About 4,500 Google employees have signed a petition urging the company to adopt stronger protections against layoffs, delivered last week to CEO Sundar Pichai’s office at Google’s California headquarters by members of the Alphabet Workers Union.
What Google’s union wants
The union’s Googlers for Job Security campaign is seeking four things:
- The Alphabet Workers Union is calling on Google to guarantee severance at least equal to the January 2023 layoff terms (16 weeks’ base pay plus additional weeks per year of service and related benefits), arguing that more recent packages have been less generous. Because severance arrangements are not fully disclosed for every layoff round and jurisdiction, this claim reflects worker perceptions and union analysis rather than a publicly verifiable global metric.
- Voluntary buyouts would have to be offered before any involuntary layoffs, at terms at least matching the guaranteed package.
- Laid-off workers would be allowed to take severance as extended paid garden leave (when departing employee stays on full pay but is not allowed to work during their notice period) rather than a lump sum. “When workers on visas are hit by surprise layoffs, they often have only a few months to find a new job,” as stated by the union.
- Workers object to what they describe as a quota‑based rating system, where only a fixed percentage of employees can receive each GRAD rating level. They argue this “forced distribution” approach leads managers to adjust ratings to fit a curve instead of reflecting actual performance.
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Prevalence of layoffs in the tech industry
Data compiled by TradingPlatforms.co.uk shows 156,975 tech roles cut worldwide in the first half of 2026, a pace that would close the year near 290,842 job losses and eclipse the 245,000 recorded in 2025. The same analysis finds that by mid-July, nearly 60% of all global layoffs this year have been linked to AI-driven restructuring, though the researchers note relatively few companies have fully operational AI systems capable of taking over significant workloads, and many cuts appear to be pre-emptive cost reductions to fund AI infrastructure.
Union president Parul Koul, a Google software engineer, criticized the company for cutting jobs while performing strongly financially, and told ABC7 the union is “demanding that Google workers have the conditions and the security to do their best work, where they can actually bring new ideas and innovations to life instead of working in an environment driven by fear, where you might be pit against your colleagues or every day you’re not sure how much longer you will have this job.”
Based on public reporting, Google does not appear to have responded.
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