“Oh unions can be good but those Americans don’t know their downsides…”
Or
“Unions are great but it’s awful people can be forced to join them!”
I’m just saying Google’s money was well spent.
I want to add that I agree with some of AWU political stands. For example, they opposed Project Dragonfly, a censored version of Google Search intended for the Chinese market. They opposed Google contracts with the DoD and CPB. I think these are all worthy causes and I hope that employees continue to agitate against them! But I am under no illusions that AWU would represent my interests as an employee. Primarily, they are a political action committee set up by and for an extremely vocal minority of Google's employees.
I'd assume this is why they've been allowed to exist.
In fact, unfortunately, this sounds like it could be working well for Google. If this organization is calling itself a "union" without doing actual union work or representing employees, it can help create an apathetic environment towards unions at the company. It also sounds like this organization is doing product work, and with the right maneuvering this sort of momentum can be used to allow controversial changes you'd be willing to try, but would rather not take the blame for.
I’m uncomfortable with companies constantly trying to influence their employees opinions. It’s marketing turned inwards. I’m not so naïve to be surprised, but I would never work at a business who employed tactics like this.
I believe the word for this is propaganda:
prŏp″ə-găn′də
noun
1. The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.I think the big distinction here is that external marketing is trying to change public opinion in pursuit of profit to the detriment of competitors (presumably).
Internal marketing as discussed in the OP is trying to change employee opinion in pursuit of profit to the detriment of the employee.
I think the sentiment here is that hiring "union-busting" consultants clearly implies strong anti-union sentiment by management and an equally strong desire to quell rising union sentiment within the company.
Companies, especially big tech companies, like to seem friendly to employees and make them feel like they're in charge, and the company is "run by them". They like to keep a facade of being "benevolent" dictators ultimately motivated by being the best they can for users.
In reality, they're corporations, and they'll do what's best for their bottom-line, wether that aligns with their employees' and users' interests interests or not.
In this case, that involved retaliating against employees involved with the Google Walkout, which on top of challenging this benevolent image, is illegal. Of course, Google won't admit it was retaliation. They want to seem unbothered by the fact there's union sentiment within its ranks, and will tolerate the Alphabet Workers Union's existence. Hiring a union-busting consultancy clearly conveys this is not the case.
There's a lot of reason to criticize union-busting in general too; it usually employs misinformation and scare tactics; this has happened at Amazon, for example [1]. Regardless of wether this has been the case at Google, it's clear they're not as indifferent to the organization of their workers as they claim they are.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8dUXRpoy8&feature=emb_titl...