By OLIVIA OLANDER and NICK NIEDZWIADEK
04/24/2023 10:00 AM EDT
Presented by North America’s Building Trades Unions
NOT MUSIC TO GOOGLE’S EARS: Contractors for YouTube Music will vote Wednesday on whether to unionize, in a joint employer case that could lead them to negotiate with Google’s parent company — which has been labeled as jointly employing the workers in a decision from a National Labor Relations Board regional director.
If the employees vote to unionize, it will mark another step forward in what could become a protracted dispute over whether Google must negotiate with workers who are directly employed by another company, Cognizant, and work on behalf of Google.
“It has liability consequences, and it has organizing consequences, and it has bargaining consequences,” G. Roger King, senior labor and employment counsel at the HR Policy Association, said of joint employer negotiations.
Employers are “not enthusiastic at all” about joint employer status, said King, whose association represents companies in labor issues.
Companies often contract out non-core aspects of their business, in part to avoid some of the costs and liabilities that come with doing that work in-house.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has vehemently denied being a joint employer, and is challenging the NLRB’s decision to designate them as one. Their lawyers have argued they do not control the terms or conditions of employment for the...
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