Re:Google Engineers Organizing a Walk Out to Protest the Pro...
by dragonwriter on Monday October 29, 2018 @06:48PM
(#18332346)
> He then landed as SVP of engineering at Uber, where he was forced to resign because he hadn't disclosed the prior HR complaint at Google. Now, obviously, the lack of disclosure is what did him in -- but why did Google not tell Uber that he was asked to leave during his background check?
Likely, because his contract (executives are almost never at-will employees) included a mutual non-disparagement clause, which literally prevents either party from ever saying anything negative about the other.
> No, I do not believe for a second that Google settled to "protect" the victim
No, they did it to protect themselves. The fact that the route to Rubin winning would—as it always is in harassment cases—been destroying the victim further was probably incidental to Google, but no less true for that.
> The climate of 2018 makes me believe that was a fundamental mistake and the company should have fought back to not pay money that a labor attorney could argue was not owed.
I'm not sure even in 2018 it would look better for Google to have fought, lost, and left the accuser as collateral damage. Oh, it would be better optics if they fought and won without the victim's life being further destroyed, but whether that actually was the rational expectation at the time seems far from clear.
Likely, because his contract (executives are almost never at-will employees) included a mutual non-disparagement clause, which literally prevents either party from ever saying anything negative about the other.
> No, I do not believe for a second that Google settled to "protect" the victim
No, they did it to protect themselves. The fact that the route to Rubin winning would—as it always is in harassment cases—been destroying the victim further was probably incidental to Google, but no less true for that.
> The climate of 2018 makes me believe that was a fundamental mistake and the company should have fought back to not pay money that a labor attorney could argue was not owed.
I'm not sure even in 2018 it would look better for Google to have fought, lost, and left the accuser as collateral damage. Oh, it would be better optics if they fought and won without the victim's life being further destroyed, but whether that actually was the rational expectation at the time seems far from clear.