Google Fiber Workers In Kansas City Make a Bid To Unionize (engadget.com) 17
A supermajority of customer service representatives for Google Fiber, operating out of a store in Kansas City, Missouri, have signed union cards in the hopes of bargaining their first contract with their bosses. Engadget reports: They're organizing under the auspices of the Alphabet Workers Union, a year-old division of the Communication Workers of America which is seeking to represent employees and contractors at all level of Google's parent company. The 11 workers -- 10 of whom have signed cards since the union drive began in October -- are jointly employed by Google and a staffing agency called BDS Connected Solutions.
That's not out of the ordinary, as staffing arrangements with Alphabet go: a 2019 story in the New York Times found temps and contractors made up the majority of the tech giant's workforce, while a Recode report that same year indicated that this second class of laborers earned significantly less than Google's own full-time employees. According to two BDS workers who spoke to Engadget, customer representatives had been feeling left out of key conversations about staffing and safety protocols, and communication with management has deteriorated. [...] Kansas City was the very first market Google Fiber launched in, nearly a decade ago.
What makes this push to form a bargaining unit somewhat unusual, however, has been the decision to skip straight to petitioning the National Labor Relations Board. Typically, this is the longer, more arduous option when an employer refuses to voluntarily recognize a union. But, according to Adair, Alphabet and BDS have neither attempted to quash the union drive, nor expressed a willingness to recognize it. "There's been no acknowledgement, no pushback. no response at all yet," they said. [...] While they weren't keen to give too many specifics as to what they'd hope to secure in a first contract, one of the benefits they're seeking to obtain is hazard pay [while working in person in a pandemic.] While it may be months or years before the NLRB makes a ruling, Google Fiber representative Mike Knox hopes it might spur action from others within Google Fiber. "We're really hoping that this inspires in that regard," he said. "We're hoping that's a flashpoint where other people can see that and decide to push for more input."
That's not out of the ordinary, as staffing arrangements with Alphabet go: a 2019 story in the New York Times found temps and contractors made up the majority of the tech giant's workforce, while a Recode report that same year indicated that this second class of laborers earned significantly less than Google's own full-time employees. According to two BDS workers who spoke to Engadget, customer representatives had been feeling left out of key conversations about staffing and safety protocols, and communication with management has deteriorated. [...] Kansas City was the very first market Google Fiber launched in, nearly a decade ago.
What makes this push to form a bargaining unit somewhat unusual, however, has been the decision to skip straight to petitioning the National Labor Relations Board. Typically, this is the longer, more arduous option when an employer refuses to voluntarily recognize a union. But, according to Adair, Alphabet and BDS have neither attempted to quash the union drive, nor expressed a willingness to recognize it. "There's been no acknowledgement, no pushback. no response at all yet," they said. [...] While they weren't keen to give too many specifics as to what they'd hope to secure in a first contract, one of the benefits they're seeking to obtain is hazard pay [while working in person in a pandemic.] While it may be months or years before the NLRB makes a ruling, Google Fiber representative Mike Knox hopes it might spur action from others within Google Fiber. "We're really hoping that this inspires in that regard," he said. "We're hoping that's a flashpoint where other people can see that and decide to push for more input."
Here we go again (Score:1)
Google: "Quick, power up the FUD-A-Matic 9000!"
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according to Adair, Alphabet and BDS have neither attempted to quash the union drive, nor expressed a willingness to recognize it. "There's been no acknowledgement, no pushback. no response at all yet," they said.
Sounds more like the don't-give-a-fuck-o-matic than the FUD-o-matic.
We know who gets fired first. (Score:2)
Suprised Google Fiber Hasn't Been Closed Down (Score:2)
Since they have a small market share, are losing lots of money--and Google has a habit of closing things down.
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I live in San Antonio as well (first home was off of Shanefield and 1604 and my new home is off of Bandera Rd near OP park.)
I've had Google Fiber at both homes I have lived it and they just added my wife's parents to eligible zipcodes (they added the lines last year).
I have two frustrations: 1st was I lost my grandfather pricing when I moved. 2nd is that since there was an overlap where I was at both houses, I had to use my wife's gmail account for the new home. They won't have two accounts on the same ema
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Well that's actually news, since I recall that their first fiberhood was east side inside 410 (Eisenhauer/Rittiman area I think), and you're apparently northwest. (I have never heard of Shanefield before, and 1604 is an outer ring road.)
But the thing is, I'm not actually in San Antonio, I'm in one of the few suburb cities, specifically the one which now (since the land was ceded from SA about 15 years ago) contains the HQ of a major internet hosting provider, in an old mall. On the positive side, most of t
Nothing To See Here (Score:3)
This is, by far, the best part of the article:
But, according to Adair, Alphabet and BDS have neither attempted to quash the union drive, nor expressed a willingness to recognize it."There's been no acknowledgement, no pushback. no response at all yet," they said. Google and BDS have not responded to requests for comment from Engadget.
Of course BDS has done nothing. There's nothing to do. The Dungeons and Dragons group we have at my employer is as big as this so-called union. As long as the employees keep showing up to work they will continue to get paid what they agreed to get paid when they were hired. Now, if this new union decided to strike, that would be a different matter altogether. Of course, at that point I suspect that Google just contracts workers from a different subcontractor, or the existing subcontractor simply hires new workers.
Or maybe not. They currently have 11 contractors working out of this location. Certainly something bad would happen if 10 of them decided that they were done working. That might be enough to get these workers the "hazard pay" that they feel that they deserve. Either way, however, there is really only one way to find out. The workers need to walk.
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That's what I assumed as well. These guys formed a union and the employer hasn't even acknowledged that they have done so. No efforts to improve workplace relations, no HR folks showing up pretending to listen, nothing. The next step for organized labor should clearly be to strike. These 10 employees should probably save up some money first though. I suspect that if they strike they will soon find themselves out of a job.
I suspect that they know this as well. Which is why they are taking the long ro
don't like unions (Score:2)
I've had a past employer who just wouldn't engage with the union representing the workers and only communicated with employer selected worker representatives. The whole deal was, of course, a charade and we ended up with lower wages, when that was against Australian employment law.