San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Google contract workers feel left in the shadows
Every day, tens of thousands of people stream into Google offices wearing red name badges. They eat in Google’s cafeterias, ride its commuter shuttles and work alongside its celebrated geeks. But they can’t access all of the company’s celebrated perks. They aren’t entitled to stock and can’t enter certain offices. Many don’t have health insurance.
Before each weekly Google all-hands meeting, trays of hors d’oeuvres and, sometimes, kegs of beer are carted into an auditorium and satellite offices around the globe for employees, who wear white badges. Those without white badges are asked to return to their desks.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, employs hordes of these redbadged contract workers in addition to its fullfledged staff. They serve meals and clean offices. They write code, handle sales calls, recruit staff, screen YouTube videos, test self-driving cars and even manage entire teams — a sea of skilled laborers that fuel the $860 billion company but reap few of the benefits and opportunities available to direct employees. Earlier this year, those contractors outnumbered direct employees for the first time in the company’s twentyyear history, according to a person who viewed the numbers on an internal company database. It’s unclear whether that is still the case. Alphabet reported 89,058 direct employees at the end of the second quarter. The company declined to comment on the number of contract workers.
Other companies, such as Apple and Facebook, also rely on a steady influx of contractors. Investors watch employee headcount closely at these tech powerhouses. Hiring contractors keeps the official headcount low, and frees up millions of dollars to retain superstars in fields like artificial intelligence.
The result is an invisible workforce, off the company payrolls, that does the grunt work for the Silicon Valley giants with few of the rewards. “Many of these workers don’t have a voice on the job. They don’t necessarily get the benefits that many of us think about when working at a big, glitzy tech company,” said Maria Noel Fernandez, campaign director for Silicon Valley Rising, a union-backed group based in San Jose that serves as an advocate on labor and housing issues. “And they’re not really part of this wealth.”
Contractors are on the rise at Google as the company spreads into new markets. Conversations with more than 10 former contractors for Google and other Alphabet units paint a portrait of a permanent underclass. Google has a name for them: TVCs, or “temps, vendors and contractors.” Many current and former contract workers and full employees declined to speak on the record because they didn’t want to jeopardize their employment.
Yana Calou, an organizer with advocacy group Coworker.org who speaks with Google employees and contractors, said that both groups are concerned about the workers who aren’t full Google employees. “They feel isolated, precarious and like second-class citizens,” Calou said. “It’s a microcosm of what’s happening in the economy as a whole.”
In an email, a Google spokeswoman said the company hires TVCs for two primary purposes. One is when the company doesn’t have a particular expertise in-house, such as shuttle bus drivers, quality assurance testers and doctors. Another is for filling temporary positions to cover for parental leave or heavy workloads.
Some contract workers viewed Google as a generous workplace that boosted their careers. Still, many felt peripheral. Several noted the subtle slights apparent from their arrival. The first thing people eye at work, one former TVC recalled, is the color of someone’s badge. TVCs aren’t trusted with tasks outside their limited purview.
“People look down on you even though you’re doing the same work,” said one contractor who spent two years at Google managing other employees. Said another ex-temp: “You’re there, but you’re not there.”
Google’s initial flood of contractors came with its first “moonshot.” Dozens of temporary workers were hired, more than a decade ago, to photocopy dog-eared pages for the company’s free digital library, Google Books. Like the company itself, the number of temporary workers has grown wildly.
In 2017, the company pledged to hire up to 10,000 content moderators in 2018 after mounting criticism of offensive videos on YouTube. Some of these moderators are full-fledged staff, but Google declined to say how many or provide an update.
Several former contractors noted that Google does offer benefits for contractors that other large companies don’t. TVCs can eat at cafeterias for free and use some company facilities like its bowling alleys and gyms. Some highlights, however, come with an asterisk. To ride Google shuttles, which ferry staff to campus for free, TVCs must pay for each ride. In an email, a Google spokeswoman said that it charges TVCs less than $2 per ride, and if it provided TVCs with free shuttle service, that would be considered a taxable benefit. Several former TVCs said they did not receive pay for sick days.
The largest burden for many contractors is health care. All the contractors Bloomberg News spoke with said the contracting agencies, which are responsible for health insurance, offered either inadequate plans or none. One former TVC, who worked for Adecco, said he paid roughly $600 out of pocket a month for coverage to treat diabetes. “Adecco’s only around for [human resources] and crappy benefits,” this person said.
Google referred inquiries about benefits for contractor employees to the companies that directly employ them, but said its company culture requires that everyone is treated with care and respect. Adecco spokeswoman Mary Beth Waddill said the contractor does not disclose the terms of its contracts with clients, but that “we take great pride in being an industry leader who continually works to create meaningful career opportunities for all of our employees.”
In recent years, Google has brought some contract positions in-house. Following criticism, in 2014 it announced that some security guards would become direct staff. Most contractors do not work longer than two-year stints, according to multiple contract workers, but some serve multiple terms on the hopes of becoming direct employees. Google did not provide data on how many achieve that.
Mark Bergen and Josh Eidelson are Bloomberg writers. Email: mbergen10 @bloomberg.net, jeidelson @bloomberg.net