Hundreds of Google employees are petitioning the company to extend its abortion healthcare benefits to contract workers and to strengthen privacy protections for Google users searching for abortion information online.
Google parent company Alphabet had pledged to pay travel and other health care costs for employees seeking an out-of-state abortion and to help some workers relocate after the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the constitutional right to an abortion. The June decision overturning 1973′s Roe v. Wade ruling has paved the way for severe abortion restrictions or bans in nearly half of the U.S. states.
The benefits for abortion services offered by Google and other tech companies don’t cover contract workforces, which are common in the tech industry and often get paid less and have fewer perks than full-time employees.
A letter signed by more than 650 employees and sent this week to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other Alphabet executives calls for the inclusion of contractors in those benefits.
It also demands that the company cease any political donations or lobbying of politicians or organizations “responsible for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and continue to infringe on other human rights issues related to voting access and gun control.”
