Google has improved family leave and health benefits for employees in the US with same-sex domestic partners, AFP reports.
The internet giant started adjusting pay for workers in same-sex relationships to offset income tax on health insurance benefits that covered partners, according to Cynthia Yeung of the firm's strategic development team.
Yeung wrote in a blog post that the company put same-sex couples on the same level as man / woman spouses regarding the amount of time off from work allowed for medical or family reasons.
Nearly 300 "Googlers" marched in the 40th annual San Francisco Pride Parade last Sunday.
"We braved the rain in Boston, enjoyed the sun in New York, rode a trolley in Chicago and marched with the Israel Gay Youth Organization in Tel Aviv and Haifa," Yeung said of Google workers taking part in such celebrations. "Googlers will be participating in EuroPride, held in Poland this year, as well as many other parades, including Tokyo for the first time. And we'll be celebrating Pride season in Singapore too."
Google proudly supports it's LGBT workers. The company opposed the successful initiative in California legally defining "marriage" as a union only between one man and one woman.
"While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality," Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, said when the company came out against Prop 8, the 2008 ballot initiative passed by the state's voters that November. "We should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love."
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