Pay for Gays: Google to compensate gay partnered employees for unfair tax on benefits
”We said, ‘You’re right, that doesn’t seem fair,’ so we looked into it…. From that initial suggestion, we said, let’s take a look at all the benefits we offer and see if we are being truly fair across the board.”
Laszlo Bock, the VP of Google‘s “people operations” telling the New York Times the rationale behind the internet giant’s decision to compensate gay employees an extra benefit. Since gay employees are not allowed to be legally married, any health benefits that a domestic partner receives will be taxed as income by the government. So, Google plans to pay partnered employees, who are gay or lesbian, an added amout to balance out the extra, unfair cost. However, heterosexual employees will not qualify for this particular compensation because they do have the option to be legally married and not be subject to the tax. (New York Times)
”There’s a potential for a reverse discrimination suit because of the equal pay for equal work statute which says that if I’m doing the same job as the person next to me that my marital status or sexual orientation shouldn’t be taken into consideration. It’s my work performance that should be taken into consideration.”
Lis Wiehl, a Fox News analyst, looking for a negative spin on Google‘s announcement that the company will compensate gay employees for unfair taxes on benefits for their unmarried partners. (Fox News)
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