The petition, which was led by the union and includes more than 4,500 signatures, calls for guaranteed severance, buyouts before mandatory layoffs in all product areas and the option to take severance as extended paid leave. Union members are also asking to end performance ratings they say are based on achieving quotas rather than merit.<\/p>\n
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Upon delivering the petition, workers were \u201cgreeted with closed doors and no response for the most part\u201d, Koul said. They left the petition with a staff member in Pichai\u2019s office, who committed to delivering it to the CEO, she added. \u201cThis petition is the largest piece of employee feedback that Google has received about job security,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
At Thursday\u2019s press conference, workers called out Alphabet\u2019s mass layoffs<\/a> in 2023, which drew shouts of \u201cshame\u201d from the crowd. Workers also chanted: \u201cGoogle, Google you can\u2019t hide, we can see your greedy side.\u201d<\/p>\n The petition comes as big tech companies thin their ranks, with some explicitly citing AI as a reason.<\/p>\n Google has been cutting its workforce in recent months as it ramps up its AI spend. Google Cloud quietly laid off some employees about two months ago, according to Business Insider<\/a>. And last summer, the company eliminated more than one-third of its managers overseeing small teams, according to an audio recording obtained by CNBC<\/a>. In the company\u2019s latest earnings call<\/a>, Anat Ashkenazi ,Alphabet\u2019s chief financial officer, called AI a \u201ckey investment area\u201d, in which the company plans to continue hiring and boost marketing support.<\/p>\n Google did not comment on whether AI has played a role in its layoffs, but the CEO of the company\u2019s DeepMind division previously told Wired<\/a> that companies trying to replace developers with AI \u201chave a lack of imagination\u201d.<\/p>\n Employees across Silicon Valley are attempting to shield themselves from the effects of the AI boom, whether in their companies\u2019 hiring and firing or spending. The day before the petition went public, dozens of Meta employees sued the social media giant for allegedly using artificial intelligence tools to tag workers for mass layoffs. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, conducted a workforce reduction of about 8,000 employees<\/a> earlier this year. The workers allege that those AI tools targeted them after they asked for protected or maternity leave or disability accommodation.<\/p>\n Meta disputed the allegations; a spokesperson wrote in a statement, \u201cThese claims lack merit and are not based on facts.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to TechScape<\/p>\n A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Oracle laid off about 21,000 employees over the last year, and suggested in its latest annual report<\/a> the adoption and deployment of AI \u201cmay continue to result in reductions to our workforce\u201d. Block laid off almost half of its workforce<\/a> \u2013 roughly 4,000 employees \u2013 earlier this year, with its CEO, Jack Dorsey, citing efficiency gains due to AI. This month, Microsoft announced plans to cut about 2.1% of its workforce \u2013 about 4,800 jobs, mostly in its Xbox gaming division \u2013 as it invests in AI.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s petition builds on the Alphabet union campaign that has already secured at least one victory: voluntary exit packages for more than 70,000 workers. The petition aims to address unmet demands. This isn\u2019t the first time workers have tried to convey them to executives, Koul said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve organized actions mobilizing hundreds of Googlers around the country to raise visibility and attention to these concerns and despite this, Google management has chosen to ignore us,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is why we gathered here in person today.\u201d<\/p>\n Dan Freedman, Google software engineer and Alphabet union member who works on AI tools for designers, was among several employees at the press conference who raised concerns about AI\u2019s impact on workers\u2019 jobs. After AI was added to his job requirements, he feared he wasn\u2019t using it enough and that it could replace him. He recoils with anxiety when he hears about layoffs at the company. \u201cI have to wonder if I\u2019m next,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google workers on Thursday delivered a petition calling for layoff protections as tech giants continue to slash their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":["post-767301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782834249_846_500.jpg\")
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