Forty-three contract works who were part of the YouTube Music team have been rendered jobless. For the last one year, these workers had been rallying for enhanced pay. The contract workers had been taken on by Google and Cognizant, its subcontractor.
The news of their layoff was quite unexpected and took the workers by surprise, as is clear from a video that has gone viral on social media. It shows an employee’s surprised and shocked reaction to the news.
These contract workers now feel that they may have been fired without any notice because of their demand for better remuneration; that this was the company’s way of retaliating.
Both Google and Cognizant claim that the contracts of their contract workers came to an end on the “natural” date of expiry. Cognizant also maintains that the layoffs are part of its business operations and that affected staff members would enjoy seven weeks with pay to look for alternative jobs or apply for suitable roles within the firm.
Interestingly, these contract workers had voted in favour of unionisation in 2023 and had been demanding a hike, better benefits, and more flexibility in terms of return-to-office policies.
Google had refrained from negotiating with them as they were not considered regular ‘employees’. This was seen as an illegal act by the National Labour Relations Board or NLRB. In fact, NLRB brought in a rule to make it harder for companies to escape accountability in unionisation attempts by third-party or on-contract staff.
