Google Unionbusters
By 
Dozens of workers employed by a contracting company to do work for Google had their assignment abruptly ended last week, in a move they believe was related to their newly formed union.
Google and the contracting company, Cognizant, told SFGATE that the terminations were due to preplanned contract expirations. But two laid-off workers told SFGATE they’d been taken by surprise, as their contracts had been routinely renewed for years.
“We had absolutely no warning that this was going to happen,” Jack Benedict, one of the contracted workers, told SFGATE. “…They’re sticking to the story that it was a contract ending, but it really was a layoff. Specifically, it was retaliation.”
The workers, who were tasked with maintenance of the YouTube Music platform, learned the contract was over Thursday, while Benedict was speaking in front of the Austin City Council, imploring officials to push Google into bargaining with the nascent union. In the Austin office, security guards hustled the team out after the layoffs were announced, and even threatened one straggler with police, according to laid-off worker Sam Regan.
It’s the second time in a year that a group of Google contractors has been slammed with job cuts while labor organizing. In June 2023, workers who had been contracted through Accenture to improve Google Help pages launched a union campaign with help from the Alphabet Workers Union, which also led the Cognizant drive. Waves of layoffs followed in August, October and November. Some workers were made to train their own overseas replacements before their jobs were axed, three current and former Accenture contractors told SFGATE.
Google has repeatedly argued that contracted workers shouldn’t be considered employees of the tech giant, even when they work exclusively on Google projects and Google controls their overtime, holiday calendars and project feedback. But the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that defends workers’ rights to unionize, has twice ruled that Google and Cognizant are “joint employers” of the contracted workforce, and thus must both bargain with the YouTube Music union. In January, the Board called Google’s ongoing refusal to do so “unlawful.”
The law? We are Google!