CEO of Salesforce Marc Benioff attends a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and private sector CEOs in the State Dining Room of the White House on January 26, 2022 in Washington, DC.
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Salesforce told employees in a Slack message on Thursday that the company will help them relocate if they’re worried about access to abortions or other medical procedures following an expected ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that would strike down Roe v. Wade.
“If you have concerns about access to critical health care in your state, Salesforce will provide financial support for travel, available through our health care providers, and/or help relocate you and members of your immediate family,” Brent Hyder, Salesforce’s president and chief people officer, wrote in the Slack post, which was viewed by CNBC.
A Salesforce representative declined to comment.
Salesforce and other large tech companies have committed to covering travel costs for their workers who may need to travel for abortions. They started letting employees know about that option after a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion last week revealed the high court’s apparent intent to overturn the 1973 ruling that made access to a safe abortion a constitutional right.
Of the 50 U.S. states, 26 would or are likely to ban abortion if Roe is overturned, according to the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute.
Hyder referred employees to information available internally on travel and relocation services for reproductive health care. He said Lori Castillo Martinez, the company’s chief equality officer, “and I want to acknowledge that the recent news on this topic is deeply personal for many, especially women.”
The company is also offering counseling from Lyra Health, a start-up focused on providing mental health services to businesses and other organizations.
“If you are struggling with the recent news on reproductive healthcare, a Lyra counselor will be facilitating small group sessions (max 25 people) focused on guiding employees through ways you can cope with stress,” Hyder wrote.
Amazon and Apple have agreed to reimburse their employees who get abortions in other states, CNBC reported a day after the draft opinion leaked. Microsoft has also joined the fray.
“Microsoft will continue to do everything we can under the law to protect our employees’ rights and support employees and their enrolled dependents in accessing critical healthcare – which already includes services like abortion and gender-affirming care – regardless of where they live across the U.S.,” a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in an email. “This support is being extended to include travel expense assistance for these and other medical services where access to care is limited in availability in an employee’s home geographic region.”
Salesforce has been outspoken on social issues in the past, including in September, when co-CEO Marc Benioff said on Twitter that the company would help employees leave Texas after an anti-abortion law in the state went into effect.
In 2015, Benioff said Salesforce was being “forced to dramatically reduce our investment” in Indiana because customers and employees were unhappy about the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Critics worried that the law would allow businesses to deny services to LGBTQ people on religious grounds. Salesforce has a big presence in Indiana because it’s the home of ExactTarget, which Salesforce acquired for $2.5 billion in 2013.
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