It's hard to imagine what it would feel like to wake up in your hospital bed and find out that you no longer have a job to get back to. Apparent;y, some employees at Google are experiencing just that as they are included in the ongoing layoffs that Google is conducting.
Laid Off on Medical Leave
Google in Europe still hasn't stopped with its layoffs since its announcement in January. Over 200 employees who worked in the Zurich and Switzerland company branches were affected. This resulted in the remaining employees reacting negatively toward management.
Some were said to be walking out and expressing their concerns through letters and sent them to the executives. The workers even went as far as offering to have their pay decreased and reduce work hours to prevent more job cuts, as mentioned in Ars Technica.
Employees who tried to reach out to the company had already lost access to the internal system and could only fill out a form on a different portal. Some received a response a week later. They added that the response seemed to be automated and mentions their unemployment.
Most of the employees in Switzerland who decided to walk out in protest were part of Syndicom, an IT workers union. A spokesperson representing the union expressed that they were providing support for those who lost their jobs by joining the walkout.
They also mentioned that they were "bothered" that Google was not transparent with the nature of the layoffs, also that the workers were disappointed with the company laying off employees when they were making billion in profit annually.
How It Affected Former Employees
In one case, a woman who had just gotten approval for her maternity leave was laid off the following week. Another one, also on maternity leave, received the bad news just a week before she was due to give birth.
Katie Howells, a Google employee who worked for the company for nine and a half years, said that she was in her hospital bed holding her hours-old newborn when she learned that she was part of the 12,000 who were laid off.
Although the workers affected by the workforce reduction would be given severance packages worth 16 weeks of pay and two more weeks for every year of employment, their access to the company's medical facilities has been cut off immediately after being fired.
Some of the former employees were still allowed to see the doctors working within Google but were advised to start finding replacements. Some of the employees also emphasized that this happened during Women's History Month.
This makes Google appear as though they are not true to what they claim, saying that they are showing its work commitment and participation in Women's History Month through different products and services campaign, as mentioned in CNBC.
Some hope that this was just a mistake, given that Google claims that they formed parental benefits to give new parents time for recovery and to spend with their new babies, which was mentioned by the company's executives.
