More than 225 staff at tech giant Google have reportedly voted to form a union.
The New York Times reported the unusual tech sector move on Monday.
It follows growing activism at Google in largely anti-union Silicon Valley.
The new Alphabet Workers Union is named after Google’s parent company. Its leaders were reportedly elected last month. The group has affiliated itself with the Communications Workers of America, the Times reports.
Google employs more than 260,000 people, and the union says the labour foothold is primarily an effort to give structure to activism at the company, rather than to negotiate a contract.
Engineer Chewy Shaw, vice-chair of the union’s leadership council, told the Times the union is a necessary tool to sustain pressure on management.
“Our goals go beyond the workplace questions of, ‘Are people getting paid enough?’ Our issues are going much broader,” he told the Times. “It is a time where a union is an answer to these problems.”
Google’s director of people operations, Kara Silverstein, responded: “We’ve always worked hard to create a supportive and rewarding workplace for our work force. Of course, our employees have protected labour rights that we support. But as we’ve always done, we’ll continue engaging directly with all our employees.”
Unions have not gained much traction in Silicon Valley, where tech workers are paid highly and huge workforces are often spread out around the globe.
