Google messes up layoffs, fails to honour medical leaves and insurance of fired employees

Google’s January bulk firings are still going on and not in a good way or one that would have helped the terminated employees. Employees are outraged over Google’s alleged mismanagement of its largest round of cutbacks ever, and they’re doing everything from walking out to writing furious emails to management.

Google employees in Europe are only now being put off as a result of the January statement. According to Reuters, the company’s Zurich, Switzerland, division laid off more than 200 employees this week. 

Google employees march out in protest
Employees at that workplace marched out a second time in protest of the move, offering to accept pay cutbacks or decrease working hours in order to avoid employment losses. However, Google’s layoffs appear to be motivated by a desire to appease the stock market, so it’s no wonder that these proposals fell on deaf ears.

Also read: Google layoffs were not based on performance, high performers with the highest ratings were fired

Many of the Swiss workers that marched out in protest are members of the IT workers’ union Syndicom, and a union spokesperson told Reuters, “Our members at Google Zurich and all employees joining the strike are demonstrating unity with those laid off. They are troubled by the lack of transparency in the redundancies and are particularly unhappy that Google is laying off employees at a time when the company is earning billions of dollars in profit each year.”

Google going back on pre-approved leave for laid-off workers
Current and past workers believe Google is being unfair to employees who were on medical or parental absence at the time of the cutbacks. According to CNBC, Google has chosen not to honour pre-approved leave for laid-off workers. 

Some Google employees have established a group called “Laid off on Leave,” which is trying to persuade Google to honour previously agreed-upon timelines for workers experiencing significant life changes. 

Making Google honour prior leave arrangements is about more than just paying workers who have medical or family problems; it’s also about providing continuous medical treatment when they need it the most. As part of Google’s (apparently abandoned) strategy to provide every perk conceivable to workers, the business has on-site medical facilities that many employees use.

Double standards?
While severance deals may include a few more months of health insurance, being dismissed means losing immediate access to Google’s amenities. If a laid-off Googler’s primary care doctor works there, he or she is out of luck, and some workers have told CNBC that they lost access to their physicians the moment the termination email came. Employees on vacation face additional challenges. 

Reports also claim that Google will not be covering medical or any other form of insurance of some of the terminated staff, whereas, a few others will have their covers honoured for a brief period of time after they are terminated.

Also read: Laid-off Google employees come together to start new venture; seek help on LinkedIn

According to the Laid off on Leave group, Google is presently showcasing its workplace commitments and its involvement in Women’s History Month through different goods and services initiatives. “However, Google does not live up to the image it projects to the world. We concur with you that it’s critical to acknowledge the challenges that continue to unfairly impact women in the workplace,” a statement from the group read.

Current employees write to the CEO
Another group of current Google employees wrote an open letter to CEO Sundar Pichai, requesting that the company continue to employ individuals while they are on medical leave, halt new hires during the layoff process, and prioritise re-hiring laid-off employees in the future. 

Also read: Tech layoffs in India: Google fires 453 employees in India, CEO Pichai takes responsibility

The letter also requests that Google guarantee that the firings are not discriminatory and that the company protects workers confronting humanitarian crises by not laying off visa-holders from Ukraine or Russia. So far, over 1,300 Google employees have endorsed the petition.

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