Something which only occurs once in a decade in the states or so as happened: a new union has been founded, the Alphabet Worker's Union! Alphabet is the parent company of Google by the way - so yes,
Google has officially now a union!
We Built Google. This Is Not the Company We Want to Work For.
Our company’s motto used to be “Don’t be evil.” An organized work force will help us live up to it.
On Nov. 1, 2018, at 11:10 a.m., some 20,000 Google employees, along with employees of Waymo, Verily and other Alphabet companies, stopped working and walked off the job in cities around the world. A week earlier, The New York Times
reported that the company had paid tens of millions of dollars to two executives who had been accused of sexual misconduct toward our co-workers, staying silent about the alleged abuse and letting them walk away with no consequences.
People speaking at the protests that morning recounted their own experiences of harassment and discrimination at the company. In San Francisco, one woman held up a sign reading, “I reported and he got promoted.” Others read, “Happy to quit for $90 million, no sexual harassment required” and “Unfair workplaces create unfair platforms.”
We’d had enough.
[...]
It’s not enough. Today, we’re building on years of organizing efforts at Google to create a formal structure for workers. So far, 226 of us have signed union cards with the Communications Workers of America — the first step in winning a recognized bargaining unit under U.S. law. In other words, we are forming a union.
We are the workers who built Alphabet. We write code, clean offices, serve food, drive buses, test self-driving cars and do everything needed to keep this behemoth running. We joined Alphabet because we wanted to build technology that improves the world. Yet time and again, company leaders have put profits ahead of our concerns. We are joining together — temps, vendors, contractors, and full-time employees — to create a unified worker voice. We want Alphabet to be a company where workers have a meaningful say in decisions that affect us and the societies we live in.
As union members, we have created an elected leadership and representative structure with dues-paying members. Our union will be open to all Alphabet workers, regardless of classification. About half of the workers at Google are temps, vendors or contractors. They are paid lower salaries, receive fewer benefits, and have little job stability compared with full-time employees, even though they often do the exact same work. They are also more likely to be Black or brown — a segregated employment system that keeps half of the company’s work force in second-class roles. Our union will seek to undo this grave inequity.
Everyone at Alphabet — from bus drivers to programmers, from salespeople to janitors — plays a critical part in developing our technology. But right now, a few wealthy executives define what the company produces and how its workers are treated. This isn’t the company we want to work for. We care deeply about what we build and what it’s used for. We are responsible for the technology we bring into the world. And we recognize that its implications reach far beyond the walls of Alphabet.
Our union will work to ensure that workers know what they’re working on, and can do their work at a fair wage, without fear of abuse, retaliation or discrimination. When Google went public in 2004,
it said it would be a company that “does good things for the world even if we forgo some short-term gains.” Its motto used to be “Don’t be evil.”
We will live by that motto. Alphabet is a powerful company, responsible for vast swaths of the internet. It is used by billions of people across the world. It has a responsibility to prioritize the public good. It has a responsibility to its thousands of workers and billions of users to make the world a better place. As Alphabet workers, we can help build that world.
Our company’s motto used to be “Don’t be evil.” An organized work force will help us live up to it.
www.nytimes.com
They already got an own web site, too, and a short and longer mission statement:
Our union strives to protect Alphabet workers, our global society, and our world. We promote solidarity, democracy, and social and economic justice.
Many workers feel powerless while leadership professes that they empower people. Workers have tried to influence Alphabet from within, only to be ignored, harassed, and retaliated against. Leadership continues to ignore us and silence us to ensure their success and bonuses.
Alphabet leadership is ready to put:
- Profit before users,
- Profit before workers,
- Profit before being a force for good in the world.
We trusted our leaders to wield power based on our shared core values, but time and experience have shown that our trust was misplaced.
We are retaliated against when we:
- Object to executive decisions on moral grounds,
- Report the discrimination, harassment, and abuse that we suffer,
- Speak up about the potential damage our products can cause,
- Expose having worse working conditions than their peers doing the same work,
- Demand exemplary working conditions for all Alphabet workers,
- Object to forcing folks into a second-class status as temps, vendors, or contractors.
Reclaim your power, hold leadership accountable, and help us improve Alphabet for everyone.
Already over 200 members, membership is restricted to USA and Canada only due to law.
AWU-CWA is a union of Alphabet workers. We strive to protect Alphabet workers, our global society, and our world.
alphabetworkersunion.org
