A newly formed union movement at Google’s parent company Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) could have repercussions throughout Silicon Valley. This could encourage a new generation of technology workers to demand more voice in their wages, how the tools they create are marketed and how their employers address ethical issues about their products.
The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) may also fail to merge into an entity that legally obliges the technology giant to meet its demands.
According to Alex Colvin, Dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, there are many reasons to think that AWU is part of a trend in which technology workers seek to have their voices heard, especially with respect to ethics product, such as user privacy and security.
“There are some new types of issues arising that are specific to this type of industry, and I think they reflect that industry workers have expectations that they should have a voice around these issues and be able to express themselves intellectually around these issues. work areas, ”said Colvin.
However, the group may need to refine who allows it to join its ranks if it intends to exert legal pressure on Google to consider its demands, Glenn Smith, chairman of Seyfarth Shaw’s labor relations practice group, told Yahoo Finance.
“It could be the formation of a group that will only deal with employee issues informally, or perhaps one that formally represents employees. There’s a long way to go before you narrow it down and find out exactly what’s going on here, ”explained Smith.
Workers want to opine on ethical issues
Two Google software engineers announced the new union on Monday, noting in a New York Times article that it had more than 200 members (a fraction of the company’s workforce) and would be open to full-time, contract workers , temporary employees, and suppliers. The union’s formation comes after years of employer activism over sexual harassment, military contracts and a censored search engine in China, in addition to the privacy issues that have plagued much of Big Tech.
While AWU has stated that it plans to address traditional labor issues, including the treatment and remuneration of hired employees, it also plans to focus on developing Google products.
According to AWU vice president Chewy Shaw, the group wants to participate in Google’s corporate conversations around the large-scale problems that Google products can create.
“Our company is facing some really complicated problems. How you handle adequate privacy and security on the Internet for Internet users is not a simple thing, ”Shaw told Yahoo Finance.
“And I don’t believe that executives are intentionally harming the world with this kind of thing, but that they are facing these complex problems without the time or resources to properly resolve them on their own in terms of defining a strategy.”
Which workers join can make or break the movement
Outside of those issues, AWU representative Raksha Muthukumar told Yahoo Finance Live on Monday that the approximately 250 Google employees who became members also hoped to pressure Alphabet to resolve discrepancies in compensation and information sharing among contract workers. and employees.
Like other technology companies, including Verizon Media, the parent of Yahoo Finance, Google has faced criticism for having a “shadow workforce” of contractors and temporary workers who do not receive benefits. The New York Times reported in 2019 that Google’s temporary workers outnumbered full-time employees.
“Full-time employees like me … are salaried and have all the benefits and advantages of working at Google, while someone who sits next to me, who may also be an engineer who does a job very similar to mine, is ranked as a contractor that Google contracts through a third party and does not receive similar compensation, ”said Muthukumar.
But it is not clear whether AWU could become a federally recognized bargaining unit that Google is legally required to deal with, Smith said. This is true, although the group said its members will belong to a local section of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) union, with 700,000 members.
“There are rules that apply to all organizational efforts, whether this workers’ initiative fits in or not, that remains to be seen,” said Smith.
On the one hand, Smith said, although AWU allegedly said it had no intention of seeking certification as a bargaining officer for National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) employees – a process that gives a workers union the right to negotiate on behalf of certain employees – the group may be frustrating its own efforts or CWA’s efforts to negotiate on behalf of workers based on its policy of receiving membership from all Google employees and contractors.
By law, bargaining units must be composed of members who share an appropriate “community of interests” or shared work circumstances that are similar in the types of jobs they perform, job classification, where they work or other factors. In addition, employers can exclude supervisors from a union, since supervisors are not considered employees under the National Labor Relations Act.
AWU has not yet shared details on whether its members share a community of interest, or whether it contains or has had organizational assistance from supervisors. If supervisors were to assist in any organizational effort, this could hamper the process for UTA and CWA.
“In order to really resolve this situation and move forward, they will have to refine themselves in an appropriate negotiating unit,” said Smith, adding that a very diffuse or widespread group, even if they work for the same employer, will face serious obstacles to becoming an appropriate unit.
In addition, said Smith, a group of employees and real independent contractors has almost no chance of meeting NLRB standards for an appropriate negotiating unit. Still, non-certified organizations, which have become more common in the past 10 to 15 years, he said, can successfully put pressure on companies using traditional and social media.
The certification of a collective bargaining unit can be carried out through the unionization vote of two thirds of the relevant workers or through a company agreement to recognize an organization. Regardless of whether a legally recognized union is formed, AWU aims to exercise some influence over superiors.
“At the end of the day, we are relying on the collective power of workers to use the fact that we are the ones who actually create the products to influence the decisions the company makes,” said Shaw. “We don’t want executives to divert the company from the values that we all subscribe to.”
Yahoo Finance contacted Google to request the number of full-time employees who are entitled to full benefits compared to those who do not, and received no response.
In an emailed statement, Kara Silverstein, director of personnel operations for the Google press team, told Yahoo Finance: “We’ve always worked hard to create a work environment that supports and rewards our workforce. Of course, our employees have protected the labor rights we support. But, as we have always done, we will continue to engage directly with all of our employees ”.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter at Yahoo Finance and a former litigation attorney. Follow Alexis Keenan on Twitter @alexiskweed.
Send an email to Daniel Howley at [email protected] via encrypted message at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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