Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) employees are forming a union to make them have more say and push the company to live by its motto: “Don’t be evil.” Over 400 members have signed to form the union with membership drawn from Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc.
Google employees from the workers’ union
This rare move for Silicon Valley comes at the back of growing activism in the industry. The group announced the formation of the Alphabet Workers Union which comprises a small percentage of the company’s 132,000 workers and will be afflicted with Communication Workers of America Local 1400. Organizers of the union indicated that it is open to contractors and employees and members will each year pay 1% of their base pay plus bonus.
Interestingly Google workers are among the best paid in American corporations and enjoy a lot of benefits. In 2019 according to the company, the median pay for employees at the company was $258,708. The organization’s effort started almost a year ago as part of the growing wave of activism within the tech giant. However, the organizers indicated that the immediate objective of the union is not formal recognition or collective bargaining. Instead, they want to push for employees to speak out on the company without fear of career repercussions.
Alphabet Workers Union win for tech workers in Silicon Valley
The union formation is a rare move in the tech industry which has over the past consistently resisted formal labor organizing. The announcement shows the growing wave of activism in the sector with rank-and-file employees speaking out in the past on issues such as climate change and border surveillance.
Chewy Shaw and Paul Koul, engineers at Google who will chair the union wrote in The New York Times that they are workers who built Alphabet. The continued to indicate that the union aims to make Alphabet a [place where workers can have significant input in decisions affecting them and the communities they live in. Google said in response to the announcement that they are committed to having a supportive workplace for workers.
