Facebook Take Its Turns To End Forced Arbitration For Sexual Harassment Claims

Since employees are putting more pressure on tech firms, Facebook has eventually put an end to forced arbitration with their sexual assault claims. Previously, the tech giant would handle the cases secretively, now victims can file their claims in open court.

Thanks to employees’ consistent pressure, the matter of forced arbitration came under the spotlight, especially when thousands of Google workers walked out last week. This walkout served as a protest after Google gave exit packages to executives committing sexual misconducts, the most horrible of which is a $90 million package for Andy Rubin. Yesterday, in an email that Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent to all employees, he announced that forced arbitration for sexual harassment cases would be ended at Google.

Back in last December, Microsoft did the same move, and in May, Uber followed this change.

These huge changes in big corporations are attributed to the hard work of huge employee outrage as well as individual whistleblowers such as Susan Fowler, former Uber engineer, though her case was not completed. Nevertheless, Class-action lawsuits, in certain situations, are still forbidden. Plus, Google did not announce this change to contractors, which means they still don’t get equally treated as the rest of the workforce, though Google heavily depends on them. In their Medium post yesterday, Google executives promised to work towards further reform.

Lori Golder, vice president of people, said to the Journal that Facebook wants to join other companies to take the next step at such a decisive moment. The social giant claimed an update on policy on dating among employees, which requires leaders to report their romantic relationship with another employee, even when that employee is not under their management.

Last year, in the first months of #MeToo movement, a campaign against sexual harassment, Facebook released full policy on internal harassment. However, earlier this year. It argued that forced arbitration is “official and appropriate.”