TIME'S UP Addresses Google Leadership to Ask for Complete Data on Pay Equity, Supports Movement of Googlers Fighting Sexual Harassment and Retaliation at Google Offices Worldwide

For the first time ever, TIME'S UP is leveraging shareholder advocacy in its fight for safe, fair and dignified workplaces by speaking at the annual shareholder meeting of Alphabet (Google), one of the world's largest publicly traded companies. Speaking on behalf of TIME'S UP, Arjuna Capital and Proxy Impact, Sky Kelley, member of TIME'S UP, founder & CEO of Avisare and one of the first African American women ever to raise more than $1 million in venture capital funding, will challenge Google's practice of withholding information about the “median gender and race pay gap.” Read Sky Kelley's prepared remakrs below.

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What Is Shareholder Advocacy?

Shareholder advocacy is a way that shareholders can influence a corporation's behavior by exercising their rights as partial owners. Natasha Lamb of Arjuna Capital is one such shareholder advocate. She has used shareholder resolutions to promote gender pay equity in the tech, banking, and retail sectors and is partnering with TIME'S UP on the “median pay gap” proposal before Google.

Google employees are also leveraging shareholder advocacy to work to ban non-disclosure agreements in harassment and discrimination cases as part of their continued, organized opposition to rampant sexual harassment and retaliation at Alphabet companies and offices worldwide.

What Is TIME'S UP Asking Google to Do?

TIME'S UP is asking Alphabet to release the data about median pay for women and people of color who work at Google. These data are required to be released in the United Kingdom, but Google has refused to release these data worldwide, including in the United States. From Google's median gender pay gap disclosure in the United Kingdom, we've learned that women earn on average 16 percent less than men per pound in salary, 27 percent less than men per pound in bonuses, and make up only 22 percent of the highest paid positions.

TIME'S UP also supports efforts by shareholders and employees to prohibit non-disclosure agreements in cases of harassment, as well as tie executive compensation to diversity goals.

What Is the Median Gender Pay Gap?

The “median gender pay gap” is simply median pay of women working full time versus men working full time. It is an unadjusted raw measure used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to assess not only equal pay but equal opportunity by factoring in how many women serve in high-ranking roles. When you hear people say, “women make only 80 cents for each dollar a man makes,” they're actually talking about the “median gender pay gap.” To learn more, click here.

Why Isn't "Equal Pay for Equal Work" Data Good Enough?

The “equal pay gap” looks at what women are paid versus their direct male peers, statistically adjusted for factors such as job, seniority, and geography. In other words, “equal pay” data answer the question, does a woman front-end developer with three years' work experience make the same as a male front-end developer with three years' work experience at Google? But “equal pay” is only half the story. The “median pay gap” measures whether or not women and people of color are holding as many high-paying jobs as men and white people. Put another way, “median pay” data answer the question of whether women and people of color have the same access to advancement men and white people do at Google. To learn more, click here.

Apart from being important on their own, the issues of equal pay and harassment are also intertwined. A 2016 survey found that 60% of women in tech have faced unwanted sexual advances at work. When women experience this form of discrimination, it can be harder for them to advance in their careers, ultimately contributing to the “median pay gap.”

Sky Kelley's Prepared Remarks

Prepared Remarks for Sky Kelley
To Deliver Before Alphabet Shareholders
June 19, 2019, 9am PT
Sunnyvale, CA

Hello, everyone. My name is Sky Kelley and I am representing TIME'S UP today to move proposal #9 on behalf of the filers Arjuna Capital and Proxy Impact, asking for a report on the global median gender and racial pay gap.

By way of introduction, I started a company called Avisare which is a procurement platform that drives inclusivity and innovation by helping big companies and governments hire small and diverse businesses.

Being a woman in tech is hard. Being a woman of color in tech? Harder. Our struggle is only made worse when companies like Google refuse to release data about both equal pay and equal opportunity, also known as the “median pay gap.”

The median pay gap for women working full time in the U.S. is 20 points -- in other words, women make 80 cents on the dollar versus men. But when you intersect race and gender, the difference is even more profound. Black women make 60 cents on the dollar, and Latinas only 55 cents.

What is the cost of this? The cost is half a million dollars over the course of a career.

That's owning a home.
That's sending our kids to college.
That's being able to retire, and to retire with stability.  

This is the fourth year this proposal has gone to a vote, and while we commend Google for taking a first step last year when it published statistically adjusted equal pay for equal work numbers, we request more. Because those numbers tell only half the story.

It's time that you do for your company worldwide what you are already obligated to do in the United Kingdom: release the data about median pay for women and people of color who work at Google.   

TIME'S UP emerged out of the global reckoning sparked by the abuse of women by powerful men across industries. We insist upon a world where work is safe, fair, and equitable and we will NOT stand for being blocked from leadership opportunities, or paid less than our worth.

I don't need to tell you who TIME'S UP is. You feel our influence today, as employees continue  to protest harassment and discrimination at your company, including pay inequities that even the U.S. Department of Labor has called  "extreme" and "systemic."

Enough.

You are one of the world's largest publicly traded companies. More than 30,000 women work at your company. Your motto is “do the right thing.”

We ask that you report on the global median gender and racial pay gap so you can finally “do the right thing” by working to close it.