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A trade union is an organised group of workers who act together to improve their working conditions. Instead of each person negotiating alone — where the employer holds all the power — a union lets workers make collective demands with a unified voice. UK law gives this collective power a legal framework and protections: under Trade Union Law, workers have the legal right to organise, bargain together, and take action to back up their demands. You can join our union UTAW-CWU here.

Our Demands

Artificial intelligence holds immense power. As Google continues to push boundaries, we cannot allow that power to be used for harmful purposes such as military weapons, surveillance, or other unethical uses. Google’s technology must serve the greater good—advancing human rights, global security, and positive societal outcomes. By supporting this campaign, you are standing up for a future where tech companies, especially Google, operate in a way that prioritises ethical standards and respects fundamental human rights. We must ensure Google’s technologies are used for peace, safety, and equality, not for fueling conflict, oppression, or harm. Together, we can hold Google accountable to these principles, shaping the future of technology to protect rather than endanger humanity. We recognise our company’s complicity in the Gaza genocide and increasing involvement in unethical contracts. We therefore support our UCL colleagues’ campaign to boycott and divest from Google DeepMind.

1. Strengthen Google’s AI Principles

We call on Google to update its AI Principles to include a clear commitment that Google will not pursue or develop weapons or technologies whose primary purpose is to cause harm or injury to people, or to gather or use information for surveillance that violates internationally accepted human rights standards. Proposed New AI Principle: “We will not pursue weapons, technologies or contracts whose principal purpose, implementation or impact causes harm or directly facilitates injury to people, or gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms.” This principle must be upheld, regardless of shifting geopolitical pressures or interests. The commitment to human rights and ethical standards should remain steadfast and unaffected by changing political climates.

2. Clear Monitoring and Enforcement Procedures

In order to hold the company accountable, we urge Google to establish robust monitoring and enforcement mechanisms for its AI Principles. This includes: Actionable Accountability: Google should clearly define the consequences for any violations of the AI Principles and ensure these consequences are enforceable across all levels of the company. Proportional Consequences: Violations should be met with significant, proportionate actions, and no employee, regardless of seniority, should be exempt from accountability.

3. Independent Oversight and Whistleblower Protections

We call for the establishment of a transparent independent oversight system to ensure compliance with these principles: Independent Ethics Board: Form a body of respected experts in AI ethics, international law, and human rights that can review projects, investigate potential breaches, and issue reports accessible by all FTEs within GDM.

4. Transparency and Employee Involvement in Decision-Making

Google must lay out the process for how it might change these principles in the future, and how employees and stakeholders can shape such changes: Clear Decision-Making Processes: The Responsibility Safety Council (RSC) should provide transparency regarding which projects have been approved or rejected and the rationale behind those decisions. Employee Rights: Employees must be empowered to take action if they notice any shift in the company’s ethical values or principles.

5. The Right to Abstain

We demand that Google grant all employees the explicit right to abstain from working on any project that violates their personal moral or ethical standards, without fear of retaliation.

6. Negotiation Over Automation of Our Roles

As Google accelerates the development and deployment of AI systems capable of automating tasks currently performed by workers, we demand the company commits to meaningful negotiation with our union representatives before implementing any changes that materially affect our roles, workloads, or job security. ####This must include: #####Prior Consultation: Google must notify and consult with union representatives at the earliest possible stage when AI automation is being considered for tasks performed by current employees — not after decisions have already been made.

Impact Assessments: Any proposed automation must be accompanied by a transparent assessment of its impact on affected workers, including changes to headcount, role scope, required skills, and working conditions.

No Unilateral Displacement: Google must not use AI automation as a pretext for unilateral redundancies or role restructuring without first exhausting retraining, redeployment, and negotiated transition options.

Ongoing Review: A joint worker-management oversight body must be established to continuously review the deployment of AI automation across Google’s workforce, with union representatives having genuine standing to challenge or delay harmful implementations.

Google workers build and maintain the AI that powers all of Google’s products. We must not be excluded from decisions about how those systems are turned on us. The future of work at Google must be negotiated — not imposed.

7. Clean Energy for AI

The explosive growth of AI is driving a surge in energy consumption across Google’s global infrastructure. We demand that Google takes concrete, verifiable action to ensure this expansion does not come at the cost of our planet. We call on Google to commit to the following: No AI Powered by Oil/ Gas. Google must publish a credible, public plan that includes: Round-the-Clock Renewable Power: All data centres must be powered by 100% additional, locally-sourced renewable energy on a 24/7 basis — not offset by credits purchased elsewhere or averaged across the year. End Contracts That Accelerate Fossil Fuel Extraction: Google must cease developing or providing custom AI solutions for oil and gas companies whose purpose is to identify new reserves or accelerate drilling operations. Building the tools of climate destruction is incompatible with any genuine commitment to sustainability. A Climate Roadmap: Google must publish a detailed glidepath for meeting its climate commitments — one grounded in peer-reviewed science, independently verified, and with enforceable milestones. Vague net-zero pledges are not enough. AI must cease to be an accelerant for the climate crisis. As workers at the heart of this technology, we refuse to be complicit in building systems that consume vast natural resources without accountability. Google has the means to lead on clean energy — we demand it uses them.

How Does It Work?

A union starts simply: a group of colleagues who share concerns about their workplace decide to organise together. They expand their membership, agree on shared demands, and build the collective power needed to make the employer engage. Once the union has sufficient support, it seeks recognition from the employer — the formal right to negotiate on workers’ behalf. With recognition secured, the union sits down with the employer at the bargaining table, where it can negotiate on pay, hours, holidays, and more. The employer is legally obliged to engage. If the employer agrees to what is being asked, a collective agreement is reached — and those improved terms apply to everyone in the workplace. If the employer refuses to bargain in good faith, the union can escalate — ultimately up to and including a strike ballot, where members vote on whether to take industrial action to back up their demands. Throughout all of this, the union operates democratically. Members decide the demands, members vote on any deal, and members have the final say on whether to escalate.

What is union recognition?

Recognition is what gives your union the legal right to negotiate with the employer on workers’ behalf. Without recognition, the employer can simply ignore the union. With recognition they are legally obliged to engage. By securing union recognition workers gain formal rights to collective bargaining, disclosure of internal company information, and mandatory consultation on major workplace changes. When a union applies for recognition it defines the bargaining unit, which is the group of workers that it seeks to represent. For example, it can be all of Google DeepMind, or a smaller unit.

Recognition can happen two ways:

Voluntary Recognition

The employer simply agrees to work with the union. UTAW officially asked for voluntary recognition on May the 5th 2026 – read The Guardian article. For voluntary recognition to happen, at least 10% of the bargaining unit must be members, and the majority of members should vote in favour of the recognition. The vote is internal to the union.

Statutory Recognition

If an employer refuses, a union can apply to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) to force recognition if they can prove sufficient support among the workforce. For statutory recognition there is a minimum membership threshold (10% of the bargaining unit, which GDM workers have passed) and all employees in the unit are called to vote (ballot). A majority vote in favour is sufficient for the recognition. The recognition process ends with a recognition agreement. A recognition agreement is a formal document which sets out who is covered by the union (the bargaining unit), what issues can be negotiated, how bargaining meetings work, what facilities and time off reps are entitled to, and how disputes are resolved if the two sides cannot agree. A recognition agreement is not set in stone. It can be expanded, updated, or renegotiated over time, and doing so is often one of the union’s most important long-term goals.

What happens if recognition fails? The union will not be able to apply for statutory recognition in the same or similar bargaining unit for 3 years after a failed process. It can apply after one year in a different bargaining unit. Voluntary recognition can happen at any time. What demands can be discussed at the bargaining table? Where a union gains recognition through the statutory process, it has the legal right to bargain collectively over pay, hours, and holiday entitlement. These are the minimum issues covered by the recognition agreement, but the union can negotiate on a wider range of matters. Under voluntary recognition, the scope can be broader. The employer’s willingness to negotiate beyond the statutory floor depends largely on the union’s strength, and strength comes from membership. An employer facing a well-organised, high-membership workforce is incentivised to agree to a broad recognition agreement and engage seriously at the table. An employer facing a small, fragmented union has little pressure to go beyond the minimum. How are demands agreed upon? Demands are set through a democratic process: they come from the membership. This is what gives them legitimacy, both within the union and in the eyes of the employer.

Consultation Members are asked about their priorities through meetings, surveys, or conversations with reps. This is where the issues that matter most to workers are identified and collected.

Drafting Reps collate the feedback and draft a set of demands that reflects the membership’s priorities.

Approval Members vote on or approve the demands before they are formally presented to the employer. After approval, collective bargaining begins. This is where the demands are negotiated with the employer until a deal is reached. Collective bargaining is an ongoing process, not a one-off event, and new demands can be raised at any time through the same democratic process. There is no legal limit on what can be raised, provided it falls within the agreed scope of the recognition agreement.

Can demands be changed? Yes. Demands can be amended at several points in the process through the same democratic process that set them in the first place. Any significant change during negotiations should go back to members for approval.

How does a bargaining process end?

A deal is reached If a deal is reached over a set of demands, members need to vote to approve it. They can also reject it and instruct reps to return to the table.

A deal is not reached members can be balloted on whether to escalate, including through industrial action. What are our current demands? Our demands focus on: ethics and transparency, job automation, clean energy. Read the full list of our demands.

FAQ

Can I stay anonymous?

Yes. Your employer does not have a legal right to know if you are a member of a trade union. Unions keep their membership lists strictly confidential. Under Data Protection (UK GDPR), trade union membership is classified as “special category data,” meaning it requires the highest level of privacy protection. If the union pursues statutory recognition through the UK Government’s Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), the CAC will need to verify the union has sufficient membership within the bargaining unit — typically at least 10% of workers. To do this, membership data may need to be submitted to the CAC, which is an independent governmental body. Critically, this data is not shared with Google. The CAC handles it confidentially, and the employer only sees the membership percentage. The law forbids employers from compiling lists of union members, see Blacklisting Regulations 2010, Reg. 3.

What legal protection are we entitled to?

Any questions?

Check also UTAW main FAQ page or contact us directly!