badge?’”
Miley ignored him and walked away but the man pursued him and waved his hand in Miley’s face, demanding to see his badge. The man then blocked Miley’s way and chest bumped him, according to Miley. Finally, he grabbed Miley’s badge, which was still hooked up to his hip, and asked why he didn’t just show it to him...
To Miley, the use of employee policing was of a piece with other policies that encouraged and institutionalized discrimination and racism. “They’re racist policies,” Miley said. “And they haven’t changed them.” And the fixes Pichai announced, including a $175-million fund to support Black business owners, founders and the rest of the community, are simply not enough.
“I don’t want a hundred million dollar commitment,” he said. “I don’t want a dollar figure attached to me. I want sustained investment in a community that you have ignored and I would like companies to admit they have ignored these communities”..._______________________________