The agitated rift between full-time personnel and contract workers at Facebook and Google has just erupted. The employees now are figuring out who deserves to work from home amid an ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
Throughout this week, several tech giants asked their workers to work from home as a precautionary measure to avoid COVID-19 from spreading.
Google's parent company Alphabet asked all its North American personnel to telecommute by April 10, with that same guidance later driven out to the staff in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Facebook later has also extended its guidance to allow anyone whose job would enable them to do so to voluntarily work remotely through Friday, April 10.
Guidance not applicable to networks of subcontractors?
According to a couple of reports, companywide directives don't seem to apply to Facebook or Google's subcontractors and temps. These groups are employed by third-party groups and don't have access to the same benefits as full-time employees.
Contractors make up half of Google's total staff. Google's company policy prevents a few members of its so-called "extended workforce" from doing their responsibilities remotely.
A Google spokesperson told the Guardian that employees and contractors whose work required they be physically present on-site work were nonetheless required to work in. The corporation said on March 10 that it allocated a fund to provide paid sick leave to third- party contractors. However, it did not delve further into how approximately people would begin to see these advantages.
Which, understandably, isn't going over properly with a contingent of employees that have traditionally felt sidelined by Google's preferential treatment.
Josh Borden, a triage analyst for Google, told the Guardian the contractors' second-class status now has literal health implications. Because of this, he stated his fellow coworkers have started to sense that the organization's deserted them or that their health isn't considered a priority compared to full-time staffers.
The full-time employees, according to Borden, kept on heeding the employers to work at home. Borden added the contractors were "sitting in the Petri dish" with the choice of not being paid or getting sick --- which places their loved ones to get sick, too.
Third-party agencies, Facebook gave contradicting answers about contractors' options
That triumphing idea apparently isn't much one of a kind at Facebook, according to an Intercept report. Discussions from Facebook's internal worker discussion board reviewed by The Intercept gave a nation of confusion, fear, and resentment. Contrary to statements Facebook, contract workers claim they're barred by their employers from working from home, regardless of the technical feasibility and clean public health blessings of doing so.
Frustrating matters further, third-party employers and Facebook have purportedly given contradicting solutions about contractors' options ought to they want to call in sick. According to numerous employees at the discussion board, a third-party provider told Facebook that "contingent workers can select both unpaid sick leave or use PTO. They are not, however, allowed to have paid sick leave." However, another forum post from a Facebook worker in charge of the third-party group claimed the exact opposite. The worker claimed that "if any contingent employee falls ill and desires to take time to recover, they do not need to apply their sick or PTO leave."
A Facebook spokesperson told The Intercept that it's presently searching into ways to temporarily enable remote alternatives for jobs that generally require personnel to be at the workplace. The organization's also purportedly "taking extra steps to limit contact for those in the workplace.
