Overview
- Roughly 100 employees rallied at Google’s Mountain View campus on Thursday and presented a petition signed by more than 4,500 staff addressed to CEO Sundar Pichai and other senior executives.
- The petition demands guaranteed severance based on Google’s January 2023 packages, voluntary exit offers before involuntary layoffs, the option to take severance as extended paid leave, and an end to forced-distribution performance ratings.
- About 20 workers tried to hand the petition to executives including Thomas Kurian and Sundar Pichai but found offices empty and slipped the document under doors; a staff member agreed to pass it on and Google has not issued a substantive public response.
- The Alphabet Workers Union, which has about 1,400 members, says the campaign has won partial gains because voluntary exit offers have been made available to more than 70,000 workers eligible since the push began, though that figure reflects eligibility not acceptances.
- Organizers link the push to Alphabet’s large AI investments and past cuts—including about 12,000 layoffs in 2023—and say the changes would protect workers facing sudden job loss, visa risks, and new 'AI fluency' performance expectations.