Google's salary hike for 4 executives triggers complaints and questions from rank-and-file staff about pay: 'I think it's disgusting.'

Google reported another record quarter in October, raking in revenue of $65.1 billion and almost $20 billion in profit.

The filing prompted grumblings from employees who see the pay increases as inconsistent with Google's announcement that it would enforce pay cuts for fully remote workers and its failure to properly compensate thousands of temps, contractors, and external vendors, known internally as TVCs. 

Four full-time Google employees, based in the US, criticized the exec pay boost to Insider.

Parul Koul, a Google employee and chair of the Alphabet Workers Union, told Insider it was "unacceptable" that Google was "cutting some remote workers' pay while bloating the salaries of a few executives." 

Googlers are well paid but concerned by pay decisions around location and temp staff

Google does not openly discuss salaries, but full-time staff can expect generous compensation that generally consists of base salary, bonus, and stock awards.

An Insider analysis from 2021 found a software engineer, for example, can earn a base salary between $102,000 and $300,000, excluding stock awards and bonuses. And according to leaked audio of a recent all-hands meeting obtained by CNBC, when workers asked Google execs about pay and inflation, the company said it was paying people more to stay competitive.

But some policies, such as Google's decision to cut pay as much as 15% for employees who permanently move away from its Silicon Valley or New York hubs, frustrate rank-and-file workers nonetheless.

One senior employee at the company's Cloud division, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, describing the situation as "infuriating."

They told Insider this week: "Surely my value to the company should be based on results, not where I'm physically sat when I get those results?"

A Google spokesperson previously told Insider: "We're giving Googlers more flexibility in where they work, and making it easy for them to explore their options with a new tool that shows how compensation varies between locations.

"Whether their individual compensation would move up, down, or remain the same depends on the location change they're exploring. Wherever our employees choose to move, we always aim to pay at the top of the local market."

"It's not that the execs shouldn't get any special treatment," another California-based software engineer added. "That's what you get for spending every waking hour, and probably your dreams too, thinking about Google.

"But when you've got all these other issues pissing people off, it's not a great look."  

One of those other issues: Exec pay went up months after reports became public that Google had illegally underpaid thousands of its temp workers around the world.

"Honestly, I think it's disgusting," one current mid-level manager at the company said. "There's so much in the news about Google all the time, like a constant cycle, that I think people actually lose track.

"Seriously, put these two facts next to each other: On the one hand, you've got millionaire executives getting paid millions more," the employee continued, "and on the other, you've got the TVCs, who don't get any of the usual Google perks, not even being paid the basic wage they're entitled to."

In September, The New York Times and The Guardian reported that Google had violated pay-parity laws in parts of Europe and Asia, where companies are required to pay equitable wages to full-time and temporary workers who perform similar duties, a rule that does not apply in the US.

Google's compliance department reportedly discovered the mistake in May 2019, but chose not to provide the $100 million or so in back pay owed to temporary staff, instead only correcting rates for new employees in the hopes of avoiding legal trouble. 

In a blog post written at the time, Google launched an internal review and admitted the situation had not been "handled consistent with the high standards to which we hold ourselves as a company."

"Google should equitably compensate both their full-time employees and TVCs, so that all workers can receive their fair share," AWU's Koul told Insider. 

Do you work at Google? Got a tip? Contact reporter Martin Coulter via email at mcoulter@businessinsider.com, or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +447801985586.