Google nixes paying out remainder of maternity and medical leave for laid-off employees
Summary
The group of former employees sent a letter to executives, including CEO Sundar Pichai and Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi, on three separate occasions, most recently on March 9, without receiving a response. “Exactly a week after receiving the text and sharing the exciting news that my maternity leave was approved, I got the already widely talked-about email letting me know that I was among the 12k terminated,” a Google program manager wrote on LinkedIn. The email to management also mentions the challenges faced by pregnant women who hadnt yet formally requested a leave of absence and as a result, "will have an even longer road to securing new roles given the points they’re at in their pregnancies." At a new employer, those women would have to wait a year for the benefits from the Family and Medical Leave Act to kick in, "rendering it impossible for expectant and new mothers to leverage the FMLA they paid for to the detriment of their health and their baby’s wellbeing," the group said. In an email to CNBC, the group of laid-off workers said Pichai was showing much greater concern for the companys effort to keep apace in the battle for artificial intelligence supremacy than it was for taking care of longtime staffers who were in need of help.