Google: Alpha Global, a global trade union alliance launches as a counterweight to the company

Less than 3 weeks after the announcement of the launch of a Google labour union (the Alphabet Workers Union) in the United States an international coalition of 13 Google unions (Verdi, Unionen, etc.) from 10 countries was formed on 25 January called Alpha Global (named after Google’s parent company Alphabet, c.f. article No.12288), and is headed by UNI Global Union, the global union services federation. The coalition has four main objectives: to set up a global strategy and cooperation between the unions involved, to ‘fight’ for the rights of direct Alphabet employees as well as temporary, product and service suppliers, and contract workers, to enlarge the coalition and to act for all Tech workers and to participate in the development of local unions. ‘[Google] is a place where many workers came to change the world—to make it more democratic—only to find Google suppressing speech and cracking down on worker organizing while consolidating monopolistic power,’ states the press statement, which for instance denounces the U.S. firm’s contracts with companies “committed to preventing the setting up of trade unions”. “The problems at Alphabet—and created by Alphabet—are not limited to any one country, and must be addressed on a global level,” said Christy Hoffman, UNI’s General Secretary … “They are using their collective muscle to not only transform their conditions of employment but also to address social issues caused by increasing concentration of corporate power.” Setting up international trade union alliance bodies is one of UNI Global’s corporate policy pillars and can lead to dialogue with corporate executive teams (Orange, Telefonica are cited as examples in the press release) and should they resist the international body looks to foster information flow, the exchange of experiences, and the coordination of actions (e.g. Amazon).