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A12 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 5 January 2021
Google workers form new labor union, a tech industry rarity

By MATT O'BRIEN Many employees began filed a complaint accus-
AP Technology Writer seeing the power of their ing the company of spying
A group of Google engi- workplace activism in 2018 on employees and then
neers and other workers when an internal outcry firing some of them during
announced Monday they led Google to abandon a 2019 effort to organize a
have formed a union, cre- its work supplying the Pen- union. Google has denied
ating a rare foothold for tagon with artificial intelli- the allegations in the case,
the labor movement in the gence services for conflict which is scheduled for an
tech industry. zones. Later in 2018, thou- April hearing.
About 225 employees sands of Google employ- The union's first members
at Google and its par- ees walked out to protest include engineers, as well
ent company Alphabet how the company handled as sales associates, admin-
are the first dues-paying sexual misconduct allega- istrative assistants and the
members of the Alphabet tions against executives. workers who test self-driving
Workers Union. They repre- Google software engineer vehicles at Alphabet au-
sent a fraction of Alpha- In this Sept. 24, 2019, file photo a woman walks below a Google Chewy Shaw, who has tomotive division Waymo.
bet's workforce, far short sign on the company's campus in Mountain View, Calif. been elected to the new Many work at Google's Sili-
of the threshold needed Associated Press union's executive council, con Valley headquarters,
to get formal recognition Google said Monday that Unionization campaigns said he and others decid- while others are at offices
as a collective bargaining it's tried to create a sup- haven't historically been ed to form the group after in Massachusetts, New York
group in the U.S. portive and rewarding able to gain much traction seeing colleagues pushed and Colorado.
But the new union, which workplace but suggested among elite tech workers, out of their roles for their "One of the reasons why
will be affiliated with the it won't be negotiating di- who get hefty salaries and activism. "We want to have it's taken a while for work-
larger Communication rectly with the union. other perks like free food a counterforce to protect ers to get to this point is be-
Workers of America, says "Of course our employees and shuttle rides to work. workers who are speaking cause the leaders of these
it will serve as a "structure have protected labor rights But workplace activism at up," Shaw said. companies did a good
that ensures Google work- that we support," said a Google and other big tech The latest examples came job of convincing workers
ers can actively push for statement from Kara Silver- firms has grown in recent last month, when promi- they were these benevo-
real changes at the com- stein, the company's direc- years as employees call for nent AI ethics researcher lent folks who were going
pany." Its members say tor of people operations. better handling of sexual Timnit Gebru says she was to provide for them, kind
they want more of a voice "But as we've always done, harassment and discrimina- fired over a research pa- of a paternalistic model,"
not just on wages, benefits we'll continue engaging tion and avoiding harmful per that Google wanted said Beth Allen, commu-
and protections against directly with all our employ- uses of the products they're to disassociate from; and nications director at the
discrimination and harass- ees." helping to build and sell. as a federal labor agency CWA.q
ment but also broader eth-
Google pursues its business Slack kicks off 2021 with a global outage
ical questions about how

ventures.
The unionization campaign outage on Monday, the Internet service outages
is the latest signal from em- first day back for most peo- are not uncommon, are
ployees who don't believe ple returning from the New usually resolved relatively
the company is living up to Year's holiday. swiftly and are only rarely
its professed ideals, as ex- It's the latest tech glitch to the result of hacking or
pressed in its original "Don't show how disruptive tech- other intentional mischief.
be evil" slogan. nical difficulties can be Google went down briefly
when millions of people are in December, with people
depending on just a few in several countries brief-
services to work and go to ly unable to access their
school from home during Gmail accounts, watch
the pandemic. YouTube videos or get to
The company stopped re- their online documents dur-
leasing its daily user count ing an outage Monday. In
For all Time share Owners after topping 12 million last August, Zoom went down
On the Island of aruba This Dec. 2, 2020, file photo shows the Slack app icon being year. briefly just as many stu-
Halley Time Travel aruba displayed on a computer screen in Tokyo. "Our team is currently in- dents were beginning the
Free Listings Fees Associated Press vestigating and we're sorry school year at home. And
Free appraisal report for any troubles this may in September, Microsoft
sell your week for you By MICHELLE CHAPMAN service used by millions be causing," Slack said in a services had an outage
Transfer all legal documents AP Business Writer of people for work and prepared statement. that lasted for five hours.
36 years in business Slack, the messaging school, suffered a global The outage began around More complaints rolled
Call : (297) 630-1307 10 a.m. Eastern time and in as the sun hit the West
johnnypaesch@gmail.com disrupted service in the coast and there were still
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For one of our clients * All inventory available still sporadic and Slack said a month after Salesforce.
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share resort For more info call: begin to see improvement. companies hope to be
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From week 2 to 10 johnnypaesch@gmail.com Slack said that people better able to compete
More info: (297) 630-1307 also visit(new): should check https://sta- against Microsoft, which is
johnnypaesch@gmail.com www.halleyadventures.com tus.slack.com for updates. a threat to both of them.q