Unionizing Google Workers: We Want Democracy at Work
Last week, Google workers announced the formation of the Alphabet Workers Union, a groundbreaking step in organizing tech workers at one of the world’s largest tech giants. We spoke to two of the union’s rank-and-file members about the organizing effort, how unions can fight for democracy on the job, and why blue- and white-collar workers need to organize together.
The Google campus in Mountain View, California, 2009. (Shawn Collins / Flickr)
Last week, workers at Google and its parent company, Alphabet, announced a first-of-its-kind tech workers union. In a New York Times op-ed, the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) stated that “[we]’d had enough” of Alphabet’s mishandling of harassment and discrimination, its morally dubious ventures with the Department of Defense and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the company’s retaliation against workers who dared criticize the multibillion dollar tech giant.
Alan Morales and Raksha Muthukumar, two rank-and-file members of AWU, spoke with Honda Wang for Jacobin.
Honda Wang
Traditionally, labor unions as recognized by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are organizations that represent a majority of workers at a company, and they collectively bargain on behalf of their members to establish a contract with employers that sets the terms for employment such as pay, benefits, and workplace protections.
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