“我们是赚钱的人”：2个字母工会工人为什么他们有组织

周一，超过400名Google员工和承包商宣布他们已经成立了字母工人工会，这是该公司和硅谷技术工人运动的重要里程碑。

Previously, efforts to unionize the highly paid workers at Big Tech firms have struggled. But in the past few years, workers have increasingly called for change, particularly at Google. Some of the search engine giant’s employees have protested the company’s contracts with the Department of Defense and Customs and Border Protection and have pushed back against a project to build a censored search engine for China. In 2018, Google’s worker discontent saw its largest eruption when more than 20,000 employees walked out over Google’s handling of sexual harassment cases. Most recently, outraged employees spoke out against the way top AI ethics researcherTimnit Gebru被迫离开Goog​​le在十二月。

Amid its workforce’s increasingly outspoken activism, Google has fired some employees andallegedly retaliating against others。同一天，盖布鲁被赶出，国家劳资关系委员会裁定Googlehad likely violated labor law当它解雇了2019年11月参与组织的两名工人时。

当Google人民运营总监Kara Silverstein在通过电子邮件中与您联系时，我们一直在努力为我们的劳动力创造一个支持和有益的工作场所。”“当然，我们的员工保护了我们支持的劳工权利。但是，正如我们一直这样做的那样，我们将继续直接与所有员工互动。”

与传统的工会不同，员工团结在一起并与公司管理层进行了合同，通常集中在财务需求上，字母工人工会将是无合同的少数族裔工会。相反，其组织者的目标是利用联盟来建立一个民主结构，以表达要求并在有关注时支持工人。字母工人联盟是美国较大的通讯工人联盟的一部分，该工会在媒体和电信等行业中拥有成员。

To understand more about the union’s motives and goals, I spoke to one of its elected officials and another member who has long been involved in Google’s worker movement.自2011年以来一直在Google工作的软件工程师Chewy Shaw是工会执行委员会的执行副主席。另一位网站可靠性工程师Isaac Clerencia自2010年以来一直在Google担任。

The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

A culture shift plants the seeds for a union

德赢提款快速公司：How and why did each of you get involved in the unionizing efforts?

耐嚼：当我在2011年到达Google时，确实感觉这种文化是一种受到保护的文化。人们可以说出自己的任何抱怨，说他们认为高管完全不在基本，并且完全不尊重某些社区的行为，并向高管说这一点。没关系。

在过去的几年中，我见过不同的人，他们一直在大声疾呼，因为价值观被推出公司并在公司内部进行了报复。这确实使我觉得这对我来说是一个安全的地方，这是唯一的途径是，如果对那些继续说话的人有所保护。因此，在这一点上，我决定要参与创建某种结构，使人们可以安全地说出来并向前迈进。

艾萨克·克莱西娅：我遵循了相似的道路。我于2010年加入Google，首先喜欢Google。因为正如Chewy所说，感觉就像您不同意的任何事情，您基本上可以直接与领导力交谈。而且，如果您有一个很好的论点，并且能够说服您的同事，那么您甚至可以决定重大决定。但是随后，甚至在美好时光开始出现一些丑闻 - 像Google在他离开的情况下离开后付了一笔巨额资金的事实[鲁宾在Google曾在付款方案中支付了9000万美元发现他犯了性行为不端的罪这纽约时报报告在2018年。]

Even back then, things were not as good as they looked. In recent years, retaliation and so on has been more obvious. Avenues for giving feedback to leadership have been diminishing. And it crystallized when last year five people were fired by Google for organizing-related activities. And it wasn’t enough to just sign letters and write letters. We need some real power that we build and is consistent and is here to stay.

民主的变革结构

FC:人们一直在Google组织多年来, and those efforts have forced at least some change. For instance, after the 2018 Google walkout, executives agreed to end forced arbitration for claims of sexual harassment for employees (though not contractors). What has been the limit of that kind of nonstructured approach and why do you think a union can push your goals forward?

CS：最大的事情之一是，高管们可以通过说好话来轻松地夺走我们的势头。当建立很多动力时，大约是一个快速的时刻，就像这women’s walkout。我们度过了一个非常好的时刻一篇文章that got a lot of people energized and ready to fight. Executives gave some nice statements, but then proceeded to ignore the majority of the demands in the walkout.

A number of us took a look at that and were like, how did this happen? How do we have this many people who care and this little change actually happen? By having a more meaningful, consistent structure that lasts, these are not just one-off campaigns. These are things that we can continue to press on and keep pushing for. We can check up on them as they give their updates, and make sure that there’s actually meaningful progress rather than just backing off and assuming that they are going to make the changes that we want.

FC:您向前迈进时，女性罢工的首要任务是否有未解决的要求？既然您已经公开了，您如何考虑下一步？

CS：现在对我们来说，真正的事情是确保我们的过程尽可能民主。罢工的要求是由社区中一些非常出色的领导人组合在一起的，但他们也没有在严格的民主进程中完成。因此，我们绝对可以确保这些类型的事情通过民主进程，因此我们有一个有意义的人，他们都强烈签署了推动这些要求的努力。然后，我们认为激励人们，不断敦促变革也将变得更加容易。

We are definitely going to be taking some from the different demands. We actually took from several of the different letters and demands in formulating our mission statement and专栏以及我们的重点在哪里。

FC:You both have described a culture shift since started at Google over a decade ago. Much has been made of Google retiring its “don’t be evil” catchphrase. How do you start to rebuild the trust that has been lost? What does an ideal relationship between Google management and the union look like?

CS：理想情况下，工会实际上变成了现在减少高管上的许多负担。问题的一部分是，我们实际上是在处理人们面临的一些最困难的问题，例如弄清楚您如何处理互联网上的隐私，弄清楚您如何平衡人们在YouTube上的不同兴趣。这些不是可以通过快速决定来解决的简单事物，但是高管们正在被迫做出快速决策。

I think that the ideal structure is that we’re able to come together, set up all the processes necessary to get a combined answer of what do the collected workers think is the right way to follow the values in each of these complex problems, present that to the executives, and actually give them a plan for it. And I think that way we can actually work with them. Executives then can continue to make decisions in situations where it is a nice and simple thing. We’re not taking away all power from executives, but we’d like to have a say on these complex issues that actually impact the values our company portrays in the world.

有争议的驱动者成为工会的火花

FC:In December, prominent AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru said that Google fired her over a research paper that was critical of some of Google’s algorithms (Google maintains that she resigned). Thousands of Googlers and members of the research community signed a petition protesting her ouster. Did that outcry play into the union’s decision to go public now?

CS：This last month has been a crazy rally for us. Her firing was largely about [ethical concerns she voiced], at the same time as the NLRB filed charges saying that they also believe that Google was illegally acting in ways to try to stop workers from organizing. That became such a direct signal to a lot of people that this is the right decision. A lot of people who are on the fence then were ready that week to just be like, yeah, this is what we need.

到本月底，我们将其汇总在一起。因此，[Gebru的射击]是其中的很大一部分。这并不是唯一发挥作用的东西，但这是使它看起来确实很强的时机，对于我们获得想要的数字真的很可行的很大一部分。

FC:Gebru的处境引发了很多关于工人组织以保护正在大声疾呼的人的作用的讨论。您如何设想这个工会填补这个角色？

CS：当我们无法直接阻止某人被解雇时，这很棘手。我们所能做的就是在发生这种情况时使其成为非常有力的工人反应。我们可以使其成为高管无法忽略的东西。我们可以支持正在经历这种情况的工人，并帮助他们真正确保他们的生活不会被撕裂，因为这些高度政治的决定是他们所陷入的。而且，我们可以真正努力确保这些工人所说的问题继续前进，即使在该工人被赶出之后，以使他们以这种方式使用自己的声音并不是徒劳的。他们不会被踢出去。

在Google上建造电源的关键

FC:工会会员现在只有几百人。与Alphabet的劳动力相比，这是桶的下降，尤其是当您考虑所有签订合同的人时。一小群工人对全球集团产生什么样的影响？

我知道了：We are the ones making Google the money, right? Google is the whole of its workers. And we are the ones who write the code. If this breaks, we fix it. We’re the drivers who drive workers to work and the cooks who cook food. We are the ones making the money. So we have a lot of power, especially if the union keeps growing as it’s growing. I think we are the ones that produce the value that Google has, so we’ll have a lot of power even if we are only a subset of workers.

FC:到目前为止，您的同事的反应是什么？您打算如何招募更多的人，特别是考虑到Google对组织者进行报复的历史？

我知道了：我认为增长的三个不同阶段。第一个是我们一直在经历的。这是秘密工作的一年，正是由于对报复的恐惧。直到我们有足够的力量，我们才公开。我们认为Google不会解雇250人。我们认为他们无法摆脱它。

在接下来的几天中，我们处于另一个阶段：现在我们是公开的。也许有很多人渴望加入。我们将看到我们走多远。当这种增长消失时，我们将不得不介绍如何与公司其他领域联系。但是我们对接下来几天的增长非常乐观。

CS：With those that I’ve been talking with, there been a number of people who have been scared of retaliation. Pretty much everyone I’ve talked with as a coworker has been in support of this concept of us having a union. The question is just whether or not they were ready to be part of the risk while we didn’t have a public name and we weren’t doing it in the name of a union. I think now that we have switched into this role, it will open the door for a number of those people to feel a lot more comfortable joining something that is directly declared to exist rather than something that they were afraid their manager would secretly find out that they’re in.

FC:您如何考虑保护人们免于报复？即使Google不打算开除250人，这仍然是一家非常强大的公司，具有深厚的口袋和财务利益。你们俩都对自己的支持非常公开，这肯定需要很大的勇气。您是否打算为人们保持匿名而创造一种机制，同时仍是联盟的一员？

CS：我认为我们拥有如此多样化群体的有意义的要素之一是，这也意味着我们每个人都有不同的风险因素，我们可以利用这一点。这就是我们现在要做的。There are a number of us who do feel comfortable putting our faces out there, but there are also a number—often because they have a shorter term contract rather than full employment—who feel like that if they put their face out there, they’re screwed. We don’t want to force anybody to out themselves. We do want to offer support in any way that we can. We are having a number of difficult discussions about what are the ways that we can make sure that we are protecting different groups that we see as having a higher risk profile.

But at the end of the day, we don’t have the power to stop somebody from being fired. We’re focusing on making it so that when they fire people, it has the most minimal impact on the movement. Then, it’s not a viable decision for the company to keep firing people because it won’t change anything.

我知道了：我认为这也是[联合]结构的到来。在组织罢工的人中，他们俩都不再在公司中，因为他们被解雇了。我曾经有一群人与他们一起组织，我认为其中有四个已经离开了。他们今天很高兴听到有关工会的消息，并可能在Twitter上发布，但他们不再在这里。建立工会是使Google开除某人要高得多的实际收益的一种方式。

令人振奋的边缘化声音

FC:您的网站和written testimoniesof your members is this idea of a culture of care. What does a culture of care mean in this context and how you plan to create this within the union and at Google generally? How does that impact the structure of the union being both highly paid full-time employees as well as contract workers?

CS：不围绕一个特定谈判进行构造的好处之一是，我们不需要与联盟集中注意力集中在哪个小组的最初问题上。相反，我们是一个专注于建立人们的声音的工会。而且，由于我们能够真正创建途径供人们大声说出来并听到他们的声音，因此我们可以做到这一点，以使那些觉得自己被忽略的团体的入境障碍要低得多。在我们的文章中，我们做到了这一点，以便如果有人获得联盟的10％，同意联邦政府应接受全民公决，那么我们必须对其进行投票。我们必须确保每个人都看到它。

We can use that to allow smaller groups to really be able to get attention, get their voices heard, and really get themselves into a position where they can more meaningfully argue the case of why they think it would be useful for us to organize around a particular issue. So I think that helps keep things led by the membership rather than just simply led by the executive council. We don’t want to end up in a situation where it’s seven people making the decisions for the whole group. As much as possible we want to make it easy for the group to communicate and come to an agreement.

FC:今天的许多工会，包括德赢提款‘s union, are focused around financial terms and improving people’s pay and benefits. That’s the traditional way of thinking about what a union is and does. But the Alphabet Workers Union is a minority union, which means it’s not bargaining for those kind of terms for all workers. Why did you decide to be a noncontract union? Why is it important to move beyond the traditional mode of thinking about labor organizing, especially in tech?

我知道了：我可以为自己说出为什么加入联盟。我认为我的报酬是公平的，我对该领域没有任何担忧，尽管我的一些同事并非如此，例如分包商在纸面上的收益少于我。但是从这个角度来看，我很高兴。我主要关注两件事。一个人必须从事我不合时宜的事情。过去，Google为中国的搜索引擎蜻蜓遇到了一些麻烦。我团队中的某人基本上是无意中的。当他们甚至不知道自己在做什么时，他们最终就进行了合作。

I don’t know if that member of my team had concerns or not about it, but as a worker, I should have the right to know what I’m working on. I don’t want to discover that suddenly my work from last month is now being used for some military work or police contracts. You should know how your work is going to be used.

In addition, Google and tech companies in general have a disproportionate impact on society at large. Google is mostly driven by profit. The “don’t be evil” was dropped. It’s [difficult to balance] profit and ethics. [The union] can provide that counterbalance to the purely for-profit motive.

CS：我们并不是真正打算尝试以任何特定的方式提出任何必要的革命性或新的东西。。。我们有许多共同的担忧，我们希望共同努力，找到有意义的方法来利用我们在这里工作的事实，实际上是这种方式的一部分，以改变我们公司的发展方式。与集体行动一起作为工人，工人本身设定的议程？描述了一个联盟。在某个时候，我们意识到，争论我们是否使用“联合”一词有点愚蠢，因为无论我们专注于使用集体行动来试图建立自己的方式。

Right now, Communication Workers of America is willing to work directly with us, giving us a lot of support, but not telling us what we have to do—letting us create our own structure that makes sense for the problems that we’re facing. This doesn’t necessarily mean every union needs to shift into the direction that we’re going, but we are looking at every tool in our arsenal to try to figure out how can we protect those of us at our company who we feel are being mistreated and how we can make sure that our company follows through on its values. Being a union of organized workers seems the clearest way for us to do that.