Sanders’ help comes amid rising tensions between employees on YouTube Music’s Content material Operations workforce and its father or mother firm, Google. The almost 60 employees are formally employed by Cognizant, a third-party contractor to Google. Final October, they filed for a union election with the 1,300-member Alphabet Staff Union (AWU). However shortly after that request was filed with the Nationwide Labor and Relations Board, Cognizant issued a brand new return-to-office mandate that organizers — and Sanders — argue quantities to an unlawful union-busting technique.
“Our request to you is straightforward: Be certain that all Google employees, together with YouTube Music employees, are in a position to freely train their proper to hitch a union as assured by federal regulation.”
“We fear that Cognizant all of a sudden imposed these unattainable necessities on these employees in response to them exercising their proper to prepare a union,” Sanders wrote to Pichai along with Austin Rep. Greg Casar (D) on Tuesday. “Our request to you is straightforward: Be certain that all Google employees, together with YouTube Music employees, are in a position to freely train their proper to hitch a union as assured by federal regulation.”
Google didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday.
The YouTube Music employees formally known as a strike on February third, three days earlier than the return-to-office mandate went into impact. In a Monday tweet, the AWU known as it the first-ever strike at Google. Whereas their employer, Cognizant, is a third-party contractor to Google, the AWU argues that the 2 firms are joint employers for the YouTube Music Content material Operations Division.Â
In January, Sanders turned the chair of the highly effective Senate Committee on Well being, Training, Labor, and Pensions. Along with his Tuesday letter to Google, Sanders has leveraged his newfound energy to go after different firms allegedly obstructing unionization efforts and operating afoul of federal labor regulation. Earlier this month, Sanders hinted at subpoenaing Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to testify earlier than his committee concerning the firm’s “egregious union-busting marketing campaign.”