Google employees are making labor rights history.

Earlier this week, over 400 Google employees announced plans to unionize.

After years of organizing efforts by workers, this is one of the first examples of big tech unionizing

in the United States.

Here to explain his Riecoe Charingafari. Hey, Sharon.

Hey, Teddy. What's the big deal here?

I mean, tell me about the, in the long sweep of history,

why is it such a big deal that there's a union at

Google it's a big deal because tension has been brewing for years at Google around worker issues that are ranging from Google workers objecting to the company working

with the US military to whether or not they should expand into China and potentially

compromise the nature of search.

And so you have these huge fundamental tensions running through Google's workforce

and workers erupting in protests and signing letters and the

protests, Google Walkout over alleged sexual harassment at the company.

But you haven't really had a formal union

of tech workers, led by tech workers, who are full-time employees who are those

well-paid engineers and product managers and designers. So it's a big deal because

this is the first time that it's going beyond a letter or beyond a protest that it's an actual

union. And there's nothing like this at other big tech companies. There's no

employee unions at Facebook or Amazon or Apple or anything like that? No, this is huge for tech.

Tech has historically been a pretty anti-union industry.

And why are they announcing plans to do this now?

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