Over the last year, contractors associated with Google’s YouTube music content operations team have been trying to negotiate collectively with the tech giant.those workers Won the right to form unions Google scored a historic victory last April and has been trying to get Google back to the negotiating table ever since. On Friday, some of those workers lost their contract positions with the tech giant in another effort to spur stimulus negotiations, according to the union that represents them.
The moment workers found out they were sacked was caught on video city council meeting In Austin, Texas. At the meeting, lawmakers were discussing whether to pass a resolution requiring Google to bargain with its employees. Some of the affected contractors were speaking at the meeting, with one announcing they had all been “fired.”
Austin City Council finally passed a resolution Call on Google to bargain with its employees, albeit belatedly.
The affected workers are Signed with YouTube through IT staffing firm Cognizant. The termination of Google’s contract with Cognizant triggered last week’s layoffs.exist a statement Cognizant told local news that the laid-off employees will now become part of a “deployable talent pool” and will receive “seven weeks of dedicated paid time to explore other roles within the organization and develop new employees through our training ecosystem.” Skill” “.
Cognizant shared a statement with Gizmodo disputing the claim that workers were fired: “nobody was fired yesterday,” the statement read. “The contract expired and Austin’s employees are Employees who are still aware. As a professional services firm, project drawdowns and additions are a normal part of Cognizant’s business operations. The contract ends on the scheduled expiration date. ”
When reached for comment, Google issued a statement denying responsibility for the incident: “As we have said before, these individuals are not Google employees. Cognizant is responsible for the terms of employment of these workers, including staffing. Like here As is the case with Cognizant, our contracts with suppliers across the company generally end on a natural expiration date, as agreed with Cognizant.”
On the topic of collective bargaining, Google said: “As we have said before, we do not object to these Cognizant employees choosing to form a union. We simply believe that it is appropriate for Cognizant to engage in collective bargaining as their employer. We are appealing the NLRB’s joint employers to the federal court decision because Google has no control over the terms or conditions of employment of these Cognizant employees.”
Alphabet Workers Alliance-CWA launches a statement Thursday condemned the job losses that have occurred this week. “It’s devastating. For years we’ve been trying to get Google, one of the most powerful and well-resourced companies in the world, to negotiate with us so that we could make a living in exchange for our contribution to making their products better. work,” music generalist and AWU-CWA member Jack Benedict said in a statement.
Alphabet workers union CWA said some workers in question were paid as low as $19 an hour and “received minimal benefits.”
The National Labor Review Board announced that Google has a legal obligation to negotiate with union workers.Google is break the law Refuse to come to the negotiating table. Of course, in this country, it doesn’t matter if you are a criminal as long as you have lots and lots of money.you can continue to break the law sometimes indefinitely, if you have a certain value.Google, for example other Large corporations have apparently decided that their market caps are too high to have to comply with federal labor laws.