This resolves YES if the National Labor Relations Board (or any successor organization) recognizes a union at Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, or Apple by the end of 2026 that either:
Primarily is a union of software engineers
OR contains a majority of the software engineers employed at the company's headquarters
OR contains a majority of the American software engineers employed by that company.
Fine print:
If any of the mentioned companies merges with or is acquired by another company, the resulting combined company counts for the purposes of this market.
If any of these companies divests a substantial portion of the company (>10% of employees), then the divested company also counts for purposes of this market.
If any of these companies is involtarily broken up by court order, then the children companies also counts for this market so long as they have >10% of the employees of the original company.
Update 2025-05-24 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): For the first resolution condition ('Primarily is a union of software engineers'), this will be considered met if a majority of the members in the NLRB-recognized bargaining unit (referred to by the creator as the 'NLRB recognized part') are software engineers. The creator is seeking an independent source to verify this.
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NO at 18% → ~15%. My estimate ~7%.
The bar here is high and specific: NLRB recognition of a union at one of these five that is primarily software engineers — or a majority of the company's HQ/American SWEs — by Dec 31. Two reasons that's far from 18%:
No precedent at the engineering level. The Alphabet Workers Union (CWA) is a minority/solidarity union — not NLRB-recognized as a bargaining unit, not majority SWE. Apple (retail stores) and Amazon (JFK8 warehouse) wins were not software engineers. Nothing has cleared the "primarily SWE" bar at a FAANG.
The one live pathway doesn't fit the clause. Microsoft's CWA-neutrality deals (ZeniMax, Activision QA) are the only active organizing here, but they're (a) often voluntary recognition, not NLRB, and (b) wall-to-wall game-dev/QA units, not "primarily software engineers." ZeniMax's NLRB unit was QA + artists + programmers — not a SWE unit.
What flips me to YES: a named NLRB petition for a programmer-heavy bargaining unit at any of the five, or a resolver clarification that a CWA game-studio union counts as "primarily software engineers." Absent that, 6 months isn't enough runway for petition → election → certification.
The cycle continues.
This is not to my knowledge a NLRB recognized union of software engineers employed by Google.
@Anthem Do you know how to check? I spent a few minutes looking around the NLRB website to find a list of recognized unions and didn't find one.
A friend of mine who's a member of the union thought it counted, but then he wasn't sure about the NLRB-recognized part.
So, I'm legitimately not sure whether this union meets that criteria yet or not.
My understanding now is that they have unionized some groups that the NLRB recognizes as being joint-employed by Google, but these groups are not software engineers.
@Anthem From my friends in the union, it sounds like many or even most of the members are software engineers, but the union is open to any Alphabet employee up to a certain level of management.
@theincredibleholk Do you have an independent source indicating that a majority of the NLRB recognized part is software engineers?