On Monday morning, news broke that a group of 200-some Google employees had signed authorization cards with the CWA and officially formed the “Alphabet Workers Union.” The workers are apparently dubbing their labor organization a “minority” union, which will assumedly one day attempt to bargain on a members-only basis rather than seek majority representation of the firm’s hundreds of thousands of employees. There is a strong rationale for organizing under this method at a corporate giant rather than through the impossible strictures of the NLRA’s exclusive representation model, but it begs the question of what Google is obligated to do when presented with a request for bargaining.
Minority Unionism and the NLRB
