Google Fiber staff seek union vote and direct negotiations with Alphabet

The labour board petition tees up what could be a lengthy and weighty legal battle. At stake is whether Alphabet, whose army of “temps, vendors, and contractors” has grown to comprise most of the company’s global workforce, should in fact be considered the boss of some of those contract workers. — Reuters

Sub-contracted Alphabet Inc workers in Missouri are petitioning the US government to make the company collectively bargain with them, opening a new front in the struggle over what the Internet giant owes workers it claims aren’t its employees.

In a filing Tuesday with the US National Labor Relations Board, the Alphabet Workers Union requested the agency hold a unionisation vote among about a dozen Google Fiber retail store staff in Kansas City, almost all of whom the union says it’s signed up. AWU’s petition specifies that the workers are seeking to negotiate not only with the Alphabet vendor that officially employs them, BDS Solutions Group, but also with Alphabet itself, the parent of Google and its sibling unit known as Access that includes the high-speed Internet service Google Fiber.