More than 200 employees and contractors at Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc in the United States and Canada have formed a labour union to promote workplace equity and ethical business practices.
The formation of the union, which has created a rare foothold for the labour movement in the tech industry, has gained the attention of labour economists in India, reported Mint.
In India, employee unions have been largely active among the blue-collar workforce and public sector undertakings (PSUs), said the report. However, now the demand for unionism also seems to be growing in white-collar and service sector workers, it said.
According to the report, Members of the Kolkata-based All India IT and ITES Employees’ Union (AIITEU) have been following developments at the Silicon Valley. AIITEU, having around 15,000 members, focuses is on illegal retrenchment, discrimination, problems with remote working and more.
Talking about the formation of a union in the tech sector, AIITEU general secretary Saubhik Bhattacharya said it has been “challenging”.
“With the mass terminations, wage cuts and overwork perpetrated during the COVID-19 crisis, more and more tech workers are realizing that they need a union to represent their own interests as distinct from the interests of management,” Bhattacharya told the publication.
KR Shyam Sundar, labour economist and professor at Xavier School of Management (XLRI), Jamshedpur said the unionisation of Google and Alphabet’s workers “cannot be brushed aside as a minor incident in some corner of the world.”
“It may be a droplet but it has the potential to turn into a canal and gather critical mass,” Sundar was quoted as saying.
Although tech workers unions are present in India they have been unable to scale up. Giving reasons behind it, Ajay Singh Solanki, leader, labour and employment practice, at Nishith Desai Associates talked about the factors like the high pay levels and incentives in the IT industry, fear of being blacklisted or sidelined by employers, and the fear of being perceived as too adversarial or political, as most unions are backed by political parties or have political affiliations, said the report.
Solanki further said that forming a company-specific union, like Google, is still a far-fetched idea in India, added the report.
The group's formation builds on unprecedented protests by Google workers in recent years. While the tech industry has seen minimal union activity and worker pushback historically, thousands of people at Alphabet had banded together to publicly criticize Google's handling of sexual harassment complaints, its work with the US military and other issues.
(With inputs from agencies)