MEET THE SLATE
ParuL KOUL
President
I began organizing with what became the Alphabet Workers Union in 2019, after seeing Google retaliate against workers speaking up against its contracts with CBP. Back then we were little more than 25 people in a room with a shared idea. Today we have over a thousand members and over a hundred active organizers, and we've shown up for our coworkers when it mattered most. But I believe we're still at the beginning. The union isn't yet the factor in Google's decision making that it needs to be.
That's why my top priority is to grow AWU by thousands of members over the next three years. Most Googlers have never been asked to join, and many of them already agree with what we're fighting for. Union drives like ours don't grow at a linear pace. They grow explosively in moments when it becomes clear to people that change is necessary and that collective action is the way to get there. We saw this after the 2023 layoffs, when hundreds of coworkers joined overnight. Being ready for the next moment means putting the union in front of every Googler, growing our staff team and our comms, building chapters and organizing committees in offices and orgs where we don't have them yet, and making it simple for members to take action and grow into organizers.
Growing our numbers is only part of it. Our immigrant rights, labor rights and civil rights are under attack, and the same executives eroding our job security are backing the politicians carrying out this agenda. I'm proud that our union has taken clear public positions against ICE violence and the use of AI for war and militarism. Our fight for better conditions at work and our fight over the impact of the technology we produce need to become one shared fight. The same leadership deciding who gets laid off is also shaping the impact our technology has on users and society.
I've stewarded this organization for five years, through layoffs sweeping the tech industry, rapid growth and a changing political landscape. Our FTE membership is the highest it's ever been and member retention is at an all time high. Our Leadership Summits have helped develop the organizers driving our chapters today. The moments I'm proudest of are when our union did something we didn't know was possible. After the 2023 layoffs, we hosted over a thousand Google workers in a virtual town hall. And within 48 hours of Trump's $100,000 H-1B fee, we held a press conference outside Google NYC to stand up for our immigrant coworkers. In my time in leadership, we built Googlers for Job Security into a nationwide, coordinated campaign. We've engaged thousands of Googlers across the country, won a significant concession with VEPs, and built the network that expanded the campaign to London, Zurich and more.
The next moment is coming, and I want us to meet it bigger and better organized than ever. That's the road to growing by the thousands, and I'm asking for your vote to lead us there.
ALAN MCAVINNEY
organizing chair
I started organizing with AWU 7 years ago when Google retaliated against our coworkers for internally raising concerns about our contract with CBP. I started that week feeling scared, isolated, and angry, but ended the week with fear replaced by hope and isolation with solidarity as I joined together with a handful of our coworkers to build our union together.
Since those days we’ve grown over fifty times larger, and I’m proud of all we’ve done together. And while nothing we do as a union is just one person, I’m also proud of what I’ve been able to help lead us in accomplishing as our Organizing Chair. When I started this role our national Organizing Committee was fewer than five people meeting irregularly and very disconnected from the day to day organizing of our union. I formed it into a group which could coordinate not only our first national actions but the first ever campaign not just in a single office but coordinated across the country and even internationally which achieved our biggest wins yet, execs offering VEPs, despite the year before telling our union siblings in Europe that Google would never do anything like that! While the International Organizing Committee has come a long way over this time, I know there’s still much to improve. We learned a number of lessons when bringing on new groups of organizers after MTV and SF formed their committees and I know we’ll apply them as our newer groups join us in the future.
But I’m not running for re-election because of what we’ve accomplished so far. I’m running because I’m excited for what we’ll accomplish tomorrow. In April of this year I helped lead us shifting our growth strategy. While this strategy was always envisioned for our largest offices with lower density I lead by example starting with my home office, CAM, despite having only 2,000 people and at 7% AWU density. We shifted our strategy to start having at least one good organizing conversation with as many people as possible, improving the quality faster by utilizing staff to do 2:1s, and not limiting our initial contact to any one issue. Ultimately the idea behind this is that in any work place a quarter of people will start out already positively inclined towards our union, and it’s up to us to reach them.
And it’s worked! We’ve quickly expanded the strategy to our strategy to MTV and NYC kicking off a period with some of our fastest growth. And I know we can keep expanding, refining, and improving this strategy.
This organizing strategy isn’t happening in a vacuum. AI is rapidly changing our jobs and the entire industry. Trump is entering the second half of his second term and Sundar continues to bend knee. I look forward to helping us continue to get better at reacting nimbly as we’ve started to with actions like the Snehal petition or the H1B Visa press conference over the past year, without compromising our ability to drive issues over extended periods of time. We have enormous opportunities ahead of us and together we can rise to meet them.
OLIVIA ASEMOTA
I'm Olivia Asemota, a software engineer on Google Maps. I've been at Google for four years. I joined AWU in 2023 after watching coworkers and friends lose their jobs in the mass layoffs that year. Coming out of that experience, I knew I wanted to be part of something that could change our workplace for the better.
I began my journey as an AWU organizer in the Bay Area office, helping to build a strong organizing committee in the San Francisco office and supporting AWU’s work in the rest of the Bay Area. In 2025 I relocated to New York City, and am now a proud member of the NY organizing committee. Having organized in AWU chapters on both coasts, I've worked to share lessons and build connections between the two.
I'm running again for Vice President of AWU because the tech industry and our society are nearing an inflection point. AWU has been at the forefront of organizing Big Tech, and I'm extremely proud of what our union has achieved this far. But we need to urgently expand our work to meet the political moment of our time. Artificial intelligence is being talked about everywhere today – making sure workers have a clear say in how it is implemented and used will be integral to preventing abuse of this technology. I'm running alongside Alan and Parul because over the last three years we've built a shared vision for where our union needs to go, and I believe we're a strong, experienced team that can lead us there.
In my three years as VP, my top priority has been growing our union by working closely with members across AWU to build deeper connections and a shared direction. Alongside Alan and Parul, I helped host our first leadership summits, and I've represented AWU at Labor Notes and CWA conventions to build our reputation in the wider labor movement. Together, we've brought the union into a new phase. New organizing committees at several key Google sites showed us we're capable of leading a major campaign at Google. The Googlers for Job Security campaign sharpened our skills as organizers and grew our reach across the company. Just as importantly, it built a base of members who can act together toward a shared goal. That foundation is what will carry us into new campaigns and let us capture the political energy building in the tech industry.