Google terminates employees who formed a union in the previous month
Last week, approximately 80 subcontractors from Google Help, who had recently voted to join the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America (AWU-CWA), received news of their impending layoffs. This week, the group initiated a hearing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to address the intricate matter of joint employment for contractors. Casey Padron, a general writer on the team set to be laid off in August, expressed her discontent, stating, “It appears to be a clear act of retaliation,” in a conversation with ReturnByte today.
The group announced the alliance on Thursday, June 8; about two-thirds of the workers were notified of the layoffs weeks later. The team includes writers and graphic designers who create internal and external content for the search giant, including Google Help support pages. They list Google and Accenture as joint employers “because of the direct role both companies play in shaping working conditions.” Because they were joint contractors employed by technology consultant Accenture, they do not appear to enjoy the protections of the Worker Readjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), legislation passed in 1988 that provides certain rights to laid-off workers. (California is currently considering expanding protections for contract workers.)
“We received news last week that 80 of our nearly 120 recently unionized Google Help workers would be laid off,” said Julia Nagatsu Granstrom, senior writer and member of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA. “We had exercised our right to organize as members of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA to bring both Google and Google subcontractor Accenture to the bargaining table to negotiate a number of key demands, including layoff protections.” Nagatsu Granstrom describes the layoffs as “totally unacceptable” given the timing of an active union campaign with “tremendous support from workers.”
The Google Help cuts followed a group of business contractors reviewing search results who were fired last month after announcing their intention to join the same organization, the AWU-CWA. However, they were reinstated and promised back pay after filing an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB.
Padron says Google Help caught him by surprise. “I was very surprised to hear about the layoffs in our team,” he told ReturnByte. “Google and Accenture management keep telling us how impressed they are with the quality of our work, so the timing of these layoffs looks suspiciously like retaliation for the formation of our union.” He says that the motive of tightening the budget declared by the employer does not match. “They claimed the cuts were due to budget allocation changes, but Accenture has also published job postings with our exact job description and project code.”
“These giant, wealthy corporations need to start living up to their own ‘core values’ and treat their employees with the dignity, respect and humanity we deserve,” Padron added. “If these multi-billion dollar companies can’t afford to provide humane working conditions for their employees, the business model needs a radical change. Some of our operations managers and the Googlers we work with have already expressed that the Google Help Centers will suffer without our team. They feel that loss, and they deserve its.”
Nagatsu Granstrom says union workers will use “every means possible to support our affected members and continue to organize workers inside and outside of Google Help.” The Padron echoes the upbeat fighting tone. “If Accenture and Google’s goal is to destroy us, they’ve failed,” he told ReturnByte. “We are more united than ever and will continue to fight for this job that so many of us love and trust.”
