Posts tagged Google
Workers in the game industry turn to unions for protection from rampant layoffs
March 21, 2024 // Jessica Gonzalez, a longtime quality assurance (QA) worker in the games industry and a labor organizer with CODE-CWA, said unionizing can also help workers negotiate more “ethical layoffs” if their roles are being cut from the company. This entails negotiating protections such as extended health care coverage and severance pay, benefits she noted are not always honored by companies dealing with non-union employees.
Google’s Layoffs Labeled ‘Needless’ By Union as Hundreds of Employees Lose Jobs in Fresh Cuts
January 12, 2024 // The Alphabet Workers Union responded to the layoffs on X, saying: “Tonight, Google began another round of needless layoffs. Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!” In response, a Google spokesperson told TIME via email: “We’re responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead. To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities.”
McLayoffs Incoming: McDonalds Embracing Google’s AI For Online Ordering
December 14, 2023 // The American worker's plan to phase themselves out of the job market once and for all is almost complete. At least, that's what the case looks to be like at McDonald's. The fast food restaurant, which has already adopted self-serve kiosks in store, is now tapping Google's AI for its online ordering experience. In a press release out late last week, McDonald's said the partnership "is a significant step for McDonald's in advancing its restaurant technology platform to become the most sophisticated and productive in the industry."
Summer of labor: Why unions win pay hikes and new clout
August 10, 2023 // This year’s bargaining sessions tell the story. The mere threat of a strike won longshoremen, UPS drivers, and other blue-collar workers big pay raises. The 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America, by contrast, have been on strike since May. Last month, the actors union joined them on the picket line. It’s the first time the two have jointly struck the studios since 1960 and the most closely watched labor action of the year. Almost 3 in 4 Americans say they’re aware of the strike, according to a Los Angeles Times poll released Aug. 3. Among the issues are revenues from web streaming and the use of AI to generate actors’ likenesses.
ProPublica, lauded journalism nonprofit, is latest newsroom to unionize
July 31, 2023 // Reporters at investigative journalism nonprofit ProPublica announced Wednesday they are unionizing, bringing an industry wave of labor organizing to a somewhat unexpected corner of the media world. The announcement, timed to the 15th anniversary of ProPublica, comes as its corporate peers are grappling with layoffs and cutbacks that have stoked employee discontent. By comparison, ProPublica, a donor-supported nonprofit that counted over $57 million in assets on its most recently available tax forms, has been comparatively insulated from the economic challenges of the industry. In a statement, staffers said a union “is essential to preserving the best parts of working at ProPublica and ensuring our values do not waver regardless of leadership changes or turbulence within the industry.” The campaign could shift labor relations at ProPublica, which is one of few national news outlets of its size and distinction where staffers do not have union representation.
Google lays off contractors who unionized last month
July 17, 2023 // “Last week we received news that 80 of our nearly 120 recently unionized Google Help coworkers 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 in order to bring both Google and Accenture, a Google subcontractor, to the bargaining table to negotiate on several key demands, including layoff protections.” Nagatsu Granstrom describes the layoffs as “absolutely unacceptable,” given the timing of an active union campaign “with overwhelming support from workers.”
Google’s return-to-office crackdown gets backlash from some employees: ‘Check my work, not my badge’
June 15, 2023 // “Managers of non-remote Googlers who have been consistently absent from the office will be cc’ed on emails to these Googlers (subject to local requirements), so they can support Googlers in either ramping back to the office or exploring other flexibility options,” the document says. On Friday, YouTube held its own all-hands meeting with employees about the office policy update. At the event, executives presented the plans virtually, a paradox that didn’t go unnoticed.
Google Contract Staff That Helped Train AI Seek To Unionize
June 9, 2023 // The group is organizing with the Alphabet Workers Union, and said it has signed up the vast majority of its proposed bargaining unit, which includes about 120 writers, graphic designers and launch coordinators who create internal and external Google content, including all of the materials for Google Help support pages. They’ve also recently helped to review AI-generated content. The workers said they hope to bargain for changes including increased paid time off, control over accepting assignments outside the scope of their usual work and competitive pay that reflects their skill sets. The employees are asking management to voluntarily recognize and negotiate with the union. The workers contend Alphabet is a “joint employer” — a company with enough control over a group of employees to be liable for their treatment and obligated to negotiate if they unionize, even if it doesn’t sign their paychecks.