Alphabet, Google’s parent company and one of the largest corporations in the world, consistently uses the services of subcontractors to help maintain the mass of subsidiaries under its umbrella.
These contracted workers vary in job description and the company they work for, but as a whole represent a significant chunk of Alphabet’s workforce and are, consequently, what’s made them so dominant.
Accenture, an Irish American IT company, is one of the many organs of Alphabet’s contract system. Through their company, Alphabet indirectly employed people to create Google Help articles.
Following Alphabet’s decision to shift some of these workers to operate on the new Gemini chatbot without proper training or guidance, especially when dealing with vulgar content, along with the general desire for better pay, benefits and security, those employed by Accenture initiated unionization efforts.
In response, Alphabet and Accenture laid off around two-thirds of the group. These workers went on to overwhelmingly vote in favor of unionization, joining the Alphabet Workers Union.
This resulted in further pushback as Alphabet argued that Accenture was the contract worker’s primary employer, through which collective bargaining should be negotiated.
In late 2023, this dispute made its way to the National Labor Relations Board, who used their new Joint Employer Standard to strike down Alphabet and rule that they were jointly responsible for collective bargaining with contract employees, along with Accenture.
Alphabet was found to have significant influence on “one or more of the employees’ essential terms and conditions of employment” along with Accenture, meaning that Accenture contract workers were within their rights to join Alphabet’s union.
The NLRB’s ruling on Alphabet and Accenture comes on the heels of another ruling pertaining to Alphabet.
In April of 2023 a group of Youtube Music workers employed by Cognizant, a cloud computing company that Alphabet contracts workers through, unanimously voted to join the AWU.
Alphabet refused to negotiate with them by claiming that they were contracted workers, arguing that Cognizant was the entity through which collective bargaining should occur, not Alphabet. The NLRB found Alphabet and Cognizant to be joint employers, making the responsibility of collective bargaining rest on both Alphabet and Cognizant.
Despite the success of the NLRB’s Joint Employer standard, which laid the foundation for their decisions concerning Alphabet, a strong opposition formed.
Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a resolution aiming to invalidate the Joint Employer Standard on Nov. 9.
This congressional effort was supported by many pro-business groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but ultimately failed.
After passing in the House and Senate, President Biden vetoed the resolution. An attempt was made to override the veto, but it failed in the House on May 7.
