Yelp.Photo: HAYOUNG JEON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Yelp is joining three other major companies in offering to pay the travel costs for employees and their partners who need an abortion, in light ofTexas' highly restrictive law that bans abortions in the state after six weeks of pregnancy.
“As a remote-first company with a distributed workforce, this new benefit allows our U.S. employees and their dependents to have equitable access to reproductive care, regardless of where they live,” Miriam Warren, the company’s chief diversity officer, said in a statement shared with PEOPLE.
Last month, Citigroup bank announced that they would do the same for any workers in Texas, where they have more than 8,000 employees. A Texas legislator then warned the bank that he would create a law that would stop them from underwriting municipal bonds in the state, however he has yet to do so.
WarrentoldThe New York Timesthat Yelp is not concerned about any backlash from Texas, and expects that this benefit will help them retain and recruit employees.
“The ability to control your reproductive health, and whether or when you want to extend your family, is absolutely fundamental to being able to be successful in the workplace,” she said.
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Employees who use the benefit will submit receipts from their travel costs straight to their health insurance provider, shielding them from having to notify anyone at the company.
Yelp had donated money last fall to fight Texas' abortion bill along with similar legislation in other states. And in 2018, they initiated a system for users searching on Yelp that separates abortion clinics from “crisis pregnancy centers,” which try to stop people from having abortions.
“Our User Operations team manually reviewed more than 2,000 businesses and clinics to ensure accurate categorization,” Yelp said.
source: people.com
