Thousands of Google LLC employees across the world staged a walkout Thursday, some of them clutching placards demanding that the company make some serious changes regarding sexual misconduct and pay equity for women.

At its Silicon Valley headquarters in Mountain View, known as the Googleplex, several hundred employees mounted a protest. They were joined by hundreds more employees at the company’s Chelsea headquarters in New York City as well as more disgruntled protesting staff at offices in London, Singapore, Tokyo, Berlin and Zurich.

The mass demonstrations come after Google admitted late in October that 48 staff, some of them managers, had been dismissed over allegations of sexual misconduct. That came after the New York Times revealed that some of those let go had walked out the door with handsome golden handshakes.

One of those employees was Android creator, Andy Rubin, who allegedly was told to leave the company by co-founder Larry Page after being accused of sexual misconduct. In photographs you can see one Google employee holding a sign that reads, “Happy to quit for $90 million. No sexual harassment required.”

“This walkout is the culmination of a fast, furious week and the work of more than 1,000 people,” Claire Stapleton, a protest organizer, told a crowd in New York’s 14th Street Park, as reported by The Verge. “I don’t know what it will take to change the system, but I do know that we are a crazy force to be reckoned with.”

In San Francisco, employees could be seen holding signs saying, “Time’s Up Tech” and “Worker’s Rights Are Women’s Rights.” Despite a misplaced apostrophe, the demands were specific: Workers want transparency, not secret internal investigations; they want a safer workplace, an end to pay inequality; and an end to forced arbitration in sexual misconduct cases.

At the walkout in San Francisco, The Guardian reports that one woman told her story of being dragged out of an event after a male staff member had switched drinks with her and she had become unaware of her surroundings.

“Hey Google, you can’t erase us,” she told the crowd. “The first thing that HR did was silence me,” she added, saying that nothing happened, and she was even told to carry on working with the accused staff member.

“I understand the anger and disappointment that many of you feel,” said Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai in an email to staff. “I feel it as well, and I am fully committed to making progress on an issue that has persisted for far too long in our society… and, yes, here at Google, too.”

Photo: YouTube