Google Workers Petition For Equal Abortion Benefits

Google’s hundreds of employees have signed a petition sent to executives demanding extension of abortion care benefits to contract workers.

The workers also called to halt donations given to anti-abortion politicians and to expand travel benefits.

The petition, circulated by the Alphabet Workers Union, has been signed by over 650 employees at Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc.

Following the historic Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the company in June had announced benefits for full-time employees, including out-of-state medical procedures, but not to contract and temporary workers, known internally as TVCs. The company then said employees in affected states can apply for permanent relocation without giving any justification.

In the letter addressed to Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and other executives, members of the union requested the company to stop using gendered language when providing abortion resources.

They are also asking for a minimum of seven days of additional sick time as the workers will need to travel for significant periods to obtain health services.

The union also demanded protection of Google employees from corporate influence.

The letter said, “In order to align with Google’s core values (go/3-google-values), we demand that Alphabet acknowledges the impact this Supreme Court ruling has on all its workers and to immediately do the following: Protect all workers’ access to reproductive healthcare by setting a reproductive healthcare standard in the US Wages and Benefits Standards (go/alphabet-tvc-benefits-standards) including: Extending the same travel-for-healthcare benefits offered to FTEs to TVCs.”

According to the union, anti-abortion politicians are responsible for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe vs. Wade and continue to infringe on other human rights issues related to voting access and gun control.

As of July, the company has 174,014 full-time employees, and more than 100,000 contractors.

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