Caregivers at Google Children’s Centers need transportation assistance | Labor Rights Issues

Early childhood educators and caregivers who work at Google Children’s Centers say their low salaries make it difficult to stay close to Google’s schools, and refusing the company to help them with travel expenses shows a reduction in their work.

Google employees who provide child care and training for working children say the internet giant is urging them to return to office without reverting to the jobs they rely on, and is spreading a plea to the Alphabet Inc. team. to provide travel expenses to cover travel expenses.

“Transferring this money to important people, who earn less than the Googlers whose children care for them, is not acceptable,” according to the petition, which members of the Alphabet Workers Union wrote and began publishing on Friday. “Google can be an amazing solution, but it chooses not to solve this problem for caregivers.”

The petition, which in the first few hours was signed by about 200 employees, says that Google Children’s Centers employees have tried to get the matter out with managers, but to no avail: “The company’s response was ‘Travel is useless, not profit.'”

A Google spokesman said Friday that public services would be available “as soon as they were safe,” but declined to give a list.

The company added that child care workers were paid in full during the crisis when the Google Center was closed, and like all other Google employees received an additional $ 1,000 from home.

“We work hard to support all our partners, including our Google Educators at the Center for Children,” Google spokeswoman Shannon Newberry said in a statement. “We welcome feedback and will continue to work with any staff member who is concerned.”

Early childhood development and child care professionals work at four Google Children’s Center centers near the San Francisco Bay Area offices, with co-operative children supervising from infancy to five-year-olds.

In the midst of the epidemic they have provided activities such as yoga and reading to children. In an interview, employees said their low pay made it impossible to be close to Google schools, and refusing to support their movements showed it was an understatement.

“These are Googler’s children, children, and we support them, yet our work is not supervised,” said Denise Belardes, a local AWU leader who makes about $ 25 an hour as a child educator at Google.

Workers say they have been trying for weeks to raise the issue of transportation, and have been told to take care of themselves through problems such as driving. “We’re just invisible,” said AWU member Katrina de la Fuente. We are like stepchildren. ”

Some workers are expected to return to the office on Monday to prepare for the children’s classes to return later this month, according to staff at Google Children’s Center.

While many tech companies have moved to keep remote jobs stable, Google is inviting employees to return to their offices later this year, saying working in public promotes skills. The company has also redesigned its schools to provide more space between people and create co-operatives, with a mix of co-workers and at home.

Earlier this week, Google changed its rules to allow more people to work from home or from office. Following the collapse, the company said 60% of its employees would work on the site, a few days a week, while 20% would be able to work remotely.

Chief Executive Officer of Languages, Sundar Photosi also told staff that the company in 2021 will continue to offer “recovery” dates – some of the paid leave that Google used for the epidemic.

The Alphabet Workers Union, affiliated with Communications Workers of America, was launched in January. The group says it does not want to be approved or negotiated with the company, but wants to address workplace problems through promotions and demonstrations.

The National Labor Relations Board has filed a lawsuit filed by the AWU filed in February on behalf of a Google employee in South Carolina who had an agreement in South Carolina to resolve the dispute, while Google promised to comply with state law by not barring employees from receiving their salaries.