Negotiations between Google DeepMind and its London-based employees stumbled over the possibility of unionizing this week, after initial talks left union representatives feeling like they had wasted their time, WIRED has learned.

In May, DeepMind employees asked Google to recognize the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as joint representatives. The company later rejected that request, but agreed to participate in negotiations arbitrated by an external body.

An initial meeting on Wednesday was attended by union officials, DeepMind employees involved in the unionization push, the external arbitrator and DeepMind Human Resources representatives. Those advocating for unionization were frustrated by the absence of leading figures from DeepMind.

“Recognition conversations that are not attended by senior management in the initial phase are a major indicator that a company is not acting in good faith. It is just a waste of time,” says John Chadfield, a CWU executive, who attended the meeting. “Negotiations have stalled at an early stage.”

DeepMind denies that negotiations have stalled. “The first step in the process is to define who the unions want to represent, and the parties agreed on the next steps to achieve this,” says Al Verney, spokesperson for Google DeepMind. “The appropriate representatives attended this initial meeting.”

During the meeting, a DeepMind employee read a letter prepared on behalf of colleagues who support unionization, reviewed by WIRED. “Instead of having a meaningful dialogue with your employees about our concerns, Google DeepMind workers have been treated as an issue passed on to Human Resources,” the letter states. The employee who read the statement was interrupted twice by DeepMind HR representatives, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting.

The letter goes on to allege that Google has attempted to stifle open dialogue among DeepMind employees and stifle dissent, shutting down or reconfiguring internal chat rooms and preventing staff from responding to company-wide communications about the unionization offer. Employees who attempted to circumvent the restrictions were “reprimanded” by HR, the letter alleges.

“The intention was to intimidate,” says a DeepMind employee involved in writing the letter, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “These are well-established union-busting techniques.”

“We will continue to engage constructively in the… process and maintain an open dialogue with employees,” Verney says. “For topics outside of this, we continue to offer employees a variety of other channels and opportunities to discuss their views.”

The push to unionize at DeepMind began in February 2025, when Google parent company Alphabet removed a commitment not to use AI for purposes such as weapons development and surveillance from its ethical guidelines, WIRED previously reported.

“Those principles were a big part of why I joined DeepMind,” says a second DeepMind employee, who asked to remain anonymous for the same reason. “We basically got rid of all of them.”