google workers just announced they're
forming a union
with the communication workers of
america it's one of the first
tech unions with both white-collar
workers and contractors in the united
states this is a really big deal for the
tech industry
unions are more often associated with
firefighters and nurses and teachers at
least in the us
but after three years of walkouts and
protests
google workers want to force management
to create real change
that's what the alphabet workers union
is all about its goal is to make the
union so big and powerful that google
leadership
has to pay attention and this matters
for google workers who want to air their
views without fear of retaliation
and for companies like facebook and
amazon who could be next in line
for organizers this is just the latest
move in a long-running fight about the
future of the tech industry
to understand how we got here and why it
matters we have to look at the big
picture
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before 2017 google had a very public
image as one of the happiest companies
in tech
employees biked across its 26-acre
campus in mountain view california
bopping from tennis courts to outdoor
pools and enjoying free food and medical
attention
google also had a culture of very active
descent
if employees didn't like something they
said it around 2011
when google was launching google plus
executives decided to make users use
their real names on the platform
this didn't go over well with google
employees who argued that it could put
vulnerable users in danger
it took a while but eventually company
management came around and decided to
reverse the policy
employees like kimberly wilbur a
software engineer
joined google in part because of this
open culture google has a
long and storied tradition of
employees who choose to speak up about
something
when they feel it's important you hear
legends about like employees standing up
during meetings and saying no this
this isn't right and i chose to come to
google
because it felt like google appreciated
that sort of advocacy
in 2017 this culture started to shift
[Music]
that summer a google engineer named
james damore
posted a 10-page letter arguing that
women were less biologically suited to
be coders
he was fired from the company shortly
after but the incident became
a huge source of harassment for
employees something google management
wasn't prepared to handle
at the same time google employees were
having real ethical quandaries about the
projects they were working on
artificial intelligence drones warfare
and
google it's a mixture that caused an
uproar inside the tech giant where the
early motto was don't be
evil in 2018 a whistleblower leaked
internal information to gizmodo
about something called project maven a
system that would use a google developed
ai
to help military drones identify targets
from above
then another employee came forward with
documents about a search engine called
dragonfly that was built to comply with
chinese censorship rules
for engineers who joined google to build
a better internet
it was a jarring wake-up call and it led
to thousands of employees signing
letters to ceo sundar pachai
asking him to cancel both projects
what's stated very explicitly in the ai
principles is that google commits to not
design
or deploy technologies whose purpose
contravenes widely accepted
international law or human rights
concerns it's pretty clear that there
hasn't been accountability so far and
that's part of why i'm resigning
we demand structural change we're
walking out to
support women and to protest the way
that this company is handled
essentially the breaking point came when
news came out that android founder andy
rubin
had left the company in a cloud of
harassment allegations
and received 90 million dollars in
severance
the huge payout provoked outrage up and
down the company
and in a matter of days organizers put
together one of the largest
labor actions in tech history the google
walkout
on november 1st 2018 20 000 employees
across more than
40 offices walked out of work in protest
of the company's handling of sexual
harassment allegations
the walkout brought employees from
around the world into the same space
and once they started talking they
realized they shared a lot of the same
concerns
but the protests also came with a real
cost google hired
anti-union consultants and started
taking concrete
steps to stop unions from forming in the
months that followed
four walkout organizers were abruptly
fired a group that became known as the
thanksgiving four
the national labor relations board filed
a complaint
alleging two of these firings were
illegal there were a bunch of us
at least in the new york city offices
that sat down and we had you know
lunches where we can
talk candidly about the ethics of what
google work from we weren't the only
ones that turns out
who had been having these conversations
a lot of folks in other campuses like
cambridge seattle mountain view had also
had these discussions
and the real turning point was when all
of us came together
quite a while ago about a year ago and
started
talking about the possibility of the
union in december 2020
the company abruptly fired ai ethicist
to meet gabriel
suddenly the secret unionizing effort
got a lot more support internally
as employees realized that even
prominent and well-respected workers
weren't safe
so that's kind of how the alphabet
workers union came about
it's part of a realization from a lot of
workers that google has changed
it's not necessarily a bad place to work
but it's no longer the open environment
it used to be
that's especially true for temps vendors
and contract employees or tvcs in google
lingo
who get cut out of a lot of the perks of
being a full-time google employee
tvcs now outnumber full-time workers at
google
and the union could be a way for more
secure workers to help advocate for
their rights
a former google employee liz fong jones
explains that including tvc workers is
the key to success for the union
what i think is really brilliant about
the structure of the
organization that is choosing to not
specifically aim to
get a contract with a bargaining unit is
that they're they have the flexibility
to include
contingent workers and we know that
contingent workers are
number one some of the most marginalized
workers that are
in in the tech umbrella and secondly
that they are
you know major majority of people call
it right that
a lot more of them are women compared to
compared to the google engineering
workforce right
i think that this effort is going to
succeed
like most unions the alphabet workers
union is interested in fighting for good
wages and benefits
but it's not stopping there organizers
say they want to influence google's
overall strategy
and give workers a say in what they work
on it's also a sign of a bigger
change in the tech world more generally
kickstarter employees formed a union in
2020
and warehouse workers at amazon have
been trying to unionize for years
there have even been organizing efforts
on gig platforms like uber and instacart
as the people who make a living on those
apps push for a better deal
when people think about tech companies
they tend to think about independent
founders like steve jobs or jeff bezos
but these new unions want to change the
narrative and make it about the people
who work in amazon's warehouses or drive
uber's cars
it's a whole new way to think about the
tech industry and for google
it could be a whole new way to think
about running a company google workers
just announced they're forming a union
if employees didn't like something they
said it
super that's especially true for temps
vendors and contract
employees or tv oh okay
something just fell from the train but
it's okay
it was just an acorn but it just
surprised me okay