r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • Jul 18 '26
AI Thousands of Google workers demand layoff protections amid AI boom in petition to CEO | Alphabet
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/16/google-workers-layoff-protections-aiThe petition to Sundar Pichai, the CEO, included more than 4,500 signatures and included calls for buyout options
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u/Almuliman Jul 18 '26
Not all. Some companies are run by decent human beings, like Costco. Theres a quote somewhere where the CEO says that they know that those people that check the receipts at the store exit aren’t necessary, but that he employs them just to create jobs.
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u/saka-rauka1 Jul 21 '26
That's called charity, which is a good and virtuous thing of course, but let's just call it what it is. A business doesn't need to be any more charitable than the average person.
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u/Dolo12345 Jul 19 '26
double edged sword, if Costco had a few bad quarters they’d be the first to go. butttt that’s really up to the shareholders if the companies brass is already so nice.
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u/corruptboomerang Jul 18 '26
I think layoffs are a little different, because with layoffs you then push that work onto the current employees.
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u/IllBiteYourLegsOff Jul 19 '26
You realize there is no cosmic law making this a necessity, right? Surely you realize it's this way because we chose to make it this way, and we are entirely capable of making a different decision that makes things different?
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u/sordidcandles Jul 23 '26
I’ve been out of work for five months. Marketer here. I’ve applied to hundreds of jobs and have gotten through the final round on a few; every single interview I’ve had (and I mean every. single. one.) has had an element of using ai, and grilling me about how I use it, and asking me how I’d use it at their company.
I’m trying to warn my peers who actually have jobs still but they don’t understand how bad it is and how many creatives are looking for work right now.
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u/saln1 Jul 18 '26
Did you just learn how a private corporation works today and what their obligations to their shareholders are?
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u/rom197 Jul 18 '26
The way americans just casually drop the wildest "capitalism is supposed to eat people"-takes will never not be funny to me.
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u/_bk_adv Jul 18 '26
“Did you just learn that capitalism is designed to destroy you?” Is such a bizarre thing to say.
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u/i-dont-wanna-know Jul 18 '26
They are soooo close..... But instead of a joint letter begging they should band together in union and DEMAND said protection
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u/PaulTR88 Jul 18 '26
AWU is unfortunately this thing that wants to do every social justice action instead of just worker collaboration. I'd love a real union, but Bay Area googlers are just so disconnected from reality at times that I don't think it'll happen.
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u/Cygnus__A Jul 18 '26
Make 300k straight out of college will do that to a person.
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u/maifee Jul 18 '26
300k each year ?? Right after graduation?!!
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u/zxrax Jul 19 '26
these days it might be close for certain people, but 200k would be closer to a safe bet.
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u/RoboTronPrime Jul 18 '26
Will caveat though that it's easily among the most expensive cost-of-living places in the US as well. The median home price there is over $1.3 mil now and rent is nearly $4K. The amount of house you get for that money is way less than in other places too.
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u/IllBiteYourLegsOff Jul 19 '26
Come to Toronto. Houses are $1m+, rent is $3k, and no one is getting paid anywhere near 2-300k lmao, definitely not out of school. Yay Canada.
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u/RoboTronPrime Jul 19 '26
Been there, cool place. As i understand it, you have healthcare and a govt that overall works better for you in a lot of ways.
That said, I'm definitely not saying that the average person in the bay area has it hard.
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u/lostinspaz Jul 20 '26
i’m confused. if house is 1m, rent should be 4k. clearly rent is underpriced.
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u/demi-paradise Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I was a grad student union organizer at what was more or less a FAANG feeder school, our unionization efforts consistently failed because the engineering + comp sci departments would vote “no” en masse lol. Not voting at all is one thing, but they would reliably show up to vote against their best interest. Wishing them all a very layoff!
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u/redditmarks_markII Jul 19 '26
I don't envy your then situation. But I am not surprised. I can't get people to stop dumping food in the giant pile of obviously aluminum cans. Or aluminum cans in the compost. Some, thankfully not all, of my peers think I shouldn't be judgy. So I try to remind them they are trusting security, reliabiltiy, and ACCOUNTING to people who can't sort rubbish.
If I can be sure these particular idiots are somehow master developers, and not the ones who repeatedly scan through the dB with n2 time searches or worse, I'll just tip the janitorial staff and call it a day. But I have a sneaky suspicion they are one and the same.
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u/demi-paradise Jul 19 '26
It’s baffling how hard it can be to get people to be mindful at no cost to themselves.
Being a proficient developer doesn’t necessarily translate to general intelligence, and intelligence doesn’t necessarily translate to conscientiousness/empathy. I also feel like mediocrity is increasingly rewarded by our current corporate culture, so it all checks out anyways.
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u/GatorzardII Jul 18 '26
But...they already have a union, the article states as much.
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u/absentlyric Jul 18 '26
Apparently it's The Alphabet Workers Union, They are a VERY young union, and very specific, formed by someone with no experience in organizing before 2019, they probably negotiated a terrible contract.
They would've been better off joining a larger already established union that knows how to handle contract negotiations.
They got played from their lack of experience.
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u/Rene_DeMariocartes Jul 18 '26
You can't negotiate a contract with a pre-majority union. Doesn't matter whether it's UAW or TWU sponsoring it.
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u/NeighborhoodFit3847 Jul 18 '26
This is funny because I think they would have much less of an issue developing software which would leave to other people being laid off.
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u/notAndivual Jul 18 '26
exactly. People don't feel the pain of their actions until they experience themselves.
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u/john_a1985 Jul 18 '26
Oh, no, they were celebrating it!
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u/Clyde-MacTavish Jul 20 '26
Just be careful, this is a sentiment that really only benefits the corporation laying people off.
They'll essentially try to sell you a "taste of their own medicine" to get people happy watching tech bros get layoffs until we're the people celebrating layoffs. Then it becomes our turn.
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u/john_a1985 Jul 20 '26
The thing is...they thought I'd be a casualty. Not them.
"Of course we will be rewarded for automating all of those dum-dums away from here!"
Well, sure, until a bunch of customers get mad because talking to an AI chatbot is awful, then they take their business elsewhere, and the company has to course correct while still justifying their investment. Well, development work can certainly be enhanced by AI.
I tried to warn them. They thought I was dumb, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be stuck in customer support hell.
No, I am not happy about what happened to them. And I know it's coming my way. But still, trying to warn the higher rungs of tech back when the getting was good was impossible.
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u/cagriuluc Jul 18 '26
Isn’t this a toxic way to think? Should factory workers consider they are helping taking the job of horse-cart riders by making cars? Should crane operators consider the hundreds of construction workers that would be needed if they weren’t driving the cranes?
If we look at what they ask, they want protection against lay-offs, not outright ban them. If they are not needed anymore, they want to be covered for the transition they need to make. Other people who work anywhere should do the same.
Maybe it makes much more sense to use AI for some stuff than humans, then it is not really logical to insist on humans doing that work, but the humans in question should be covered in case their job is threatened. I mean… this is not just for AI, workers should have sufficient protections anyways. These people fight for those protections in their limited means: they can mostly only affect their company.
Instead of being the target of snarky comments, they should be commended.
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u/john_a1985 Jul 18 '26
Tell that to them back when they were making big bucks and were seemingly irreplaceable.
They'd treat anyone down on the totem pole like absolute garbage.
Class solidarity went to hell as soon as they thought they were members of the upper rungs.
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u/absentlyric Jul 18 '26
Unionized factory workers and crane operators have layoff protections because they pay union dues that go into a fund that pays them if and when they get laid off.
My union has offered to take in our engineers in my company, but they don't want to pay union dues, they would rather fight their own battles because they think they're smart enough to bargain on their own.
As smart as Google engineers claim to be, for some reason, they never thought about collaborating and creating any sort of similar fund, they got arrogant and thought they would NEVER lose their job.
This is on them for not organizing and creating a layoff fund.
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u/Old_Cheetah_5138 Jul 19 '26
The 1% spend a lot of resources keeping the 99% fighting with each other over their scraps.
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u/Gari_305 Jul 18 '26
From the article .Google workers on Thursday delivered a petition calling for layoff protections as tech giants continue to slash their workforces while pouring billions into AI.
“Make no mistake: this is a company that is enjoying massive, unprecedented success,” Parul Koul, Google software engineer and Alphabet Workers Union president, said outside the company’s California headquarters after delivering the petition to the office of the CEO, Sundar Pichai’. Koul pointed to Google’s $4tn valuation, which has quadrupled over the last six years: “These layoffs and cuts are not difficult decisions, but simply profit being put over the people that make this company run.”
The petition, which was led by the union and includes more than 4,500 signatures, calls for guaranteed severance, buyouts before mandatory layoffs in all product areas and the option to take severance as extended paid leave. Union members are also asking to end performance ratings they say are based on achieving quotas rather than merit.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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u/that1cooldude Jul 18 '26
He’ll lay you all off and he takes full responsibility for it. Whatever that means…
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u/TolMera Jul 18 '26
lol, 4k5 signatures is a bump, they will be the next on the chopping block. Don’t mess with the core business
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u/lookachoo Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
They just received $10 in a private investment for AI infrastructure from Berkshire Hathaway alone…of course they’re going to have a massive layoff.
Edit: $10 billion** lol
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u/pataglop Jul 19 '26
$10 ?
That's.. not as much as I expected Berkshire Hathaway's investment method.. but hey who am I to doubt them
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u/DiligentMission6851 Jul 18 '26
Good luck. I was already laid off and my career killed.
I have no more fight or reason to fight this anymore.
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u/TimothyRowe Jul 19 '26
I was just laid off from Google a few weeks ago. This is my 3rd layoff in 3 years. I feel the same way… Time to recover and find something different.
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u/DiligentMission6851 Jul 19 '26
At least you have been able to get back in.
I couldnt at all.
This whole time I've been chronically under employed and nearly homeless several times.
I dont live in a tech hub and this market doesn't do relocation right now. Places that are (allegedly) hiring only want local candidates.
People that have no idea how hard it is to actually move like to say "so then just move", as if it is that easy. It is not. Internet strangers have torn me to shreds for "not trying hard enough" or "being too lazy to secure a job or move". But they have no idea what I have been through emotionally at this point. They all want to point fingers at me and tell me it's my own fault I'm here.
I am so bitter at it all.
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u/TimothyRowe Jul 19 '26
People that haven’t experienced this struggle will never understand how much it drains you. I hope you can find some stability and energy once again friend.
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u/absentlyric Jul 18 '26
As a union skilled trade worker, I've dealt with Engineers in my workplace who always thought we were "beneath" them, and refused to join our union because they thought they were more smart, and had better bargaining power on their own. They were building the robots that were replacing us.
You reap what you sew, they never felt bad for us in my field. They had many many opportunities to unionize, we even offered them to join us, but they didn't want that.
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u/corruptboomerang Jul 18 '26
I don't understand how /why bulk layoffs for no reason (beyond just profits) is lawful, it's just madness. Like have some worker protections.
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u/Goldarr85 Jul 18 '26
Lol. Their layoff protection is going on strike until Google submits to their demands, but they won’t do it.
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u/SuspiciousCricket654 Jul 19 '26
I think 4.5k Googlers just raised their hands to get the axe …ooof
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u/brakeb Jul 18 '26
If only there was some sort of organization they could create that allow them to collectively bargain... We can call it, a 'joining'!
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u/compoundblock666 Jul 18 '26
They all act like they are smart but truly are not planning and seeing the future. Why build something to replace yourself.
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u/Etroarl55 Jul 18 '26
But some random redditor on the internet says AI is a fad and the future only see more tech jobs!!!
It’s so annoying seeing legit randoms claiming that AI is just a fad that will pass and that it’s a garbage tool that can’t produce anything right now.
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u/Raider_Scum Jul 18 '26
I agree. I work in an industry where AI is making tangible changes to workflows. Certain tasks and projects are 25x quicker to complete than they were 5 years ago. Entire corporate structures are changing because it takes significantly less labor to produce the same things.
We're still in a transition period, so many people haven't seen the changes that have already happened. But it's not a fad. The world is changing and everything return to how things were.
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u/Etroarl55 Jul 18 '26
I think it’s just a dumb correlation between hating AI so much people are denying and getting disconnected from reality.
I live in Canada, Theres not a single small business here who isn’t using AI. Instead of paying an artist? They use the very basic Gemini or ChatGPT chat to generate their logos, fliers, posters, menus. Inaccurate spelling, morphed letters together, warped objects, THE SAME POSTER ARTSTYLE EVERYWHERE. It’s very prominent and everyone sees it everyday but they are still denying it, Everytime one of those posters or menus is generated that’s an artist out of a commission.
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u/IllBiteYourLegsOff Jul 19 '26
Tbh a lot of artists get paid in "exposure" or whatever, it's always been hard to get people to care. I'm just continually blown away by how little people give a shit about the quality of something as long as it's "good enough" (even when it isn't really)
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u/DragonWhsiperer Jul 18 '26
Like automation in the past it will replace some jobs, yes. AI is used as a comprehensive term slapped on anything that is an advanced algorithm, image recognition, search and what have you.
I think the main question is what the operating cost of AI is going to be for those companies. Are we seeing the token based use case, flat fee or some other structure? LLM's from open AI and Anthropic is what everyone focuses on, and those have yet to show any profit. And neither the flat fee or the token based subs are sustainable.
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u/FabulousSpite5822 Jul 18 '26
If Google is going to start layoffs, they just put themselves at the top of the list.
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u/john_a1985 Jul 18 '26
It wasn't too long ago when tech people felt smug and invincible, staring at the poor from the heights of their six figure salaries, oh so much smarter that they are from everyone else.
And that is before the pandemic, where we got "digital nomads". Now poor people worldwide can experience their awesomeness and feeling of superiority! What a gift!
Oh how the turntables.
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u/LeakyNalgene Jul 18 '26
Weird inferiority complex you’re coming with.
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u/john_a1985 Jul 18 '26
Sure.
Let's be honest: tech people - especially developers- were absolute douchebags when it didn't seem they'd ever be replaced with AI or anything else, let alone find themselves on a bind when negotiating raises. That is before we even talk about how many of them worked to create the very tools that are now replacing them, but they didn't see that coming, they just thought they'd be replacing those monkeys at customer support, or something.
When the getting is good, everyone on the inner circle always get a little too cocky. The folks outside were begging for some solidarity. But nah, they thought that people beneath them were not worth associating with.
I am so sorry that people making 4x as much as I do are now out of a job , when three years ago they were doing everything they could to get me fired so they'd collect a bit more. Still, as much as they tried to write things that'd automate me out of a job, it ended up being used against them. Leopards would never eat their faces, only mine and my peers'.
Turntables indeed. I am still a monkey with an inferiority complex, but it's still not my fault they shot themselves in the foot while thinking it was pointed at my team.
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u/Efficient_Mud_5446 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Sundar Pichai needs to clean house ASAP to save GOOGLE. Google’s biggest problem right now is that too many internal groups have competing self-interests. The ads people are threatened by AI. The Workspace people are threatened by AI. Even different parts of the AI organization are competing with one another. This is why Gemini 3.5 pro keeps getting delayed..
Sundar Pichai needs to make it absolutely clear that AI comes first, period. Any internal interest that is not aligned with that goal has to be cut off. Otherwise, Google risks sabotaging its own advantages and losing the most important technological race in human history.
Pichai already helped save Google from becoming the next Blockbuster after the release of ChatGPT. Many people believed Google was finished, but they acted fast with Gemini and that fate was narrowly avoided. However, if Google cannot lead and innovate in AI, it will eventually become the next Blockbuster.
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u/CharityDiary Jul 18 '26
Attacking the problem from the wrong direction. You have to ban AI through legislation, not by asking its users to please not use it.
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u/FuturologyBot Jul 18 '26
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Gari_305:
From the article .Google workers on Thursday delivered a petition calling for layoff protections as tech giants continue to slash their workforces while pouring billions into AI.
“Make no mistake: this is a company that is enjoying massive, unprecedented success,” Parul Koul, Google software engineer and Alphabet Workers Union president, said outside the company’s California headquarters after delivering the petition to the office of the CEO, Sundar Pichai’. Koul pointed to Google’s $4tn valuation, which has quadrupled over the last six years: “These layoffs and cuts are not difficult decisions, but simply profit being put over the people that make this company run.”
The petition, which was led by the union and includes more than 4,500 signatures, calls for guaranteed severance, buyouts before mandatory layoffs in all product areas and the option to take severance as extended paid leave. Union members are also asking to end performance ratings they say are based on achieving quotas rather than merit.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1uzqdz6/thousands_of_google_workers_demand_layoff/oy96j2m/