Alphabet Workers Union members in the US say they were blindsided by the announcement of an international alliance and are considering disaffiliation from CWA
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge : Tweets: @reckless and @zoeschiffer Tweets: Nilay Patel / @reckless : Big scoop from @ZoeSchiffer: some members of the Alphabet Workers Union are considering leaving the larger Communication Workers Union https://www.theverge.com/... Zo Schiffer / @zoeschiffer : The Google union is in turmoil following the announcement that AWU had joined a “worker-led” global alliance on Monday...which workers say they didn't know about. Now, some are considering a push to disaffiliate from the Communications Workers of America. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The Alphabet Workers Union launched in January 2021 as a minority union open to contractors and employees alike (over 200 workers announced the plan), but it has always been a branch of the Communications Workers of America rather than an independently certified union. Days after its founding, the group joined Alpha Global, a 13-union alliance spanning 10 countries — and that move is now the source of the rift.
US members say they learned about the alliance from the announcement itself rather than from internal deliberation, and some are now weighing disaffiliation from the CWA entirely. The stakes are structural: AWU's only NLRB-recognized foothold, the Kansas City Google Fiber unit certified in 2022, sits inside the CWA's legal and bargaining apparatus.
First-order effects
- AWU's leadership faces an immediate legitimacy test with its own base — members blindsided by the Alpha Global announcement are the same volunteers who built the union from scratch, and a disaffiliation fight would consume organizing capacity.
- CWA risks losing its highest-profile tech affiliate, which would strip AWU of the parent union's legal staff, NLRB expertise, and bargaining infrastructure.
Second-order effects
- Google's counterparty problem changes shape either way: a CWA-independent AWU would be harder to dismiss as an outside union's project, while a fractured one weakens the only organized voice inside the company.
- The other 12 Alpha Global unions must decide whether solidarity with a US affiliate in open revolt strengthens or taints the alliance's 'worker-led' claim.
Third-order effects
- If disaffiliation proceeds, it becomes a live test of whether minority-union models can survive without institutional parents — the contractor-inclusive structure that made AWU distinctive is exactly what conventional union machinery was never built to support.
- International alliances like Alpha Global may need formal member ratification norms before they scale, or they will keep generating the internal backlash this episode shows.
The trend: Tech-worker organizing is straining against traditional union structures, as bottom-up groups like AWU discover that affiliation brings both resources and governance conflicts their members never signed up for.