The Google employees who walkedout were taking a public, collective stand in the broaderconversation about sexual harassment. (Photo: MichaelShort/Bloomberg)

The global walkout by Google workers, a response to AlphabetInc.'s reported protection of executives accused of sexual misconduct, may be a harbinger ofsomething new in employer-employee relations: empowered workers'moral-political protest directed as much against the general culture as against management.

Although the walkout is connected in a broad sense to workplaceconditions, this isn't the trade union strike of old. Google's workers aremainly professionals: engineers, not laborers. They have well-paid,high-prestige jobs at a company known for recruiting top employees.Not all of the thousands of workers who walked out were personalvictims of workplace sexual harassment.

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