*******Instruction******
After reading the two newspaper articles on the bottom, answer:
1- What are the differences and similarities between workers at Google and Amazon regarding their strikes and/or attempts to unionize? (the nature of their demands, goals, etc.); why is that?
2- Why do workers find it so difficult to unionize in the private sector?
*** I attached articles (PDF file) with this order.NY TIMES ARTICLE:
Hundreds of Google Employees Unionize, Culminating Years of Activism
The creation of the union, a rarity in Silicon Valley, follows years of increasing outspokenness by Google workers. Executives have struggled to handle the change.
OAKLAND, Calif. ? More than 400 Google engineers and other workers have formed a union, the group revealed on Monday, capping y ears of growing activism
(Links to an external site.)
at one of the world?s largest companies and presenting a rare beachhead for labor organizers in staunchly anti-union Silicon Valley.
The union?s creation is highly unusual for the tech industry, which has long resisted efforts to organize its largely white-collar work force. It follows increasing demands by employees at Google for policy overhauls on pay, harassment and ethics, and is likely to escalate tensions with top leadership.
The new union, called the Alphabet Workers Union
(Links to an external site.)
after Google?s parent company, Alphabet, was organized in secret for the better part of a year and elected its leadership last month. The group is affiliated with the
Communications Workers of America, a union that represents workers in telecommunications and media in the United States and Canada.
But unlike a traditional union, which demands that an employer come to the bargaining table to agree on a contract, the Alphabet Workers Union is a so-called minority union that represents a fraction of the company?s more than 260,000 full-time employees and
contractors
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. Workers said it was primarily an effort to give structure and longevity to activism at
Google
(Links to an external site.)
, rather than to negotiate for a contract.
Chewy Shaw, an engineer at Google in the San Francisco Bay Area and the vice chair of the union?s leadership council, said the union was a necessary tool to sustain pressure on management so that workers could force changes on workplace issues.
?Our goals go beyond the workplace questions of ?Are people getting paid enough?? Our issues are going much broader,? he said. ?It is a time where a union is an answer to these problems.?
In response, Kara Silverstein, Google?s director of people operations, said: ?We?ve always worked hard to create a supportive and rewarding workplace for our work force. Of course, our employees have protected labor rights that we support. But as we?ve always done, we?ll continue engaging directly with all our employees.?
The new union is the clearest sign of how thoroughly employee activism has swept through Silicon Valley over the past few years. While software engineers and other tech workers largely kept quiet in the past on societal and political issues, employees at
Amazon
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, Salesforce, Pinterest and others have become more vocal on matters like diversity, pay discrimination and sexual harassment.
Nowhere have those voices been louder than at Google. In 2018, more than 20,000 employees staged a walkout to protest how the company handled sexual harassment
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. Others have opposed business decisions that they deemed unethical, such as
developing artificial intelligence
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for the Defense Department and providing technology
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to Customs and Border Protection.
Even so, unions have not gained traction in Silicon Valley. Many tech workers shunned them, arguing that labor groups were focused on issues like wages ? not a top concern in the high-earning industry ? and were not equipped to address their concerns about ethics and the role of technology in society. Labor organizers also found it difficult to corral the tech companies? huge work forces, which are scattered around the globe.
