Companies around the world have encouraged employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. While some have made vaccination mandatory for employees returning to offices, others are not so strict about it. According to a CNBC report, several hundreds of Google employees have urged the company to reconsider its vaccine mandate. According to the report, Google had asked over 1.5 lakh employees to upload their vaccination status on its internal system. Google also said that the employees who are working on government contracts should be vaccinated compulsorily. In an email sent to all employees in October, Google’s vice president of security, Chris Racko, said, “Vaccines are the key to a safe return to the office for everyone and our ability to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.” ,
However, about 600 Google employees have circulated a manifesto and called the company’s vaccine policy “flawed.” The manifesto, written by an unnamed Google employee, said that barring unvaccinated employees from returning to the office “possibly shamefully highlights a personal preference as it would be difficult for a Googler to explain why they returned”. Can’t come.”
In addition, the manifesto states that employees will not be comfortable expressing their true feelings about the company’s health policy and other unrelated sensitive topics. “This muted perspective results in and enhances the internal ideological ‘echo room’ that people inside and outside Google have seen over the years,” the manifesto said.
The CNBC report also shows that some employees believe that Google should not keep information about the health and medical histories of its employees.
These employees also believe that if the vaccine mandate is accepted, it could lead to more intrusive steps on the part of the company. “This normalizes the compulsion of medical intervention not only for COVID-19 vaccination but for future vaccines and possibly non-vaccine interventions,” the manifesto said. Since Google is an industry leader, its mandate “could influence companies around the world to regard these as acceptable tradeoffs,” the employees argue.
Google has not made it mandatory for all its employees to get vaccinated. However, it is not changing its stance. A Google spokesperson told CNBC that the company stands behind its policy: “As we have told all of our employees and the authors of this document, our vaccination requirements are one of the most important ways we can keep our workforce safe.” can.” We can and our services are running. We stand firmly by our vaccination policy.”
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