{"id":28906,"date":"2026-05-06T03:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T03:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/28906\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T03:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T03:01:09","slug":"uk-based-google-deepmind-employees-have-voted-to-form-what-would-be-the-worlds-first-workers-union-at-an-ai-lab-as-they-are-upset-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/28906\/","title":{"rendered":"UK-based Google DeepMind employees have voted to form what would be the world\u2019s first workers union at an AI lab as they are upset over \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UK-based Google DeepMind employees in the UK are not happy with the company\u2019s new artificial intelligence (AI) deal with the US government. The UK-based employees of the company have reportedly launched a bid to form the world\u2019s first union at a frontier AI lab. According to a report by Fortune, the UK\u2019s Communication Workers Union, which is representing the DeepMind workers, said that the company\u2019s employees in the country are seeking to force an end to Google<\/a>\u2019s AI tools being used by the US Department of War and the Israeli military.The move comes after Google agreed to allow the Pentagon to deploy its AI models for \u201cany lawful purpose\u201d in classified military networks, sparking protests within Google and employee criticism. However, Google is not the only AI company to have such a deal with the Pentagon. Companies including OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon have also signed similar agreements. However, Anthropic has declined such deals, leading the US Department of War to label it a \u201csupply chain risk,\u201d a designation the company is contesting in court.<\/p>\n

Why Google DeepMind\u2019s UK employees are pushing back against military use of the company\u2019s AI tools<\/p>\n

The deal has sparked backlash within Google DeepMind, with more than 600 employees signing an open letter opposing the agreement earlier. Some workers have also publicly criticised the company\u2019s growing involvement in military contracts.Workers are now seeking formal representation through the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union. According to the CWU, employees below the vice president level backed the unionisation effort by 98%, with the proposed unit covering at least 1,000 staff linked to DeepMind\u2019s London office, the Fortune report claimed.The union push includes demands to reinstate a previous company commitment, introduced after the 2018 Project Maven backlash, not to develop AI for weapons or surveillance that violates internationally accepted norms. Employees are also asking for an independent ethics oversight body and the right to refuse work on projects based on moral concerns.The campaign may extend to in-person protests and \u201cresearch strikes,\u201d where employees could abstain from working on core products such as the Gemini AI assistant, the report added. Workers have given Google management 10 working days to voluntarily recognise the unions or enter mediated negotiations before initiating formal legal proceedings.The union bid reflects a broader effort to regain influence over company decisions. During the Project Maven controversy in 2018, employee protests led Google to withdraw from the contract. However, workers say that leverage has weakened in recent years due to layoffs, cost-cutting, and increased AI investment across the tech sector.One DeepMind UK employee told Fortune, \u201cHopefully this will help employees help the DeepMind and Google leadership grow a spine when it comes to standing up to what they have preached and publicly endorsed as our values and principles for the last two decades.\u201dAnother researcher added, \u201cOne of the things we can look at through unionisation is restoring that leverage. If we can manage to get a seat at the table, whether that\u2019s in the ethics review, the AI review, deployments, or even on the Alphabet board, that\u2019s where we could restore leverage.\u201d\u201cIn general, I don\u2019t think that leverage has ever been very direct; it\u2019s always been pointing out the problem, and making the cost to continue these controversial projects high enough that they are not worth it,\u201d they added.John Chadfield, national officer for tech workers at the Communication Workers Union, said, \u201cBy exercising their rights to collectivise, they are in a strong position to demand their employer stop circling the ethical drain of military-industrial contracts, echoing the sentiment of many working people in the UK and elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google DeepMind employees in the UK are not happy with the company\u2019s new artificial intelligence (AI) deal with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[18974,18972,5044,132,7543,18975,18977,18976,18971,18973,18586],"class_list":{"0":"post-28906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-google","8":"tag-ai-ethics-oversight","9":"tag-ai-lab-workers-union","10":"tag-deepmind","11":"tag-google","12":"tag-google-deepmind","13":"tag-google-deepmind-uk","14":"tag-google-deepmind-uk-employee-union","15":"tag-google-deepmind-uk-union","16":"tag-google-deepmind-union","17":"tag-military-use-of-ai","18":"tag-uk-tech-workers-union"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}