Reports revealed: Google has illegally underpaid thousands of temp workers

Countries with "pay-parity" laws require equitable wages for full-time and temporary workers.

Google-underpaid-his-workers temporary-workers low-pay-parity

Recently, The Guardian and New York Times reports revealed that Google underpaid thousands of international contract workers, violating pay-parity laws in several countries.

 

In December, a group of Google managers discovered that the temporary staffs of the company had been underpaid from some years.

 

The NYT reports revealed that the gap between full time employees and temporary workers were quite significant. The shocking revelations were made after reviewing the company’s emails and documents. This was especially problematic in countries with so-called pay parity laws requiring the company to pay temporary workers the same wages as full-time employees in similar positions.

 

According to The Guardian, Google employs over 900 temporary workers throughout the UK, Ireland, India, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Poland - all of which enforce local pay-parity laws.

 

In response to The Guardian, Google accepted the mistakes related to the underpaying of several temporary staff. The tech giant has also assured of an investigation into the matter. 

 

Google’s Ireland-based manager Alan Barry said this could have given “rise to a flurry of noise/frustration."

 

“I'm also not keen to invite the charge that we've allowed this situation to persist for so long that the correction required is significant,” Barry wrote in an email which was quoted in the NYT report.

 

Also read: Whether Centre used Pegasus or not, can't be put on affidavit: Centre to SC

 

Spyro Karetsos, Google’s chief compliance officer, said in a statement, “While the team hasn’t increased the comparator rate benchmarks for some years, actual pay rates for temporary staff has increased numerous times in that period.”

 

“Nevertheless, it’s clear that this process has not been handled consistent with the high standards to which we hold ourselves as a company. We’re doing a thorough review, and we’re committed to identifying and addressing any pay discrepancies that the team has not already addressed. And we’ll be conducting a review of our compliance practices in this area. In short, we’re going to figure out what went wrong here and why it happened, and we’re going to make it right,” he added.

 



 


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