What you need to know
- Google employees across the world are forming an international union.
- Alpha Global seeks to address both national and global concerns surrounding workers' treatment and Google's behavior at large.
- More than 200 Google and Alphabet employees in the U.S. also announced their intention to create a union earlier this month.
Google and Alphabet employees representing 13 unions in 10 different countries today announced their intent to form an international alliance aimed at exerting collective pressure on the company vis-à-vis its treatment of its workers as well as its behavior concerning human rights and social issues at large. The development was first reported on by The Verge.
The international union, named Alpha Global, is being created under the umbrella of the UNI Global Union, a global union federation with over 20 million members across 150 different countries.
Alpha Global comprises Google and Alphabet employees from United States, Switzerland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Belgium. The collective's first joint statement reads, "[Google] is a place where many workers came to change the world—to make it more democratic—only to find Google suppressing speech and cracking down on worker organizing while consolidating monopolistic power."
The development follows the creation of the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), a minority union formed by over 200 Alphabet workers in the U.S. earlier this month. The group increased its membership count to over 700 people within a week of its formation, a testament to the growing popularity of unionization at Google and the tech industry at large.
The statement ends with the following proclamation:
Alphabet has long lost its commitment of 'Don't be evil,' but we haven't. Together, we will hold Alphabet accountable. Together, we will change Alphabet.
