03-14-2024
The YouTube Music team lost their jobs in the midst of testifying about their union efforts this month before the Austin City Council. In 2023, 58 YouTube Music Content Operations team employees unanimously voted to unionize. Part of the Alphabet Workers Union, they wanted better pay, benefits, and more flexibility in the return-to-office policy. The union says employees worked multiple jobs to make ends meet and could not work in person because of childcare and transportation expenses. Google refused to negotiate with the employees. They said the workers were not their employees but contractors for Cognizant. The National Labor Relations Board ruled Google and Cognizant were joint employers over the workers. On that basis, the NLRB held Google's refusal to negotiate with the union was illegal. It led the NLRB to introduce a new rule making it harder for companies like Google to refuse to negotiate where third-party contractors are involved.
The Austin City Council planned to vote on a resolution calling for Google to negotiate with the music team, a resolution that passed 9-1. Instead of celebrating this support, the testifying workers learned their jobs were over effectively immediately and headed back to Google to clean out their offices. Google denied firing the workers, asserting it was the usual end of a contract "which was agreed to with Cognizant." Similarly, Cognizant said the contract ended at its planned expiration date, with the former workers to become part of the company's "deployable talent pool," where they receive seven weeks of paid time to explore other roles and build new skills. The Alphabet Workers Union said the contract end came as a surprise, and no one had given prior notice to the affected workers.