The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) is in turmoil following the announcement of an international alliance on Monday. The alliance, Alpha Global, was described as an initiative led by workers, but union members in the US say they only knew it The edge an exclusive published. The article contains a press release from Parul Koul, executive board member of AWU, who she said did not write.
The news was an unwelcome surprise to union members who expect the Alphabet Workers Union to work democratically. Now, tell multiple sources The edge that some AWU organizers are considering urging the group to separate from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a national union representing employees in telecommunications and media. AWU has also set up a committee to investigate the role of CWA in the announcement.
Auni Ahsan, executive director of the AWU, said in a statement: “We want to respect the concerns raised, but our primary focus as a trade union is not affiliation or dissatisfaction.”
The revolution indicates the problems facing AWU. As a so-called minority union, it is not recognized by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and cannot require Alphabet or its subsidiaries such as Google to negotiate a contract for its members. Its power comes in part from the association of Alphabet workers and the building up of its membership to set up public pressure campaigns.
As the union became known on January 4, it has grown from 230 members to more than 800. But some members expressed concern that the Communications Workers of America had pressured the union to disclose prematurely. They also say that the CWA has a history of publishing big announcements without first consulting Google workers. Amr Gaber, a Google engineer who helped organize the hike in 2018, said The New York Times that the union is more concerned with demanding grass than listening to the needs of organizers.
The rapid expansion of the Alphabet Union also highlighted the need for clear rules and processes, including when the group makes statements and who controls the key announcements. So far, AWU has called on YouTube to ban Donald Trump permanently and expressed concern about the treatment of Margaret Mitchell, co-leader of the ethics AI team. Both statements involve significant input from union members.
This did not happen with the worldwide announcement of the alliance.
Uni Global Union, a federation of trade unions in Switzerland, organized the coalition and worked with at least one CWA representative on the deployment strategy. The idea was to bring together unions representing Google workers around the world and allow members to share information more easily.
Uni has issued a press release stating that “Alphabet Workers” “announces a new global union alliance to build a more ethical and accountable enterprise.” The press release contained a quote from Koul on the importance of global solidarity, and Wes McEnany, representative of the CWA, said The edge that the alliance was guided by the telephone through a telephone call about the announcement.
However, after the article came out, several AWU members said The edge they were blinded by the news. A Google employee in Europe also said they did not know about the announcement, but noted that they usually do not know more about union news before it is announced.
Asked why so many AWU members were left out of the planning, a CWA spokesman said the messages got mixed up.
On January 25, AWU convened an emergency meeting. According to meeting notes issued by The edge, Koul said that Uni’s announcement “happened [without] any of us are notified or pre-empted that this alliance is being formed or that this declaration is about to expire. She stressed that she never attributed the quote in the press release, and noted that she was “burned” by the announcement.
(Koul did not respond to a request for comment The edge.)
CWA organizer Tom Smith said he did not know about the situation until that morning, claiming Christopher Shelton, president of the CWA, sent an email with the words “WTF ?!”. He added that Uni had been asked to take down the press release.
Uni tell The edge that McEnany was ‘very involved’ with the alliance, and during the meeting McEnany admitted that he was partly to blame – he told Uni to attribute the quote to Koul. He said the timeline of the announcement was unclear. (McEnany spoke The edge three days before the publication of the article.)
Later in the meeting, Koul announced McEnany would resign from his role at AWU, although he did not leave CWA completely.
On January 29, CWA sent out a newsletter, which again falsely attributed the quote to Koul.
McEnany’s resignation did not dampen the concerns of Google organizers such as Kathryn Spiers, who says she sees the rounded-off alliance announcement as part of a larger pattern. In 2019, Google fired Spiers and four other workers who were busy organizing workplaces. When CWA offered to pay the workers’ legal costs, the group agreed, with the understanding that according to various sources, CWA would not publish information about the case without first obtaining approval for it. Despite the notion, workers say CWA published a press release referring to Spiers before she was fired and her name made public, and without her approval.
Speaking at the emergency meeting on Monday, Spiers spoke about her experience with CWA and said she wanted to acknowledge that the alliance’s announcement was not an isolated incident. Now she is taking part in a campaign to separate from the larger organization.
The campaign could threaten to destabilize AWU, an emerging union that is still in its first month of public life. But it can also be a sign that the organization is working as intended. Workers come together to push for change, even if it means stopping with a powerful ally.
If that happens, it’s going to be a serious setback for the Communications Workers of America. In 2020, the organization launched CODE-CWA, a campaign dedicated to the union of workers in the technology industry. Losing Google could make it more difficult for CWA to organize staff at other large technology companies.
However, for some workers who have been organizing with Google for years, disaffiliation is the only option. If the campaign fails, they say they are likely to leave the organization.
“Google could not have paid for this kind of union,” says Spiers.