Vice: Google contractors vote to unionize

United Steel Workers (USW) has added 80 more Pittsburgh area workers to their membership. Brian Conway, writing for Vice, reports that Google contractors working for HCL America voted Tuesday to join USW under the name Pittsburgh Association of Tech Professionals (PATP).

The vote, 49-24, was a victory for both the workers involved in the organizing as well as tech workers more broadly. PATP was originally formed with support from the AFL-CIOs Department for Professional Employees with an eye towards creating an umbrella organization for tech sector unionization. The initial unionization effort by HCL employees had developed separately but has become an important foothold for PATP after this weeks vote.

HCL America had launched a campaign discouraging its employees to vote to unionize, suggesting the USW doesn't even understand what tech workers do an a daily basis because they are a blue collar union. An attempt to drive a wedge in the union movement that should be noted for future organizing efforts.

Workers on both sides of the vote were concerned with the fact that they made less and had fewer benefits than full time Google workers, a refrain often heard by contract workers who make up the majority of Google's workforce.

This vote follows recent organizing drives in the tech sector that included Amazon and Microsoft workers joining the Global Strike for Climate and Amazon warehouse workers walking out earlier this year. Last month, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh workers also voted to join USW.



Correction: Previous versions of this post misidentified the name of the library system where employees joined the USW last month. It is the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh not the Carnegie Public Library as previously stated.