Over unfair labour practises, YouTube Music Workers Go On Strike

Workers at YouTube Music went on strike as a result of allegations that Alphabet and its subcontractor Cognizant used unfair labor practices to further their union drive. This Friday, a group of 40 YouTube Music employees in Austin, Texas, will go on strike. These workers were all employed by Alphabet subcontractor Cognizant, which was charged with unfair labor practices, according to a report. Sam Regan, the general manager of YouTube Music, said during a Facebook live video that the department as a whole is planning to vote in favor of the National Labor Relations Board. Before the election, "our employer is demanding a stop to remote work, which would severely interfere with the fair voting conditions mandated by federal law," the employee continued. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Image credit- The Economic Times[/caption] The content operations team is anticipated to adhere to the return-to-office policy (RTO) on February 6th, according to Alphabet Workers Union (AWU). However, some of this personnel are not even situated in Texas and were employed remotely. Only $19 per hour is paid to workers. With this pay, according to the AWU, workers will not be able to cover the expenditures of travel, relocation, and health insurance for each employee in the organization. In order to weaken the union's activities, managers were also charged with moving employees to different offices. Cognizant and Alphabet reportedly offered employees the chance to work from home for an additional two weeks as a response to the workers' walkout, according to Time. However, they can only accept this on the condition that they stop working for YouTube on behalf of Cognizant, which was designed to deter employees from participating in any lawful coordinated activity. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Image credit- The workers right[/caption] Regarding this matter, a Google software engineer spoke out in support of the striking workers, "The layoffs demonstrated that to Google bosses, we are merely numbers on a spreadsheet. The Google I thought I joined is not this one. For this strike, I joined Google. I'm grateful." Also read: Imposed Policies Violate Labor Rights, Say Apple Executives According to reports, Alphabet and Cognizant only revealed the RTO police after employees decided to organize. Cognizant, however, made it clear that these plans have been in place and shared with the staff since December 2021. Employees petitioned the NLRB to identify them as "jointly employed" by Cognizant and Alphabet, which would compel the latter to engage in contract negotiations in accordance with US labor laws. Outside of the Google office in Austin, Texas, the strike started at 12:00 (EST) today. In Austin, Texas, the National Labor Relations Board received petitions for union registration from 58 YouTube Music Content Operations employees last October 2022. This is an attempt to obtain leverage in negotiations.