Google contractors who helped train Bard’s artificial intelligence chatbot voted to unionize

• Accenture contract workers voted to unionize on Monday after workers were laid off in August.
• Workers write Google Help articles and operate Bard’s AI chatbot responses.
• YouTube contractors working with Cognizant also voted to unionize in April.

Google contractors with Accenture, who write Google Help articles and review AI-generated content from the Bard chatbot, on Monday voted against the Alphabet labor union, which represents Google employees and contractors.

The vote comes after a coalition of 118 Accenture workers Announced Their union voted in favor of 26 workers out of a total of 36 eligible voters in June. Two against and eight challenged by Accenture. These challenges were later dismissed because the numbers were not significant enough to influence the election.

Monday’s successful vote marks another milestone for the union of workers who help power artificial intelligence systems. Accenture’s bargaining unit demanded more control over the Google assignments they would accept if they were outside the scope of their normal work, including their work at Bard. Organizers also sought better pay, benefits and time off.

In August, there were 80 Accenture workers Fired. The fledgling union soon filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the firings were retaliatory and therefore illegal.

“We organized to have a say in our working conditions,” Jen Hill, one of Google’s lead designers and a member of the Alphabet labor union, said in a statement. In response, Google has tried to abdicate its responsibility to us as an employer, while also firing dozens of our team members.

Google is currently appealing the NLRB’s September ruling that it is a joint employer of Accenture’s contractors. If successful, the appeal could protect Google from legal liability after the organizer’s Accenture employees were fired.

Courtney Mancini, a spokeswoman for Google, said the company had no objection to Accenture’s union, adding: “As we have made clear in Active revision “In the eyes of the NLRB, we are not a joint employer because we simply do not control their terms of employment or working conditions, that is between the workers and their employer, Accenture.”

The NLRB declined to comment. An Accenture spokeswoman said the company will continue to participate in the NLRB process.

“We accept the right of our people to form or join unions and we work with works councils and trade unions in various countries around the world,” the spokesman said.

Accenture contractors worked on Bard

Google rushed to release Bard Build a product to compete With ChatGPT OpenAI. Many Accenture workers were recruited for a “top secret project”, which ended up working on Bard. Bloomberg reported in January. The workers said they needed to examine the fast responses of the large language model and engineer their responses to theoretical queries. The notices contained “obscene, graphic and offensive” content. Bloomberg reported. The workers claimed that they were not given the proper training or resources for the job.

When someone complained about these concerns to Accenture’s HR department, it was their job Reassigned Bloomberg reported that to low-income workers based in Manila.

“It’s unfair that our jobs are going to workers who are paid less than we are and have even less access to labor protections,” Hill said.

Laura Green, a union organizer and Accenture multimedia team leader affected by the August layoffs, said she hopes workers can get their jobs back or at least get back pay after the union filed an NLRB lawsuit challenging the layoffs.

“This is an important moral victory,” Green said of Monday’s vote. But many people are now displaced or unemployed. This is the bittersweet part.

Other Google contractors have unionized

Monday’s vote marks the second time this year that Google contractors have successfully voted to unionize with the NLRB.

In April, YouTube contractors employed by Cognizant voted to unionize. A few weeks later, Google Decide to downsize The knowledgeable workforce of those three workers have been fired Sued to the NLRB against Google and Cognizant in June, alleging that their firings were in response to a recent unionization effort. The case is ongoing.

Alphabet also challenged the NLRB’s ruling that it was a joint employer of the Cognizant workers.

Outside of Google, More than 150 African contractors Working on artificial intelligence tools for companies like Meta, ByteDance and OpenAI voted to unionize in May, forming the Content Managers Association.

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Correction: November 6, 2023 An earlier version of this story misstated the company challenging union election votes. Eight votes were challenged by Accenture, not Google.