As tech workers, Alphabet Workers Union-CWA (AWU-CWA) members are among the first to be impacted by the artificial intelligence tools that are currently upending the world labor market.

That’s why we are organizing for protections for workers from AI, in defense of our own jobs and on behalf of the billions of workers worldwide whose livelihoods are soon to be impacted by AI.

The Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009 Committee on Artificial Intelligence brings together AWU-CWA members from various locales, product areas, and employment classifications to guide our union’s approach to the opportunities and challenges presented by the development of artificial intelligence (AI) at Alphabet and in the broader tech industry. Learn more.

A hundred and twenty  writers and designers for the Google Support site won their union election with AWU-CWA on November 6, 2023.

Workers have successfully argued to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that  they are jointly employed by both Google and Accenture, due to Google's outsize control over their working conditions. 

Shortly after announcing their union, Google offshored most of the team, resulting in 93 workers being laid off. We assert that this is clear retaliation and have filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the NRLB. Workers have continued to organize to secure a fair union contract. Learn more.

At AWU-CWA, we want to organize every Google worker. 

This includes Google full-time employees (FTEs), workers at Alphabet’s “Other Bets,” Temps, Vendors, and Contractors (TVCs) in the Extended Workforce, and ghost workers like Raters whom Google doesn’t recognize as contractors.

To combat the many ways in which Google seeks to divide us by employment classification, types of contractor, and levels of pay and benefits, we conducted a survey of over 1,800 members of the extended workforce to discuss their employers' adherence to Google’s stated contractor minimum standards.

Learn more about the troubling results of our investigation.

Workers on the YouTube Music Content Operations team, based out of Austin, TX, unanimously voted to form a union with Alphabet Workers Union-CWA (AWU-CWA) on April 26, 2023. In response to a relentless union-busting campaign, workers held the first strike in Google history. 

Despite multiple Google appeals, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found members of the YouTube Content Operations Team to be jointly employed by both Google and subcontractor Cognizant, requiring Google to join workers at the bargaining table alongside Cognizant. Google responded by announcing that the company will not bargain with workers, defying the NLRB.

On Thursday, February 29 2024, Google informed workers on the YouTube Music Content Operations Team that they would be laid off while the workers were testifying before the Austin City Council on a resolution calling for Google to bargain with them in good faith.  AWU-CWA has filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the NLRB against Google and Cognizant on behalf of workers. Learn more. 

Google Search, Gemini and other Google products depends on the unseen labor of workers known as "raters." Raters rate the quality of responses on Search or Gemini and are a critical part of Google's infrastructure. Alphabet, Google's parent company, reports 81% of its total revenue from Search ads. But  raters working exclusively for Google earn poverty wages, with no benefits.

These workers have engaged in an extensive campaign to demand better wages as some raters were earning as little as $10.00 an hour. 

Thousands of raters secured raises due to a robust organizing campaign. Learn more. 

Alphabet does not provide a safe environment for those who face harassment in the workplace. Even when HR confirms harassment, no action is taken to make the reporter safe. Alphabet protects the harasser instead of protecting the person harmed by the harassment.

Alphabet must prioritize the safety of their workers by prioritizing the concerns of those harmed:

• No reports for harassers. No harasser should manage or lead a team—whether directly or indirectly—including dotted line reports or managing temps, vendors, or contractors.‍
• Mandatory team change for the harasser. Where there are verified claims of harassment, harassers must change teams so that workers are not forced to work with their harasser. HR already has a process in place for romantic relationships that could create potential workplace problems. They should use that same process. Alphabet has stricter polices around consensual relationships than they do for harassment.

Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Google announced that full-time employees—but not temps, vendors and contractors—would have access to relocation services and $5000 in medical coverage for out-of-state procedures, including abortion and gender-affirming healthcare for workers who live in affected trigger-law states. This fails to address the tens of thousands of Alphabet contract workers who are most likely to suffer the harms of the Supreme Court ruling. TVCs are more likely to live in states with restricted abortion access and more likely to be underpaid compared to full-time employees. Additionally, these workers are more likely to be people who can become pregnant and workers of colors. Alphabet must stand by its stated support for its workers’ access to abortion services by working with their temp, vendor, and contract workforce to identify and offer the types of support that would best protect these workers.

We believe that all workers at Google should receive the full wages they are legally entitled to and have earned. We demand that Google immediately pay back all Temps, Vendors and Contractors (TVCs) who have been knowingly underpaid by Google.

The New York Times and The Guardian reported that Google has knowingly underpaid TVCs across dozens of countries, in direct violation of pay parity laws across the globe. Google has consistently obscured its employees’ salaries—and now, we know more about why.

We’re fighting to dismantle the two-tiered perma-temp system. 

In spite of Alphabet’s record profits, Alphabet has decided to lower the pay for employees who work for Google in North Carolina’s Research Triangle offices and place this location into a discount pay band. Not only does this minimize the incredible work of Google employees—it also calls into question how committed Google is to hiring and retaining diverse employees. When offices were opened in Durham, Google celebrated these locations for their diversity and were excited to partner with historically Black colleges and universities (HCBUs).

We call on Google to return these offices to the national pay band, commit to full transparency with workers around future salary decisions, and realize our shared vision for a diverse and well paid workforce in this region.

Alphabet has not only failed its civil rights obligations to create a safe workplace but also chose to target women of color leaders instead of addressing its caste discrimination problem.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan was scheduled to deliver a talk at Alphabet about caste discrimination, but was deplatformed by discriminatory and casteist disinformation at Alphabet. Tanuja Gupta, who helped organize the cancelled talk, was retaliated against (leading to her resignation) for furthering the cause of caste equity at the workplace. 

Caste should be recognized as a protected class by the federal government and be included in anti-harassment policies within our industry. Apple explicitly prohibits discrimination by caste among US employees since 2020. Alphabet’s anti-discrimination policy only explicitly prohibits caste-based discrimination in India: we demand this policy be extended worldwide, and that caste should be included as a protected category to the US Code of Conduct.