New Delhi: Google caught in the eye of the storm allegedly underpaid thousands of temporary workers in multiple countries. The allegations against the technology giant claim that it violated pay parity in several countries.
Google has also been accused of delaying its wage rate correction for more than two years while trying to cover up the problem that has ravaged several of its offices around the world.
Google’s compliance department identified an underpaid issue in the UK, Europe and Asia in May 2019. But their top officials choose not to fairly compensate the underpaid temporary workers.
However, the new hires received wages at corrected rates so that the boiling mass could be pressed into place. Google has allegedly avoided legal, financial, and reputational damage with such a practice, according to a report by The Guardian.
The report on access to internal Google Docs and emails brought the whole matter to the fore. Ireland-based Google executive Alan Barry also feared that the temps would have found out about the whole affair if the company hiked wages, according to a report in the New York Times. This could have caused “a whirlwind of noise / frustration”.
“Nor do I want to make the charge that we are letting this situation persist so long that the correction needed is substantial,” wrote Barry in an email quoted in the NYT report.
In its response to the Guardian, Google accepted the errors related to underpaying several temporary workers. The tech giant has also pledged an investigation into the matter.
“While the team hasn’t increased the benchmark rate benchmarks in a number of years, actual temp wage rates have increased many times over during that period,” said Spyro Karetsos, Google’s chief compliance officer, in a statement.
“Most temporary workers are paid well above the comparable rates… However, it is clear that this process was not carried out according to the high standards that we as a company set ourselves. We are doing a thorough review and are committed to identifying and addressing any pay gap that the team has not yet addressed. Also Read: Royal Enfield Himalayan Receives Second Price Increase In Two Months: Check Out New Price And Features
“And we will be conducting a review of our compliance practices in this area. In short, we’re going to find out what went wrong here, why it happened, and we’re going to get it right. ”Also read: Here’s why Zomato has stopped its grocery delivery service
