Google DeepMind Employees Unionize over Company's Ties to Israel

Some hope, to be sure

In a bombshell from WIRED and The Verge, it was reported this morning that hundreds of employees from Google DeepMind’s UK office have requested that the company recognize the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Unite the Union as their representatives in the workplace.

Let me just say this: BIG. FUCKING. DEAL.

98% of the workers in this office voted to unionize as a direct response to the company’s continued complicity in aiding and abetting the Israeli genocide in Palestine.

That means that, if this bid for union recognition is successful, at least 1,000 tech workers in Google DeepMind’s London office would secure union representation explicitly due to their opposition of a major frontier lab’s participation in genocide.

This comes off the heels of a larger project of resistance and organizing from Google DeepMind workers across the globe, who are seeking a return to Google officially disavowing autonomous weapons projects and surveillance tools and an end to Google’s allowance for the Pentagon to use its technology in classified military operations.

Though this is only the beginning of what is sure to be a protracted fight, I hope it serves as inspiration to American tech workers that these fights are worth being had. Yes, some people will be harassed by their bosses. Yes, some people will be fired. But that’s because the bosses at these companies know that what they have to lose is all their money and what we have to gain is the entire world.

Seems like a worthwhile risk to take, if you ask me.

There is power in a band of working folk, when we stand hand in hand. Power to the Union.