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    Canada Goose’s Image Is Challenged by Union Effort

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    Production of the company’s parkas was once fully unionized, but labor organizers say the owners have taken a harder line in recent years.Canada Goose, the luxury jacket maker, has cultivated an image that is not only chic but also socially conscious. It has forged alliances with environmental advocates and talked of its commitment to high labor standards.These efforts have paid off as the company outgrew its roots as a family enterprise and built a worldwide following for its parkas, which can cost over $1,000 and have been worn by celebrities like Daniel Craig and Kate Upton. “We believe that the brand image we have developed has significantly contributed to the success of our business,” the company wrote in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in March.But production employees of Canada Goose, who were all unionized as of 2010, have complained that the company has taken an increasingly hard line toward labor that is at odds with its stated values.Shoppers at a Canada Goose store in New York in 2019. Employees have accused the luxury jacket maker of being anti-union.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesIn 2019, a company official was cited by a provincial labor board for unfair labor practices during a union election at a newer facility, and some employees complain that the company has retaliated against them in recent months for supporting a union.“People have fear,” said Alelie Sanvictores, a worker who has been active in union organizing. “Some people are scared to talk to me.”Canada Goose denies that it is anti-union and that it has retaliated against union supporters. “It is the employees who will decide their path forward, and Canada Goose will support their decision,” the company said in a statement. The company dismissed the official cited for unfair labor practices.On Wednesday, a few dozen labor activists picketed the Boston headquarters of Bain Capital, the private equity firm that owns and controls Canada Goose, hoping to pressure the jacket maker to endorse a union at three plants in Winnipeg.Pro-union demonstrators gathered Wednesday outside the Boston headquarters of Bain Capital, the private equity firm that controls Canada Goose.Philip Keith for The New York TimesThe tensions at Canada Goose appear to illustrate the challenges of seeking rapid growth while maintaining a high-minded reputation that helps sustain a luxury business.An immigrant named Sam Tick founded Canada Goose, then known as Metro Sportswear Ltd., in 1957. Its lone factory, in Toronto, unionized in the mid-1980s.After Mr. Tick’s grandson Dani Reiss took over as chief executive in 2001, he sought to increase worldwide sales of what had largely been a North American operation. Still, he committed to making its parkas in Canada even as much of the country’s apparel industry was moving offshore.“By keeping the majority of our production domestic, we contribute to local job growth and can more easily maintain our high manufacturing and labour standards,” the company wrote in its 2020 sustainability report.But Mr. Reiss has seemed more skeptical of unions than his predecessors at Canada Goose. After the company bought a production facility in Winnipeg in 2011, the union sought a voluntary recognition or a neutrality agreement that would allow workers there to unionize easily.“Dani Reiss said he wasn’t interested in doing that,” said Barry Fowlie, who for roughly a decade has directed the Canada Council of Workers United, the union that represents workers at the company.A company spokeswoman said the union had never asked for voluntary recognition “in any official context.”Bain Capital purchased a majority stake in Canada Goose in 2013 and listed it on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges in 2017.Under Bain’s ownership, the number of unionized workers increased to over 1,000 just before the pandemic, thanks to growth at the original Toronto plant and the addition of two more facilities there. A collective bargaining agreement that predated the new sites makes all Toronto-based production workers part of the union.But facilities in Winnipeg, where the company’s three factories had over 1,000 production workers before the pandemic, are not covered. The growth of the work force there has helped lower the company’s union membership among production workers to about one-third today, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Workers at the Winnipeg plants say many of them make the province’s minimum wage, which is about 12 Canadian dollars per hour (around $9.65), though workers can earn more if they exceed certain production targets. The company said nearly 70 percent of workers were making more than the minimum wage.Canada Goose committed to making its parkas in Canada, even as much of the country’s apparel industry was moving offshore. Mark Blinch/ReutersIn interviews, five workers complained that managers were often abusive toward the largely immigrant work force.One worker, Immanuelle Concepcion, said her supervisor flew into a rage over mistakes in some jackets she appeared to have worked on. “She told me, ‘How dare you allow this to happen? How dare you?’” Ms. Concepcion recalled. “I was shaking. I haven’t experienced humiliation that way.”The Canada Goose spokeswoman said that the company had gotten no reports of “frequent abuse” and that all reports of harassment were investigated.In June, the company disciplined two workers at one of its Winnipeg plants shortly after they had identified themselves as union supporters. One said he had routinely been wearing headphones while working, but was warned and then written up for it — on two consecutive days — only after he went to work wearing a union T-shirt.Until then, said the worker, Trevor Sinclair, “my supervisor never said anything about it.”Canada Goose said that “no employees face disciplinary action due to union organization” and that disciplinary action had been taken against Mr. Sinclair once management became aware of his violation.Nearly 30 percent of Canadian workers are union members, compared with about 11 percent of American workers. Mr. Sinclair said he felt that Canada Goose was essentially importing an American model of fighting unions.“The way they treat us is not how Canadians treat each other,” he said. “Management doesn’t really understand what Canada is about.”Philip Keith contributed reporting. More

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    U.S. asks Mexico to review a second complaint about labor violations in its auto industry.

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    The Biden administration is invoking provisions in a new trade agreement to ask Mexico to look into accusations of labor violations at an auto-parts plant near the U.S. border.The action, announced Wednesday by the Labor Department and the Office of the United States Trade Representative, follows a complaint by groups including the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s largest federation of unions, that workers were being denied the rights of free association and collective bargaining.The A.F.L.-C.I.O. said workers at the Tridonex plant in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, had been harassed and fired over their efforts to organize with an independent union in place of one controlled by the company. Tridonex is owned by Cardone Industries, an aftermarket auto-parts manufacturer based in Philadelphia.It is the second time that the United States has sought Mexican review of a labor rights matter under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which took effect last summer. The accord has a “rapid response” mechanism that provides for complaints to be brought against and for penalties to be applied to an individual factory.“This announcement demonstrates our commitment to using the tools in the agreement to stand up for workers at home and abroad,” Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, said in a statement, noting that Mexico has 10 days to agree to conduct a review and, if it agrees, 45 days to remedy the situation.Last month the United States asked Mexico to review whether labor violations had occurred at a General Motors plant in the central state of Guanajuato in connection with a recent vote on a collective bargaining agreement. Mexico agreed to the request the same day. More

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    Uber and Lyft Ramp Up Efforts to Shield Business Model

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    Gig economy companies are backing state laws in New York and elsewhere that would cement drivers’ status as contractors in exchange for a union.After California passed a law in 2019 that effectively gave gig workers the legal standing of employees, companies like Uber and Lyft spent some $200 million on a ballot initiative exempting their drivers. More

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    U.S. Asks Mexico to Investigate Labor Issues at G.M. Facility

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    The administration learned of what appeared to be “serious violations” of labor rights, it said, and is using a new tool in the North American trade deal to seek a review.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it was asking Mexico to review whether labor violations had occurred at a General Motors facility in the country, a significant step using a new labor enforcement tool in the revised North American trade deal.The administration is seeking the review under the novel “rapid response” mechanism in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement and took effect last summer. Under the mechanism, penalties can be brought against a specific factory for violating workers’ rights of free association and collective bargaining.The administration “received information appearing to indicate serious violations” of workers’ rights at the G.M. facility, in Silao in the central state of Guanajuato, in connection with a recent vote on their collective-bargaining agreement, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said.The vote was stopped last month amid accusations that the union at the facility had tampered with it, according to news reports. Mexico’s Labor Ministry said on Tuesday that it had found “serious irregularities” in the vote and ordered that it be held again within 30 days.The updated North American trade agreement required Mexico to revamp its labor system, and the country overhauled its labor laws in 2019. Sham collective-bargaining agreements known as protection contracts, which are reached with employer-dominated unions, are widespread in the country. Now unions are holding votes to affirm the existing agreements.G.M. said it would cooperate with Mexico’s Labor Ministry and the U.S. government.Henry Romero/ReutersIn a statement, Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, said the announcement on Wednesday “shows the Biden-Harris administration’s serious commitment to workers and a worker-centered trade policy.”“Using U.S.M.C.A. to help protect freedom of association and collective-bargaining rights in Mexico helps workers both at home and in Mexico, by stopping a race to the bottom,” she said, using the initials for the trade deal. “It also supports Mexico’s efforts to implement its recent labor law reforms.”In a statement, General Motors said that it believed it had no role in the alleged labor violations and that it had asked a third-party firm to review the matter. The company, which makes Chevrolet Silverado, Chevrolet Cheyenne and GMC Sierra pickup trucks at the Silao facility, said it would cooperate with Mexico’s Labor Ministry and the U.S. government.“General Motors respects and supports the rights of our employees to make a personal choice about union representation and any collective bargaining on their behalf,” the statement said. “G.M. condemns violations of labor rights and actions to restrict collective bargaining.”In announcing its request for a review by Mexico, the Biden administration avoided striking an adversarial tone with the Mexican government.Ms. Tai praised the government “for stepping in to suspend the vote when it became aware of voting irregularities,” adding, “Today’s action will complement Mexico’s efforts to ensure that these workers can fully exercise their collective-bargaining rights.”On Monday, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other groups filed a complaint under the rapid response mechanism in which they alleged labor violations at the Tridonex auto parts plants in the Mexican city of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas.The Biden administration will review that complaint, an official in the trade representative’s office said. It could then ask Mexico to conduct a review of that matter akin to the one it is seeking of the G.M. facility.Oscar Lopez More

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    Complaint Accuses Mexican Factories of Labor Abuses, Testing New Trade Pact

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    The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other groups are seeking to make use of a new enforcement mechanism in the updated North American trade deal.WASHINGTON — The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other groups plan on Monday to file a complaint with the Biden administration over claims of labor violations at a group of auto parts factories in Mexico, a move that will pose an early test of the new North American trade deal and its labor protections. More

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    Why Biden May Not Be Able to Save Unions

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    Labor leaders are effusive in praising the new president, but experts worry that he may be powerless to reverse unions’ long-term decline.Two months into the new administration, labor leaders are proclaiming Joseph R. Biden Jr. to be the most union-friendly president of their lifetime — and “maybe ever,” as Steve Rosenthal, a former political director for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said in an interview.Mr. Biden has moved quickly to oust government officials whom unions deemed hostile to labor, and to reverse Trump-era rules that weakened worker protections. He has pushed through legislation sending hundreds of billions of dollars to cities and states, aid that public-sector unions consider essential, and tens of billions to shore up union pension plans.Perhaps most notably, the president appeared in a video alluding to a union vote underway at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, warning that “there should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda” — an unusually outspoken move by a president in a standard union election.Yet Mr. Rosenthal and other labor advocates confess to a gnawing anxiety: Despite Mr. Biden’s remarkable support for their movement, unions may not be much better off when he leaves office than when he entered it.That’s because labor law gives employers considerable power to fend off union organizing, which is one reason that union membership has sunk to record lows in recent decades. And Senate Republicans will seek to thwart any legislative attempts — such as the PRO Act, which the House passed this month — to reverse the trend.“The PRO Act is vital,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “But what happens now in terms of Republicans in Congress, the Senate filibuster, is anyone’s guess.”Until recently, it was far from clear that Mr. Biden would govern in such a union-friendly way. Though he has long promoted the benefits of unions and cited close relationships with labor leaders, the president has also maintained ties to corporate figures like Steve Ricchetti, a counselor to the president who was a lobbyist for companies including AT&T and Eli Lilly. Mr. Biden voted over the years for free-trade agreement that unions opposed.Then there is the fact that he served as vice president in an administration that sometimes annoyed unions, as when President Barack Obama weighed in on behalf of a school district in Rhode Island that fired the faculty of an underperforming school. Mr. Biden also captained an Obama administration team that negotiated with Republicans over deficit reduction, an effort that raised hackles within labor.During the 2020 presidential campaign, Mr. Biden’s allies and advisers argued that he had merely acted as a loyal deputy to his boss, and that he would prove more in sync with labor as president.But for many in labor who had doubts, Mr. Biden has exceeded expectations. Shortly after his swearing-in as president, the White House asked for the resignation of the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel, Peter B. Robb, whose office enforces the labor rights of private-sector employees.Mr. Robb was deeply unpopular with organized labor, which viewed him as overly friendly to management. His term was set to expire in November, and presidents of both parties have allowed general counsels to serve out their time in office.But with no letter of resignation from Mr. Robb forthcoming on Inauguration Day, the White House fired him.“What was really promising and exciting to those of us who care was the firing of Peter Robb and the dramatic way it came down,” said Lisa Canada, the political and legislative director for Michigan’s state carpenters union.Yet it is the Alabama video that most clearly highlights the differences between Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama on labor. When state workers flocked to Madison, Wis., in 2011 protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to roll back their bargaining rights, union leaders pleaded with the White House to send a top administration official in solidarity. The White House declined, though Mr. Obama did say the plan seemed like “an assault on unions.”“We made every imaginable effort to get someone there,” said Larry Cohen, who was then president of the Communications Workers of America and is now chair of the progressive advocacy group Our Revolution. “They would not allow anyone to go.”Protesters at the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011 opposed a bill curbing union bargaining rights. The Obama administration declined labor leaders’ pleas to send a representative.Darren Hauck/ReutersBy contrast, Mr. Biden seemed eager to offer his statement alluding to the Amazon election, which a number of labor leaders had urged him to deliver.“We haven’t seen this level of elected support for organizing since Franklin Roosevelt,” said Mr. Cohen, who expected the Amazon statement to discourage anti-union behavior among employers.Still, Mr. Cohen and other labor officials said that absent a change in labor law, union membership was likely to follow a path under Mr. Biden that was similar to the one it took under Mr. Obama, when the share of workers in unions dropped about 1.5 percentage points. Over all, union membership has fallen from about one-third of workers in the 1950s to just over one-tenth today, and a mere 6 percent in the private sector.“Because of growing inequality, our economy is on a trajectory to implosion,” said Richard Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., in an interview. The PRO Act “will increase wages and slow that trajectory,” he added.Under current law, employers can inundate workers with anti-union messages — through mandatory meetings, email, signs in the workplace — while unions often have trouble gaining access to workers. And though it is technically illegal to threaten or fire workers who take part in an organizing campaign, employers face minimal punishment for doing so.Labor board cases can drag on for years, after which an employer frequently must only post a notice promising to abide by labor law in the future, said Wilma B. Liebman, a former board chairwoman. There are no monetary penalties for such violations, though workers can be made whole through back pay.The PRO Act would outlaw mandatory anti-union meetings, enact financial penalties for threatening or firing workers and help wrongly terminated workers win quick reinstatement. It would also give unions leverage by allowing them to engage in secondary boycotts — say, asking customers to boycott restaurants that buy food from a bakery they are trying to unionize.Glenn Spencer, a senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, criticized the bill as “a radical rewrite of labor law” and said the provision on secondary boycotts could be highly disruptive for their targets.“Those companies don’t have anything to do with the nature of the labor dispute, but they’re suddenly wrapped up in it,” Mr. Spencer said.Even with the legal protections envisioned under the PRO Act, however, it will be hard for unions to make large-scale gains in coverage, many experts say. Labor law often effectively requires workers to win union elections one work site at a time, which could mean hundreds of separate elections at Amazon alone.The system is “optimized to build weak labor movements,” said David Rolf, a former vice president of the Service Employees International Union, who favors industrywide unions and bargaining.And the PRO Act’s chances for enactment are remote so long as opponents have recourse to the Senate filibuster, which effectively requires 60 votes to pass legislation.Labor organizers outside an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. Mr. Biden appeared in a video alluding to the current union vote there and warning against anti-union efforts.Bob Miller for The New York TimesSenator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, appeared before the executive council of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. this month to make the case for exempting certain types of legislation from the filibuster. In a statement after the meeting, the council members called for “swift and necessary changes” to Senate rules to remove the filibuster as an obstacle to progressive legislation.Mr. Biden has since indicated that he is open to weakening the filibuster, though it is not clear whether the PRO Act would benefit. Mr. Trumka said he was confident that Mr. Biden would seize the opportunity that Mr. Obama had let pass when Democrats enjoyed a large Senate majority but still failed to change labor law. “This president understands the power of solving inequalities through collective bargaining,” Mr. Trumka said.But others are skeptical that Mr. Biden, for all his outspokenness on behalf of unions, will be in a position to deliver.“The proof is in the pudding,” said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. “We know where his heart is. It doesn’t mean anything will change.” More

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    Hundreds of Google Employees Unionize, Culminating Years of Activism

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Artificial IntelligenceThe Bot That WritesAre These People Real?Algorithms Against SuicideRobots Without BiasAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHundreds of Google Employees Unionize, Culminating Years of ActivismThe creation of the union, a rarity in Silicon Valley, follows years of increasing outspokenness by Google workers. Executives have struggled to handle the change.Chewy Shaw, an engineer at Google, at a video meeting with other members of the union’s leadership council. He said a union would keep pressure on management.Credit…Damien Maloney for The New York TimesJan. 4, 2021, 6:00 a.m. ETOAKLAND, Calif. — More than 225 Google engineers and other workers have formed a union, the group revealed on Monday, capping years of growing activism 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 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. Workers said it was primarily an effort to give structure and longevity to activism at Google, 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, Salesforce, Pinterest and others have become more vocal on matters like diversity, pay discrimination and sexual harassment.“Our goals go beyond the workplace questions of, ‘Are people getting paid enough?’” Mr. Shaw said.Credit…Damien Maloney for The New York TimesTimnit Gebru, an artificial intelligence researcher, said Google fired her after she criticized biases in A.I. systems.Credit…Cody O’Loughlin for The New York TimesNowhere 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. Others have opposed business decisions that they deemed unethical, such as developing artificial intelligence for the Defense Department and providing technology to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.Even so, unions have not previously 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 workforces, which are scattered around the globe.Only a few small union drives have succeeded in tech in the past. Workers at the crowdfunding site Kickstarter and at the app development platform Glitch won union campaigns last year, and a small group of contractors at a Google office in Pittsburgh unionized in 2019. Thousands of employees at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama are also set to vote on a union in the coming months.“There are those who would want you to believe that organizing in the tech industry is completely impossible,” Sara Steffens, C.W.A.’s secretary-treasurer, said of the new Google union. “If you don’t have unions in the tech industry, what does that mean for our country? That’s one reason, from C.W.A.’s point of view, that we see this as a priority.”Veena Dubal, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, said the Google union was a “powerful experiment” because it brought unionization into a major tech company and skirted barriers that have prevented such organizing.“If it grows — which Google will do everything they can to prevent — it could have huge impacts not just for the workers, but for the broader issues that we are all thinking about in terms of tech power in society,” she said.The union is likely to ratchet up tensions between Google engineers, who work on autonomous cars, artificial intelligence and internet search, and the company’s management. Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, and other executives have tried to come to grips with an increasingly activist work force — but have made missteps.Last month, federal officials said Google had wrongly fired two employees who protested its work with immigration authorities in 2019. Timnit Gebru, a Black woman who is a respected artificial intelligence researcher, also said last month that Google fired her after she criticized the company’s approach to minority hiring and the biases built into A.I. systems. Her departure set off a storm of criticism about Google’s treatment of minority employees.“These companies find it a bone in their throat to even have a small group of people who say, ‘We work at Google and have another point of view,’” said Nelson Lichtenstein, the director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Google might well succeed in decimating any organization that comes to the floor.”The Alphabet Workers Union, which represents employees in Silicon Valley and cities like Cambridge, Mass., and Seattle, gives protection and resources to workers who join. Those who opt to become members will contribute 1 percent of their total compensation to the union to fund its efforts.Over the past year, the C.W.A. has pushed to unionize white-collar tech workers. (The NewsGuild, a union that represents New York Times employees, is part of C.W.A.) The drive focused initially on employees at video game companies, who often work grueling hours and face layoffs.In late 2019, C.W.A. organizers began meeting with Google employees to discuss a union drive, workers who attended the meetings said. Some employees were receptive and signed cards to officially join the union last summer. In December, the Alphabet Workers Union held elections to select a seven-person executive council.But several Google employees who had previously organized petitions and protests at the company objected to the C.W.A.’s overtures. They said they declined to join because they worried that the effort had sidelined experienced organizers and played down the risks of organizing as it recruited members.Google employees staged a walkout in 2018 to protest how the company handled sexual harassment.Credit…Bebeto Matthews/Associated PressAmr Gaber, a Google software engineer who helped organize the 2018 walkout, said that C.W.A. officials were dismissive of other labor groups that had supported Google workers during a December 2019 phone call with him and others.“They are more concerned about claiming turf than the needs of the workers who were on the phone call,” Mr. Gaber said. “As a long-term labor organizer and brown man, that’s not the type of union I want to build.”The C.W.A. said it was selected by Google workers to help organize the union and had not elbowed their way in. “It’s really the workers who chose,” Ms. Steffens of C.W.A. said.Traditional unions typically enroll a majority of a work force and petition a state or federal labor board like the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election. If they win the vote, they can bargain with their employer on a contract. A minority union allows employees to organize without first winning a formal vote before the N.L.R.B.The C.W.A. has used this model to organize groups in states where it said labor laws are unfavorable, like the Texas State Employees Union and the United Campus Workers in Tennessee.The structure also gives the union the latitude to include Google contractors, who outnumber full-time workers and who would be excluded from a traditional union. Some Google employees have considered establishing a minority or solidarity union for several years, and ride-hailing drivers have formed similar groups.Although they will not be able to negotiate a contract, the Alphabet Workers Union can use other tactics to pressure Google into changing its policies, labor experts said. Minority unions often turn to public pressure campaigns and lobby legislative or regulatory bodies to influence employers.“We’re going to use every tool that we can to use our collective action to protect people who we think are being discriminated against or retaliated against,” Mr. Shaw said.Members cited the recent N.L.R.B. finding on the firing of two employees and the exit of Ms. Gebru, the prominent researcher, as reasons to broaden its membership and publicly step up its efforts.“Google is making it all the more clear why we need this now,” said Auni Ahsan, a software engineer at Google and an at-large member of the union’s executive council. “Sometimes the boss is the best organizer.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More