Today, Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America will file an amicus brief in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust action against Google in the online search marketplace. The filing marks the first time that a company’s workers have engaged in the legal proceedings of any of the ongoing antitrust matters involving Big Tech.

It could not come at a more crucial time, as the government considers how to remedy the monopoly that Google has been ruled to exert over the market for online search. As we argue in our brief, the proposed remedies do not go far enough to protect workers given Google’s history of retaliation against employees who raise concerns about its employment and business practices. We argue that unions provide countervailing structural power against companies that antitrust enforcement often misses in favor of consumer market competition. Furthermore, some types of antitrust remedy can result in the ill effects of divestments and breakups falling primarily on workers, whose displacement results in job insecurity and stagnating incomes while innovation and productivity may suffer. Empowered workers can push back on anticompetitive behavior from below.

“Too often, people think that labor law and antitrust are at odds with each other,” said Stephen McMurtry, Senior Software Engineer on the Google Search team and Communications Chair of AWU-CWA. “As the only wall-to-wall union in the tech industry, we want to chart a new path and hope that the government will recognize the role we and other tech workers can play to advance job security, fair competition, and the public interest.”

This filing comes after AWU-CWA’s victory in forcing Google to revoke the gag order it had attempted to place on its workers throughout the antitrust case, achieved last month through a National Labor Relations Board approved settlement. We hope that workers at other companies will be emboldened to weigh in on these matters which federal labor law upholds their right to do.