Google Fiber staff start voting on whether or not to unionize

Voting is open for staff for a Google Fiber subcontractor in Missouri, who’re deciding whether or not to unionize as a part of the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), a division of the Communication Workers of America. If profitable, the 12 staff, who’re employed by staffing company BDS Connected Solutions as staff at Google Fiber shops, could be the AWU’s first bargaining unit to be acknowledged by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The staff need to mail their ballots again to the NLRB by March twenty fourth, once they’ll be counted by the company’s regional workplace.

Google spokesperson Jennifer Rodstrom famous in an e-mail to The Verge that the AWU petition filed with the NLRB mentions BDS, however not Google. “We have many contracts with both unionized and non-union suppliers, and respect their employees’ right to choose whether or not to join a union, just as we do for these employees of BDS Solutions Group,” Rodstrom wrote within the e-mail. “We expect all our suppliers to treat and pay their employees fairly, whether they are unionized or not.”

BDS didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Friday.

The staff initially sought to have Google mum or dad firm Alphabet and BDS listed as joint employers on their petition to the NLRB, however later modified the petition to incorporate solely BDS.

Parul Koul, a software program engineer at Google and government chair of ALU, mentioned the group didn’t assume they’d be capable of get recognition from the NLRB for Alphabet’s total workforce however knew they needed to incorporate temps, distributors, contractors, and subcontractors as a part of their push to arrange.

“All of us at AWU are tremendously proud of the Google Fiber workers for doing the hard job of speaking to each other about their working conditions, organizing their colleagues, and deciding, collectively, to unionize,” Koul mentioned in a press release. “We’re we’re looking forward to this being the first of many NLRB-recognized bargaining units in the AWU family.”