Google employees form labour union in United States

In the United States and Canada over 200 employees and contractors at Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, have formed a labour union to promote workplace equity and ethical business practices.

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

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.

The formation of the group is very unusual in the tech industry. Its formation builds on unprecedented protests by Google workers in recent years.

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 news daily opinion piece announcing the union.

Koul is the Executive chair of the union, and Shaw Vice chair.

Kara Silverstein, Director of People Operations at Google said, "Our employees have protected labour rights that we support. But as we've always done, we'll continue engaging directly with all our employees."

Google has been facing the heat from the US labour regulator as the latter has accused the company of unlawfully questioning several workers who were then terminated for protesting company policies and trying to organize a union. Google has said it was confident it acted legally.