Google cuts team lobbying efforts to support unions

• The entire YouTube Music team is out of work after going on strike last year.
• Some workers had been lobbying for support for the union at Austin City Council meetings.
• A Google spokesperson said the action was a standard termination of the contract.

The entire team at YouTube Music is out of work amid growing tensions at Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

The Alphabet Workers Union, which represents workers at Google’s parent company Alphabet, Said Google fired its YouTube Music team on Friday.

Some Alphabet employees learned of the layoffs while addressing a city council meeting in Austin, Texas. The city council was scheduled to vote on a resolution calling for the company to negotiate with labor unions.

“We just got laid off. Our jobs end today, effective immediately,” one worker told the City Council in a video of the meeting.

In a statement to X, the union said the YouTube Music team was based in Austin and the pay was so low that some members had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

“Workers are making only $19 an hour and receiving minimal benefits, even though they are contributing to the success of a billion-dollar platform,” the union said.

The YouTube Music team previously went on strike in February 2023 due to Google’s crackdown on remote work.

The union says Google has publicly refused to negotiate with the Alphabet union since workers voted to unionize in April 2023.

According to Austin’s KXAN, Cognizant, the professional services company that Alphabet contracted with the YouTube Music team, said in a statement that the employees were let go because their contract ended on a scheduled date.

The company said it would give employees seven weeks of paid time to “explore other roles within the organization,” according to the report.

A Google spokesperson told Business Insider that Cognizant, not Google, is responsible for terminating the employee’s employment.

“Agreements with suppliers across the company typically terminate at natural expiration dates agreed to with Cognizant,” the company said in a statement.

Cognizant did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment on Saturday.

The job cuts come as Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai face calls to resign. Pichai and Google are feeling increasing competitive pressure from new innovations in artificial intelligence, compounded by the company’s recent AI-related missteps, BI previously reported.

Google recently put its AI image generator, Gemini, on hold for creating historically inaccurate photos.