Key facts
- Prospect will be able to run sessions inside Google workplaces, including the King's Cross headquarters in London.
- Google said the agreement lets it meet new UK requirements while preserving direct dialogue with employees.
- Prospect general secretary Mike Clancy said the deal shows unions can negotiate with the biggest global tech companies.
- The Employment Rights Act gives unions the right to enter workplaces, and from January employers must tell workers of their right to join a union.
Prospect, a UK trade union, reached an agreement with Google to begin organising among about 7,000 workers across the company's UK operations, including YouTube but excluding DeepMind, the Financial Times reported. The agreement was signed on Monday.
The arrangement lets the union communicate with non-unionised workers and encourage them to join, and to run sessions inside Google workplaces, including the headquarters in King's Cross, London. Google said it signed the access agreement to comply with new UK workplace legislation, while maintaining that it already had good internal employee relations.
"This step builds on our established work with internal employee representative groups, allowing us to fulfil these new requirements while preserving the respectful, direct dialogue our culture is built on," a Google spokesperson said.
Prospect general secretary Mike Clancy said the agreement showed the union could negotiate with the largest global tech companies. "Tech workers deserve a stronger voice at work, whether that is over bread-and-butter trade union issues like pay and flexibility, AI deployment or workplace culture," he said.
The Google deal follows a similar agreement between Prospect and Meta, which employs about 5,000 people in the UK. Google DeepMind is expected to strike a separate agreement, with the Communication Workers Union seeking recognition there.
The Employment Rights Act gives unions the right to enter workplaces to meet workers or communicate with them electronically. From January, employers will be required to inform workers of their right to join a union. Prospect represents more than 160,000 UK workers across several sectors.