Some 140 police represented by the Washington, DC and Capitol Police unions are injured — and five more die, some by apparent suicide, over the next several days — when pro-Trump rioters storm the U.S. Capitol in a failed effort to prevent Congress from formalizing the election of incoming President Joe Biden. 2021

More than 400 Google engineers and other workers form a union at the tech giant. Their Alphabet Workers Union, named after parent company, is an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America. Acknowledging that the company has more than 260,000 full time employees and contractors, union supporters said the move was primarily an effort to give structure and longevity to organizing efforts. 2021

California voters approve Proposition 22, exempting gig worker firms including Uber, Lyft and DoorDash, among others, from having to classify their workers in the state as employees, meaning they have no access to some basic labor protections and benefits. The “VOTE NO ON 22” campaign was financed by the companies to the tune of more than $200 million — the most ever spent on a ballot proposition in the state. 2020

A group of about 80 tech contractors working for Google in Pittsburgh vote to join the Steelworkers in the hope of bargaining improved wages and benefits. Although working alongside full Google employees, the HCL Technologies subcontractors receive only a few of the normal Google perks. Google’s temporary, vendor and contract workers outnumber the company’s full-time employees. 2019

A Labor Day poll by the Gallup Organization find that 65 percent of Americans approve of unions, the public’s highest rating since 2003. Support for unions had been rising since hitting its lowest point of 48 percent in 2009. The highest approval ratings ever were in 1953 and 1957: 75 percent. 2020

Baxter Leach, a union activist who helped organize the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis, dies in the city at age 79. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in Memphis while there to support the strikers. 2019

Twenty-one writers for Lovestruck, a mobile app that publishes visual romance novels, go on strike against owner Voltage Entertainment USA for better wages and conditions. Three weeks later the company and the workers’ union CODE, an arm of the Communications Workers of America, announce a settlement that includes “a meaningful pay raise for every single writer” and other workplace gains. 2020

More than 40,000 University of California employees strike for 24 hours to protest the university’s unacceptable “last, best and final offer” for members of a Communications Workers of America bargaining unit. AFSCME members joined the walkout in solidarity. 2020

A majority of about 100 employees at the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter vote for representation by the Office & Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), becoming what OPEIU says is the first widely-known tech company workforce to go union. 2020

About 100 workers at the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter vote for representation by the Office and Professional Employees Intl. Union. 2020

Some 20,000 Google employees around the world stage a wave of walkouts after the New York Times reported that the company had paid millions of dollars in exit packages to male executives accused of sexual harassment. One of the accused got $90 million. 2018

Obama Administration’s National Labor Relations Board implements new rules to speed up unionization elections. New rules are largely seen as a counter to employer manipulation of the law to prevent workers from unionizing. These rules were subsequently undone under the Trump administration in December 2019. - 2012