Over 200 Google and other Alphabet Inc employees have established a labour union to address working conditions.

The creation of the “Alphabet Workers Union” is a continuation of years of protests by employees about the conglomerate’s alleged poor business practices.

But with only 200 members, Alphabet is within legal rights to deny or ignore any demands the union makes, until a majority of employees support the group.

Internal leaders and outside labour experts have said that the union will provide more protection from firings and will also allow the group to “collect dues to hire support staff and attack the company more aggressively than in the past,” according to a recent report by Reuters.

On Monday the director of people operations at Google, Kara Silverstein, stated that the “company supports its employees’ “protected labour rights,” and will “continue engaging directly with all our employees,” said the news organisation.

According to Reuters, the union also plans to represent third-party contractors, a class of workers whose demands Alphabet also may ignore.

It also reported that Chewy Shaw, the Alphabet union’s vice chair, said “small fractions of the workforce successfully protested in recent years over workplace equity and ethical business practices.”

According to Shaw, these actions helped drive Google to “introduce new policies around workplace investigations and to drop a drone software project with the U.S. military.”
He said that the union aims to “mount similar campaigns, with the new funding and structure lending greater legitimacy and resources.”

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