Google employees form union with 226 card-carrying members: report

More than 200 Google employees have formed a union that aims to pressure the tech titan to live up to his old motto: “Don’t be mean.”

The Alphabet Workers Union, named after the parent company of Google, has drawn 226 card-carrying members who are fed up with bosses dismissing concerns about discrimination, harassment and other issues in the workplace, according to the leaders of the group.

“Whenever workers organize to demand change, Alphabet executives make token promises, doing the bare minimum in hopes of appeasing workers,” wrote Parul Koul and Chewy Shaw, software engineers at Google who occupy the positions of executive chairman and vice chairman of the New York Times Editorial Union on Monday. “It’s not enough.”

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The unionization drive follows years of employee activism at Google, which has drawn fire for failing to address internal issues such as sexual misconduct and retaliation against workers who speak out. And experts say it could inspire workers at other tech companies to follow suit.

“It’s a huge shot not just for Google, but for Silicon Valley,” Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities told the Post. “It could have a massive ripple effect with all the discontent we see from employees in tech who’s who.”

The Alphabet Workers Union is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America and represents a tiny fraction of the estimated 120,000 workers in Silicon Valley society. But it’s the stated mission of union leaders who hope to include Alphabet workers of all stripes – “from bus drivers to programmers, from salespeople to janitors” – that makes it a topic to watch.

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“We’re not talking about a monolithic demographics,” said corporate governance expert Eleanor Bloxham. “We’re talking about engineers joining less skilled workers in this effort.”

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Bloxham called the union a “monumental achievement” and said it could give workers at other companies like Facebook and Amazon a role model to follow because they “see how it can be done.”

CWA, which has worked quietly with Google staff for over a year, certainly hopes to replicate its success elsewhere. Alphabet’s union “will provide a great example for other workers at other companies who may be interested in doing something similar,” Beth Allen, CWA communications director, told the Post.

Allen declined to name specific companies, but said there were “a lot of different organizations going on in tech and elsewhere right now.

But Silicon Valley has a difficult history with labor organizing. Amazon, for example, has waged an ongoing battle against unionizing workers with a November Motherboard report revealing that the e-commerce titan had hired spies from the legendary Pinkerton agency to monitor the organization’s efforts in Europe.

Uber, meanwhile, fought tooth and nail to make sure it wouldn’t have to recognize its California drivers as full-fledged employees.

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And the National Labor Relations Board ruled last month that Google was illegally monitoring and then sacking several workers who had protested its policies and tried to form a union.

“Our employees have protected the labor rights we support,” said Kara Silverstein, director of human operations at Google. “But as we always have, we will continue to engage directly with all of our employees.”

One of the group’s goals will be to tackle inequalities between employees and contractors, who receive less money and receive fewer benefits despite often doing the exact same job.

“They are also more likely to be black or brown – a segregated employment system that keeps half of the company’s workforce in second-class roles,” Koul and Shaw wrote in their editorial. .

They criticized Google’s work with the US Department of Defense and “repressive” governments in places like China, where the company has dropped plans to launch a censored search engine in response to internal activism .

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They also cited the ousting in December of Timnit Gebru, a black artificial intelligence researcher who said she was fired after criticizing Google’s diversity efforts. Google disputed Gebru’s account of the ordeal and said she had quit.

“Our union will ensure that workers know what they are working on and can do their jobs for a fair wage, without fear of abuse, retaliation or discrimination,” Koul and Shaw wrote.

Despite the spread of dirty laundry, Google’s organizing drive could actually prove positive for recruiting, as some workers will be drawn to a company where they have a more formal voice, said John Freeman, analyst at CFRA Research, said the union could.

“Our story is that unions stand up for people who are unfairly exploited. It’s not exactly that, ”Freeman said. “It’s more that employees want a bigger voice in the kinds of non-monetary things they really care about.”

Shares of Google’s parent company Alphabet fell just 1.6% on Monday afternoon, trading at $ 1,724.64.