Google employees are fighting to end all forced arbitration

Google CEO Sundar Pichai might just want to check his Twitter tomorrow.

A group called Googlers for Ending Forced Arbitration will hold a tweetstorm on Tuesday, January 15, to educate the public about forced arbitration agreements and advocate for their removal from tech industry contacts. The group, that says it is run by organizers of the Google Walkouts and dozens of other employees, announced the plan in a Medium blog post to inform people about "how forced arbitration denies 60 million Americans access to their civil rights."

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On November 1, 20,000 Google employees around the globe participated in a walkout to demand changes to workplace discrimination and diversity. The walkout came in response to a New York Times report about Google's tendency to elide sexual misconduct, including the revelations of how former Google executive Andy Rubin received a $96 million payout to leave the company after allegedly sexually harassing employees.

The demands of employees included ending forced arbitration for sexual harassment cases, an overhaul to how it treats sexual misconduct overall, a recommitment to diversity hiring initiatives and accountability, and more employee participation at the executive level.

Google responded one week later meeting some of the employee demands. That included removing forced arbitration for sexual misconduct from employee contracts. Facebook and several other tech companies followed suit in the days after the Google announcement.

But the employees behind the walkout and new End Forced Arbitration campaign say that's not enough. They want to strike forced arbitration from employee contracts for all potential grievances, not just sexual harassment.

"The change yielded a win in the headlines, but provided no meaningful gains for worker equity," the blog post reads. "Ending forced arbitration is the gateway change needed to transparently address inequity in the workplace."

Forced arbitration prevents employees from taking their employers to court. It has been show to benefit employers financially. The practice is the focus of two bills in congress, which would prevent forced arbitration in cases of discrimination against protected groups.

So to put pressure on Google, the tech industry as a whole, and Congress, the group will hold a Twitter "public education campaign" from 9am — 6pm EST on Tuesday, January 15 through their Twitter handle (@endforcedarb) and the hashtag #EndForcedArbitration.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai follows 330 accounts on Twitter, and @EndForcedArb is not one of them. We've reached out to Google to learn whether he'll follow the account, and if Pichai will be tuning in.