The Alphabet Workers Union, which seeks to represent directly employed and contingent workers at Google, said in a press release that it filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board over the layoff of six Google raters. According to the union, the charges were filed against Google and a firm called Appen as joint employers.

The raters are subcontracted workers who train, test and evaluate Google Search and Bard results.

The union said the workers were fired for engaging in protected activity, prohibited from discussing said terminations publicly, and threatened that wages might decrease with the union. According to the union, the workers were fired after publicly speaking out about their poor working conditions.

In addition, the union said even though the subcontracted raters provide critical support to Google’s most profitable products, they are denied access to the company’s own established minimum standards for contractors of $15 per hour, healthcare and tuition reimbursement.  The union said a previous attempt at unionizing secured the first-ever pay raise for the workers in January 2023. However, the workers are earning under $15 an hour, according to the union.

“Thousands of contract workers, like these fired workers, are discouraged from speaking out about their working conditions due to nondisclosure agreements that are forced upon workers,” the union said.