Google Fires 80 Contract Employees Who Joined A Union Last Month.

Around 80 contractual employees from Google Help who just joined the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America (AWU-CWA) were laid off last week.

Last month, in June, a group of 120 contract Google employees expressed their intention to unionize. However, two-thirds of the workers were notified of the layoffs weeks later, leaving 40 individuals on the job.

The team is made up of writers and graphic designers that are in charge of developing material for the search engine giant, such as Google Help support sites.

Julia Nagatsu Granstrom, a Senior Writer and member of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, reported that they learned this week that 80 of their almost 120 freshly unionized coworkers at Google Help would be laid off.

According to the group, they chose to unionize after being shifted from their typical jobs to work on Google Bard, an AI-driven conversational program. Workers said that this was substantially different from their former responsibility of creating content for Google’s help and support pages.

The unionized workers exercised their right to organize and demanded negotiations with Google and its subcontractor, Accenture, on many major issues, including layoff protections.

John Seals, a team leader for the Google assist project in South San Jose, just discovered that he would be laid off in November.

Accenture has been hiring additional team members in the Philippines, where the job can be done at a lesser cost, according to Seals. While Seals feels that the decision to let him go was driven by cost-cutting, he questions the timing of the decision.

A group of Google contractors known as raters who assess and evaluate Google search results were fired last month after they voiced their desire to join a union. These people are frequently exposed to disturbing content. Appen employed the organization, which had employees around the country, with some working remotely.

However, after filing a complaint with the National Labour Relations Board over unfair labour practices, the group was reinstated with back pay.

The situation has become more complicated since a hearing with the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) on dual employment for contractors began this week.