A group of Google workers have announced plans to unionize with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Alphabet Workers Union will be open to all employees and contractors at Google’s parent company. Its goal will be to tackle ongoing issues like pay disparity, retaliation, and controversial government contracts.
“This union builds upon years of courageous organizing by Google workers,” said Nicki Anselmo, a Google program manager. “From fighting the ‘real names’ policy, to opposing Project Maven, to protesting the egregious, multi-million dollar payouts that have been given to executives who’ve committed sexual harassment, we’ve seen first-hand that Alphabet responds when we act collectively.”
Good. There’s a lot of worker exploitation and other unfair labour practices in the technology sector – and in the US in general – and unions are a proven and effective way to combat this.
Good. I’m not familiar with that particular union but I’m glad they’re going in that direction.
Fingers crossed the union staves off institutional inertia and self interest (which all human organizations are prone to) for a long while.
When unions work well they work well. The Germans have implemented good systems of worker representation. After Thatchers union busting policies and a fair amount of shoot themselves in the food from polticised union barons the UK wasn’t in the greatest shape. The UK did begin down a better path with some busienss and policy initiatives but this was piecemeal and there wasn’t enough buy-in at the top to fundamentally change anything. Post-Brexit without the EU there’s nothing stopping bandit capitalists cherry picking fantasy policies and turning the UK into a low-wage low tax hellhole.
The advantage of American workforces unionising takes away some of the fantasisies of foreign lapdog politicians with psycho-libertarian tendencies. They can’t go “but America”. As of for Americans I know plenty looked across the Atlantic to the European social model and liked what they saw.
I don’t care. Alphabet employees are not being exploited, discriminated or locked in their jobs, with Alphabet being the only practical choice of employment.
Their users, on the other hand…
I agree that Alphabet’s users are caught, and it may be that Alphabet employees are generally treated well compared to employees of other companies. But as the article highlights, some employees have been discriminated against.
Moreover, unionisation of one workforce can help improve workers’ rights across the board. Unionisation at Google especially, if it promotes unionisation as becoming de facto for the technology sector in the US, could help seed changes more widely.
They are pampered hipster royalty and their demands are just another example of the inevitable bloat that comes with bureaucratisation. Google is now just another government institution with “lifers”.
As the article points out, the majority of the Google workforce are temps/contractors who “are usually employed by outside agencies… make less money, have different benefits plans and have no paid vacation time in the United States”.
Honestly I don’t know what sort of benefits Alphabet temps get (maybe the lack of vacation is made up for by something else incredible), but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not enjoying the “lifer” benefits you allude to.
All I’m saying is, for any large organisation, it can be dangerous to generalise about the conditions of employees who are working, either directly or indirectly, for them.
flypig,
I honestly haven’t been following the current state of employment at google, but several years ago I read employment benefits and perks were in major decline. Employees would complain to the very top, who just didn’t care. Google has been shifting to temp contract employees who literally sit beside regular employees doing the exact same jobs but aren’t entitled to the same pay, job stability, or employee facilities that used to be emblematic of google. I’m not even sure if they’re allowed to list google employment on their resume, which can be a perk in and of itself (I say this because some of my subcontracting gigs contractually prohibited me listing experience with the client).
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/technology/google-temp-workers.html
Unfortunately google has long outgrown it’s once idealist roots and has become part of the wallstreet establishment puts stocks above all else. Unlimited greed plus a disconnection between executives and normal employees leads to disinterest about employee welfare.
As disappointing as it may be for google employees, they likely still have it better than the tech industry at large. It can be ruthless. I think that game development studios are the bottom of the barrel.
After rereading old tech mags from the dotcom era you become a wee bit sardonic.. the comments here are usually more insightful than the yes-men we should be listening to. I’m not saying unions are good or bad just that it all feels a bit too late.
@flypig
Yes and with Europe having good social policies it pulls the rug from under people with shitty attitudes so helps level up the global economy. Better conditions are pretty much proven to take the steam out of environments which give rise to tyranny and terrorism. You have fewer angry people and fewer people who are susceptable to being taken advantage of so heading off zero sum race to the bottom politics. It’s also one of the better ways to avoid survival driven population explosions and famine.
Despite all of corporate’s diversity efforts, Google workers managed to found a union. Good for them! Maybe Amazon is next? https://archive.fo/1khJw
At Amazon they would make a difference. Provided the legislation covers contractors and agency workers, that is.
I worked with unions for 10 years in Europe and found them to be a pleasure to deal with, both on individual as well as collective issues. Shop stewards and union officials seemed to have the best interests of both parties (company and employee) at heart. They saw that the success of the business was the ultimate goal with everyone in the same boat. This was a huge contrast from the 70s where it was more of a political socialist agenda. Unions along with incompetent management destroyed industries in the UK. Both seem to go together.
I am not sure where US unions are at on the political / primitive scale. The port shutdowns every negotiation are not much fun. However postal workers, teachers and librarians, all heavily unionized, are not tearing the country apart looking for more pay either, even though they surely want that. Not looking forward to waking up and finding Google is down. But maybe its the kick in the butt I need to get off surveillance.
Agreed, there are good unions and bad ones. The question I have, is if they are capable of focusing on the non revenue aspects of the employees concerns. Like the ethical researcher that was just let go. Would a union, who has negotiated a revenue share agreement with google stand up for an ethics researcher that was basically saying “We’re doing bad things that make us money, we should change that”?
Bill Shooter of Bul,
I’m just commenting on what you said without additional info… I think unions do regularly protect from employer retaliation. As far as ethical concerns go, union labor could get a chance to vote on things like that, and I see no reason why the union couldn’t bring it to the negotiating table… but the resulting deal might not be appealing to the employees. They would likely have to compromise somewhere else including salary or other perks.
Overall I think unions play a very important role in giving employees a much bigger voice and real power to negotiate. But not all employees will agree with the union and IMHO some unions are themselves guilty of ethical transgressions. For instance my wife’s union used union funds to fund a local republican campaign… regardless of one’s political affiliation I think that’s kind of appalling. For better and for worse the union president has a lot of discretion.