https://www.wired.com/story/google-require-suppliers-give-benefits-workers/

Silicon Valley’s use of nontraditional employment arrangements, where workers typically aren’t afforded the same privileges as employees, has grown faster than full-time jobs, even as tech giants come under fire for their treatment of Uber drivers, Google cafeteria workers, or Facebook content moderators. But after sustained protest from contractors and employees, Google said Tuesday it will require outside companies that supply it labor to offer better working conditions, including comprehensive health care, 12 weeks of parental leave, and a $15-per-hour minimum wage.

Google’s policy change arrives amid a wider reckoning over Silicon Valley’s impact, from income inequality to workers rights. Last week, thousands of Uber drivers protested an abrupt move to cut per-mile fares by 25 percent, as the company prepares to go public; that was followed by an anonymous letter from an Uber engineer urging employees to support drivers. Days before Lyft’s IPO, a California lawmaker declined to exempt Uber, Lyft, and other gig-economy tech companies from a bill that would limit employers’ use of independent contractors and force them to classify more workers as employees, making them eligible for overtime, Social Security, unemployment, disability insurance, and other benefits. “Am I concerned about the stock price of Uber and Lyft?” the bill’s author, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego), told the Los Angeles Times. “No. It doesn’t keep me up at night.”