At the beginning of 2021, employees at Alphabet (Google’s parent company) organized and created the Alphabet Workers Union, which currently has 800 employees. Now they are actively campaigning to protect temporary employees and restore their legitimate wages.

According to a report by The Guardian, Google executives deliberately underpaid temporary workers from other countries for two years. At the moment, the number of temporary employees exceeds 100 thousand, and according to Whistleblower Aid, the amount of underpayments amounted to $100 million with expenses for temporary employees of about $800 million. And although the corporation admitted the mistake, after The Guardian article, and promised to fix it, in fact, this was not done.

Temporary employees in Goolge are considered second-class workers, luring them to positions with promises of permanent employment. They are paid several times less than employed workers, and they do not receive bonuses. And although there is no law on wage parity in the USA, but, for example, there is one in the UK. Therefore, the union demands that temporary workers be paid their unfairly withheld wages immediately, not only on the basis of equal pay fairness, but also on the basis of the laws of the countries in which these employees work. Especially since Google has enough revenue to do it.

For much of Google’s workforce, “Don’t be evil” is a smokescreen. It’s a way to reap the financial rewards of unquestioning public faith, by assuring investors, users and government entities that Google is trustworthy and friendly—while successfully underpaying and mistreating the majority of their workers.

We believe that all employees, regardless of the form of employment, gender or nationality, should receive equal and fair pay for the same work.