DeepMind and Unions Disagree on Status of Recognition Talks After First Meeting

Negotiations between Google DeepMind and its London employees over union recognition opened and quickly stalled this week after an initial meeting left union representatives frustrated by the absence of senior company leadership. In May, DeepMind employees asked Google to recognize the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives.

The company denied formal recognition but agreed to participate in negotiations overseen by a third-party arbitrator.

The first session took place on Wednesday. Union officers, DeepMind employees pushing for unionization, the arbitrator, and DeepMind human-resources staff attended. No DeepMind leadership figures were present.

John Chadfield, a CWU officer who attended, said the lack of senior management at the outset signaled the company was not engaging in good faith. “Recognition talks not being attended by senior management at the opening stage is a leading indicator that a company isn’t engaging in good faith. It’s just a time-wasting exercise,” he said.

Al Verney, a Google DeepMind spokesperson, said the meeting focused on defining the scope of representation and that the parties agreed on next steps. “The appropriate representatives attended this initial meeting,” Verney said. During the session, a DeepMind employee read a prepared letter on behalf of colleagues supporting unionization.

The letter stated that workers “have been treated as a problem handed off to HR” rather than engaged in dialogue. HR representatives interrupted the reading twice, according to multiple people with knowledge of the meeting. The letter also alleged that Google had shut down or reconfigured internal chat channels and blocked staff from responding to company-wide messages about the union effort.