The elected leaders at Google announced that more than 200 employees and contractors at Google parent Alphabet Inc in the United States and Canada have formed a labor union to promote workplace equity and ethical business practices.

The “Alphabet Workers Union” will collect dues of 1% of total compensation from members, according to its website. The funds will cover paid organizers, events, legal support and wages for members in the event of a labor strike.

The group’s formation builds on unprecedented protests by Google workers in recent years. While the tech industry has seen minimal union activity and worker pushback historically, thousands of people at Alphabet had banded together to publicly criticize Google’s handling of sexual harassment complaints, its work with the U.S. military and other issues.

“This union builds upon years of courageous organizing by Google workers,” said Nicki Anselmo, a Google program manager. “From fighting the ‘real names’ policy, to opposing Project Maven, to protesting the egregious, multi-million dollar payouts that have been given to executives who’ve committed sexual harassment, we’ve seen first-hand that Alphabet responds when we act collectively.” Unlike many budding unions, the newly formed group does not expect to collective bargain with Alphabet over pay and working conditions any time soon. Instead, it aims to create a more formal structure to organize future protests.

“Our union will work to ensure that workers know what they’re working on, and can do their work at a fair wage, without fear of abuse, retaliation or discrimination,” Google engineers Parul Koul and Chewy Shaw wrote in a New York Times opinion piece announcing the union.

Koul is the executive chair of the Alphabet Workers Union, and Shaw is the Vice chair. Kara Silverstein, director of people operations at Google, said , “Our employees have protected labor rights that we support. But as we’ve always done, we’ll continue engaging directly with all our employees.”

Arranged as a members-only union, the new organization won’t seek collective bargaining rights to negotiate a new contract with the company. Instead, the Alphabet Workers Union will only represent employees who voluntarily join, as reported by the New York Times.

Alphabet Workers Union members will be part of the Communications Workers of America Local 1400, which also includes employees from Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc.

Source- Reuters

Country- U.S