More than 200 Google employees announced Monday that they will form a union with American Telecommunications Workers (CWA), with alphabet's workers' union open to all employees and contractors at Google's parent company Alphabet.
As a minority union, it does not need to undergo a formal legal process to establish it, as it will only need to declare itself, and this has been the announcement of the Alphabet Workers Union, known by the acronym AWU.
The move has seen a wave of support from prominent politicians in the United States, such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Ellen Pao, and has led to some questions, such as: What is a minority union? What is the future of this Union, and will this small number of adherents affect anything? How did Google respond to this move?
First, where did the idea of the Alphabet Workers' Union come from:
Over the past three years, Google employees have been organizing large strikes and protests to oppose some of the company's decisions, such as: working with the Pentagon on the development of drones, paying $90 million to former CEO Andy Rubin after being accused of sexual harassment, and creating a controlled search engine in China.
But what made the events so far was the dismissal of prominent AI ethics expert Timnit Gebru last December, where employees stood firm against the dismissal, and union organizers wanted to unite all those efforts under one umbrella.
Secondly, what is the minority union:
As a Minority Union or Solidarity Union, the AWU does not need to pass through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and hold a vote to persuade the majority of employees to sign, as Google employees will immediately benefit from the union's strength once it is announced.
The union's infrastructure will focus on employee regulation, rather than policy and negotiations, with Google workers telling the New York Times: "The union's primary goal is to give a structure of activity at Google, rather than to negotiate temporary issues."
Third, what is the use of the Alphabet Workers' Union:
The AWU infrastructure will allow Alphabet's temporary employees to join Google's permanent employees, with temporary workers outnumbering full-time employees but often receiving only a small fraction of the benefits.
The union therefore wants to combine the interests of cleaners and cafeterias with the interests of engineers and product managers, where it will be difficult to do so with the majority union, according to professor of law Veena Dubal: "Organizing Google employees as a trade union through current labor laws would be nearly impossible, as Google will have many advantages to avoid recognizing any kind of majority union."
"Google's use of temporary workers is likely to be a strategic direction, and it comes as part of the company's efforts to avoid unions, an attempt to divide workers, avoid having to work and negotiate with the majority."
Fourth, have workers in technology companies previously formed unions?
This is not the first time Google workers have joined unions, google and Facebook recognized the Safe Guards Union in 2017, and in 2019 Google's cafeteria staff established their own union, and the first google office workers' union was established in 2019.
What makes these efforts influential is that Google has more than 123,000 full-time employees, while temporary workers are more than 130,00, making alphabet's efforts unprecedented, and if successful, it is likely to be the first spark to organize efforts at major technology companies, such as Facebook, Amazon and Apple.
Fourth, what are the objectives of the Alphabet Workers' Union:
So far, the Federation has not published a list of basic demands, with regulators wanting to hear from new members before deciding on key initiatives, but at the same time hinting that they will not stop when raising the issue of wage inequality, but one of their objectives is to make sure that technology companies use their technology to make the world a better place.
Fifth, could a union with only a few hundred members be effective?
The organizers do not expect the union's members to be limited to only a few hundred, when it was announced with about 230 members, but less than 24 hours later, it has more than 400 members, so the organizers expect the membership base to continue to grow, however, with nearly a quarter of a million workers at Google ,AWU has a long way to go to be influential in the company.
Sixth, how did Google respond to this union?
Google issued a statement saying: "We have always worked hard to create a supportive and equal workplace for our workforce, of course our employees have the work rights that we support, but as we have always done, we will continue to engage directly with all our employees."
But if Alphabet continues to grow, the company is likely to change its way of dealing, with former Google engineer Fung Jones saying, "Yes, they will continue to fire activists individually, but I think the most likely thing is that activists will face negative performance reviews, and they will be told that they are not team members or that they are not positive about the company's plans."
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