Why a contractors union could have big consequences for Google

Google is likely searching for an easy way out of what could be a massive movement.

On Friday, 66 percent of contractors at Google contractor HCL America Inc. in Philadelphia announced they intended to unionize with the United Steel Workers, Vice reports. And seeing as temps and contractors outnumber Google's full-time employees, there could be big ramifications if the rest of the company's workforce decides to follow suit.

Google has long maintained a workforce of temporary and contracted workers, which outnumbered full-time workers 121,000 to 102,000 as of March, The New York Times reports. Yet volunteered salary information on Glassdoor shows the median salary of contractors and temps is $90,000 — $38,000 less than the median salary of full-time workers, Recode analysis showed in May. Google in 2018 listed its median global salary far higher at $246,804, but that only included full-time employees, and accounted for stock options and bonuses.

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Google's so-called "shadow work force," meanwhile, isn't allotted those same benefits — something that organizers of Google's walkouts mentioned when endorsing Uber and Lyft driver protests earlier this year. HCL's 90 employees similarly "work side-by-side with those of the giant corporation for far less compensation and few, if any, of the perks," a press release said. So most of them signed cards Friday asking the National Labor Relations Board for a vote on union representation. If more of Google's temp and contract workforce does the same, it could pose a problem for the massively profitable waters Google is currently sailing.