Google workers rally in New York to protest recent layoffs

Members of the Alphabet Workers Union held a rally in front of one of the company's NYC Google Store locations yesterday, protesting the recent layoffs of thousands of co-workers.

Last month, the company announced the largest reduction in its history—12,000 positions, or 6% of its global workforce. Yesterday's protest began just minutes after parent company Alphabet Inc. reported fourth-quarter results, including $13.6 billion in profit.

“Today, Google has debunked its own rationale for laying off 12,000 of our co-workers,” said Alberta Devor, a software engineer.

“It is clear that the menial savings the company is pocketing from laying off workers is nothing in comparison to the billions spent on stock buybacks or the billions made in profit last quarter.”

Workers at Google and other Alphabet companies announced the creation of the Alphabet Workers Union in 2021 with support from the Communications Workers of America (CWA)—the first of its kind in the company’s history.

The union is part of CWA’s CODE-CWA (Coalition to Organise Digital Employees) project.

Google and Apple reported downbeat results for the last quarter of 2022 as Amazon beat expectations, but warned that the coming months would be uncertain in a difficult moment for Big Tech.

The tech titans posted earnings as shares in Meta skyrocketed a day after it reported better results than expected and signalled spending and job cuts.