Employees unionized as part of the larger fight for better pay and benefits and petitioned Google to come to the table for negotiations, but the software company had refused.
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TechTranscript
00:00 Google fired its entire YouTube music team while the employees were in the middle of testifying before the Austin City Council a group of
00:06 Less than 50 employees were testifying about their unionization efforts when they were informed of their sudden termination. They just laid us all off
00:13 Oh, yeah, they just laid us all off. We just all I guess we just
00:18 Last year the YouTube music team voted to unionize under the alphabet workers union seeking better pay
00:26 Benefits and a flexible return to office policy. However, Google refused to negotiate arguing that because the employees are contractors their contractor
00:33 Cognizant is responsible for bargaining
00:35 but the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Google and
00:38 Cognizant are joint employers of the YouTube music team and the NLRB said that Google's refusal to bargain with the YouTube music workers is illegal
00:45 Still in a statement to fortune a spokesperson for Google claims the Austin based workers are not Google employees saying Cognizant is
00:52 Responsible for them Google also denied that it fired the workers saying this was a routine end of contract that was agreed on with Cognizant
00:58 but the workers say the termination was a surprise and many feel as if they could lose their homes due to the sudden and
01:03 unexpected layoff