{"id":16475,"date":"2021-01-05T19:09:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T00:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/2021\/01\/05\/google-workers-unionize\/"},"modified":"2021-01-05T19:09:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T00:09:18","slug":"google-workers-unionize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2021\/01\/05\/google-workers-unionize\/","title":{"rendered":"Google workers unionize"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By DEAN COHEN and ERNIE GOTTA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A group of Google workers announced their intention this week to unionize. Over 400 workers at Google\u2019s parent company, Alphabet, based in California\u2019s Silicon Valley, have formed the Alphabet Workers Union. The new union is affiliated with the Communication Workers of America \/ International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A statement on the Alphabet Workers Union website<\/a> says, \u201cWe recognized that our power as Alphabet workers\u2014full-time employees, temporary employees, vendors, and contractors\u2014comes from our solidarity with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Google workers walk out in 2018 over a sexual harassment issue. (Bebeto Matthews \/AP)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Big Tech companies have grown by leaps and bounds. In 2019<\/a> the five biggest companies in the U.S. were tech-based,  and their profits had risen by a third. The drive comes after years of failures in trying to organize Big Tech. Among the many obstacles have been the geographically widespread workforce, the relatively high wages, and the fact that so many of the workers are considered \u201cindependent contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new organizing effort is trying to address these issues by creating a \u201cminority union,\u201d which does not have to take the traditional route of going through the National Labor Relations Board for certification and bargaining with the company for a contract but still has collective bargaining protections under existing labor law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alphabet workers say<\/a>, \u201cWe want to wield our power to ensure:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf     Our working conditions are inclusive and fair,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf     Perpetrators of harassment, abuse, discrimination, and retaliation are held accountable,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf     We have the freedom to decline to work on projects that don\u2019t align with our values,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf     All workers, regardless of employment status, can enjoy the same benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workers have been building their union in secret now for more than a year. Workers, fed up with Google\u2019s constant claims of how much good it does for its workforce (and, indeed, the whole world!), and the recent firing of the company\u2019s AI ethics head, Timnit Gebru, began signing union cards and affiliating with CWA Local 1400. The union has a daunting task ahead of it, the signing up of Alphabet\u2019s North American workforce\u2014which numbers over 120,000 full-time employees and around 130,000 temps, part-timers, and contractors! Google\u2019s two-tier system generally pays temporary workers substantially less than full-timers\u2014an issue that workers have protested. Contingent labor accounts for some 40 to 50 percent of the workforce at most technology companies, according to estimates by OnContracting, a website cited by The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A successful organizing drive could alter the course of organized labor\u2019s relation to Big Tech. This effort could set an example for non-union workers at Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook, whose combined wealth is in the trillions of dollars. They would be joining with Kickstarter <\/a>workers who unionized in 2020 after a long fight to become the first white-collar tech company to unionize in U.S. history. This is going to prove to be a long and arduous task. Whether the CWA and the rest of the American Labor Movement is up to that task remains to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top illustration by General Strike Graphics.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By DEAN COHEN and ERNIE GOTTA A group of Google workers announced their intention this week to unionize. Over 400 workers at Google\u2019s parent company, Alphabet, based in California\u2019s Silicon Valley, have formed the Alphabet Workers Union. The new union is affiliated with the Communication Workers of America \/ International Union of Electrical, Radio and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13882114,"featured_media":15448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30840],"tags":[30872,30947,30344,1332],"class_list":["post-16475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-labor-2","tag-alphabet","tag-cwa","tag-google","tag-unions"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/workersvoiceus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/SR-Google-Union.jpg?fit=1500%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdQxqk-4hJ","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13882114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}