The renewed push for workers’ rights continues throughout the U.S.
About 4,000 Google cafeteria workers have quietly unionized during the pandemic, according to a report.
Thus, about 90% of the total food services workers at Google employed by the contract companies Compass and Guckenheimer are officially unionized, reported The Washington Post, citing a statement from Unite Here, a 300,000-member union of hotel and food service workers.
Workers have unionized at 23 Google offices nationwide, including in Seattle and San Jose. The group has been steadily working to unionize Silicon Valley cafeteria workers since 2018.
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Both Google and Compass expressed their support for the unionization effort.
“We have many contracts with both unionized and nonunion suppliers, and respect their employees’ right to choose whether or not to join a union. The decision of these contractors to join Unite Here is a matter between the workers and their employers,” Google spokeswoman Courtenay Mencini said in the report.
“Our company has a heritage of fairness, equality, and inclusion. We recognize protected labor rights and maintain a neutral position with respect to union participation,” said Guckenheimer spokesman Peter Mikol. “We honor and respect the decision that many employees made to be represented by the union, and look forward to continuing to work productively together,” said Lisa Claybon, a spokeswoman for Compass.
Google cafeteria workers in Atlanta employed by Sodexo and their employer also reached an agreement stating that workers will not be prevented from joining a union, according to the report.
Unionization efforts abound for workers in the United States.
More than 230 Starbucks locations have voted to unionize since last year.
Meanwhile, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) recently launched what it calls a “historic first step” to unionize minor league players across the United States. The union sent out authorization cards that will allow minor league players to vote for an election that could make them MLBPA members.
But not everyone is in support of the movement.
Recently, staff members at the California State Legislature were prevented from unionizing – again. The bill that would’ve allowed its staff to unionize failed to earn support for passage from the Assembly on the last night before the lawmakers adjourned for the year, reported the Los Angeles Times.
In August, Starbucks asked the federal labor board to suspend all mail-in ballot union elections nationwide. This is because labor board’s officials, Starbucks claimed, acted inappropriately during an election in the Kansas City area, the Seattle-based employer wrote in a letter to the chairman and general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board.
In July, Chipotle shut down a restaurant in Augusta, ME where workers previously filed to unionize.
