Over 650 Google employees have signed a petition asking CEO Sundar Pichai and other top executives to protect people’s abortion-related search and location data, according to the Alphabet Worker’s Union on Twitter, a union of employees and contractors for Google’s parent company, on Thursday.
Along with demands to protect user data, the AWU is demanding that benefits be increased and extended to all workers who fall under Google’s umbrella.
The AWU says it’s unacceptable that access to reproductive care is limited to those in employee resource groups, which only include full-time employees. This excludes temps, vendors and contractors, which is over half of Google’s work force, according to the AWU. The union wants additional benefits, such as an increase in reimbursements for people who seek health care to help cover costs of travel and lost wages.
In addition, the AWU is demanding that Google stop donating to anti-abortion politicians and political action committees.
The AWU didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The petition comes after a story broke earlier this month of Facebook providing Messenger data between a teenager and her mother to law enforcement. The mother is facing criminal charges for allegedly helping her daughter abort, bury and burn her fetus. The mother pleaded not guilty. Facebook has already begun testing end-to-end encryption on Messenger.
Democratic politicians have called on tech companies to protect user data for those seeking reproductive care and for Google Search to fix misleading results for “anti-abortion fake clinics” and crisis pregnancy centers. Considering data from mapping, messaging and period-tracking applications could be used to prosecute women, it’s created a conundrum for tech companies, advocates and politicians.
After Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that made abortion access a constitutional right, was overturned in June by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jason Women’s Health Organization, Google’s chief people officer, Fiona Cicconi, sent out a letter informing employees of their health care benefits, which includes out-of-state medical procedures. Googlers can also relocate to a different state without justification.
Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
