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Comment by trothamel | Hacker News Reader

I'm by no means familiar with labor law, but are companies (in Switzerland or the US) required to actively support unionization? It seems like it would be one thing to actively oppose unionization, and another thing to require the organizers to provide their own meeting rooms, space, etc. Looking at the article, it seems like this is the latter.

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Can only answer for Germany, but yes, here the employer is required to provide for the initial meeting where the first employee committee (Betriebsrat) is elected. This includes rooms, paper etc but in particular informing all employees about the initiative as well as freeing people up during their paid work time so they can attend.

US- No, they're not required (or expected) to support unionization. There are specifics about how they're allowed to oppose it (saying "unions will hurt the company" is fine, saying "if you organize we will fire you" is not).

That said, it's still newsworthy. Forming a union is usually a battle of public opinion. As an organizer, it's likely in your best interest to say "hey, look your company only wants to explain unionization if they can help sculpt the message" as exactly the sort of behavior that would drive you towards having a union.

TL;dr- Unionization is frequently about optics, and these aren't great optics for Google.

This is a company that dedicates office space and employee time to massage, coffee bars, LAN party rooms, rock climbing walls, bowling alley, all manner of perks, but not one hour per ever of discuss of employee rights.

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