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Google workers protest job cuts, low wages in rallies held in California and New York offices

  • The rallies began minutes after Alphabet reported US$13.6 billion in fourth-quarter profit, which one engineer said ‘debunked its own rationale’ for cuts
  • Google is one of many Big Tech firms, including Microsoft and Amazon, cutting jobs amid economic headwinds

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The exterior of the Google Bay View campus on May 16, 2022, in Mountain View, California. Photo: TNS
Bloomberg
Google employees staged protests on both US coasts this week to call attention to labour conditions for subcontracted workers and support thousands of co-workers who were recently laid off.
Rallies, one held on Wednesday at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, and another Thursday near Google’s corporate offices in New York City, came after the company announced the largest reduction in its history – 12,000 positions, or 6 per cent of its global workforce. Other major tech firms including Microsoft Corp, Salesforce Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have also recently announced lay-offs.

The protest in New York, which drew about 50 employees outside a Google store on Ninth Avenue, began just minutes after parent company Alphabet Inc reported fourth-quarter results, including US$13.6 billion in profit.

“Today, Google has debunked its own rationale for laying off 12,000 of our co-workers,” said Alberta Devor, a software engineer. “It is clear that the menial savings the company is pocketing from laying off workers is nothing in comparison to the billions spent on stock buy-backs or the billions made in profit last quarter.”

Both demonstrations were organised by the labour group Alphabet Workers Union – a “minority union” that doesn’t have collective bargaining rights, and whose members include Google subcontractors as well as employees.

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