The petition was delivered on 16 July 2026 to the office of Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Union president Parul Koul left the petition with a staff member who committed to pass it on to Pichai, while more than 100 Google employees rallied outside.
According to The Guardian, it calls for guaranteed severance and voluntary buyouts before mandatory layoffs across all product areas. Workers also want the option to take severance as extended paid leave. The petition further seeks an end to performance ratings that workers say are based on quotas rather than individual merit.
The option to receive severance as extended paid leave is particularly important for staff on a visa, who would need to find new employment quickly.
The push comes as Google's parent company, Alphabet, increases its AI investments while cutting jobs across parts of its business. Google has reportedly reduced staff at Google Cloud in recent months, and CNBC reported that the company previously cut more than one-third of managers overseeing small teams.
Meanwhile, Alphabet's market cap valuation has quadrupled over six years to an estimated $4.3 trillion USD. Koul described Google's cuts as "profit being put over the people that make this company run."
Google has not linked its layoffs directly to AI. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has argued against replacing engineers with technology, pointing out that higher productivity could instead allow companies to "do three or four times more stuff."
The wider technology industry is also reducing headcount. Microsoft announced 3,200 job cuts, while Meta eliminated about 8,000 positions earlier in 2026. Oracle's workforce fell by roughly 21,000 over 12 months, and according to the BBC, Oracle acknowledged that deploying AI across its operations had contributed to workforce reductions.
The union previously secured voluntary exit packages covering more than 70,000 employees but says concerns around job security remain unresolved. The petition adds to a wider debate over whether the AI boom will create more opportunities or accelerate workforce reductions : a question with direct implications for professionals across the technology sector.
