Life at Google is going to get a lot better for these employees.
In a win for its contracted and temporary workers, Google has decided they will receive full benefits.
According to a memo provided exclusively to The Hill from Eileen Naughton, vice president of people operations at Google, by 2022 the employees will need to receive health care, 12 weeks of paid parental leave and tuition reimbursement of at least $5,000 a year. They will need to earn a minimum wage of $15 an hour by 2020.
This change affects all of the employees in the United States who are hired by companies that are contracted by Google, including temporary and part-time workers. It comes in the wake of employee protests, including a walkout by about 20,000 full-time and temporary, vendor, and contract workers back in December. They wrote an open letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, demanding "transparency, accountability, and structural change to ensure equity for all Google workers."
"We do essential work, from marketing, to running engineering teams, to feeding you and the rest of the Google staff—all without fair benefits or recognition," the letter said. "Google cannot function without us."
Maria Noel Fernandez, campaign director for employee advocacy group Silicon Valley Rising, said this is exactly what the workers were fighting for.
"Providing tens of thousands of workers with family-supporting benefits, healthcare coverage, parental leave and a $15 minimum wage is a huge win for the thousands of janitors, food service workers, shuttle bus drivers and other contract workers who organized protests, petitions and walkouts over past few years," she said in a statement to CNN.
Naughton explained Google is implementing these benefits in the U.S. first so it can set a standard.
"These are meaningful changes, and we’re starting in the U.S., where comprehensive healthcare and paid parental leave are not mandated by U.S. law," she wrote. "As we learn from our implementation here, we’ll identify and address areas of potential improvement in other areas of the world. Stay tuned for more to come as we continue our work in this area."