Google just axed more than 200 contractors working on its AI products in what workers are calling retaliation for organizing efforts. The layoffs hit specialists training Gemini and AI Overviews through contractor GlobalLogic, marking a major escalation in labor tensions around AI development. These aren't just any workers - they're the PhDs and masters-level experts teaching Google's AI how to sound human.
Google just delivered a brutal reminder of how precarious AI work really is. More than 200 contractors who've been training the company's AI products - including Gemini and AI Overviews - got termination emails last month without warning. But this isn't just another tech layoff story. Workers claim it's payback for trying to organize.
The cuts hit GlobalLogic, a Hitachi-owned company that's been Google's go-to for AI rating work since 2023. These aren't entry-level jobs either. The "super raters" need master's degrees or PhDs and include writers, teachers, and creative professionals who teach AI systems how to sound more human and intelligent.
"I was just cut off," Andrew Lauzon told WIRED. He'd been with GlobalLogic since March 2024, rating AI outputs and crafting prompts. When he asked why, they said "ramp-down on the project" - corporate speak for "we don't owe you an explanation."
The timing tells the real story. Workers had been organizing through the Alphabet Workers Union since early 2024, pushing back against pay disparities that saw some contractors earning $18-22 per hour while others got $28-32 for identical work. They'd grown from 18 to 60 union members by February, using a WhatsApp group called "Super Secret Secondary Location" to coordinate.
Then GlobalLogic started playing defense. First, the company banned social channels during work hours - cutting off the remote workers' main way to connect. Ricardo Levario, a Texas teacher and vocal organizer, kept posting about pay equity anyway. Four days after filing a whistleblower complaint with Hitachi, he got fired for "violating the social spaces policy."
"This is the playbook," says Mila Miceli from the DAIR Institute, which works with AI data workers globally. "We have seen this in other places, almost every outsourcing company doing data work where workers have tried to collectivize and organize - this has been difficult. They have suffered retaliation."
The work these contractors do is more crucial than most people realize. They're the ones making sure Google's AI doesn't hallucinate completely wrong answers or sound like a robot. "We as raters play an incredibly vital role," says Alex, a generalist rater who secured a full-time position but sees 80% of her colleagues stuck on contracts without benefits. "We're like the lifeguards on the beach - we're there to make sure nothing bad happens."