More than 200 Google employees in the United States have formed a workers’ union, the first group at a big tech company to do so as the industry faces a reckoning over years of unchecked power. The union is open to all US and Canadian workers at Google’s parent company, Alphabet, including full-time employees as well as temporary workers, vendors, and other contractors. These unofficial employees make up an enormous “shadow” workforce at Google, outnumbering direct Google employees by around 135,000 to 115,000. “We’re building on years of organizing efforts at Google to create a formal structure for workers,” the union leaders wrote, adding that so far 226 employees had signed union cards with the Communications Workers of America. In 2019, Google employees wrote a public letter to the company calling on it to cut all its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Source: The Guardian January 04, 2021 15:36 UTC