August 6, 2021

Employees of startup Mapbox announced that they had lost their bid to form a union to represent the company’s U.S. workers, a setback for a Silicon Valley labor movement that has made significant progress of late.

Two-thirds of Mapbox’s eligible U.S. workers signed cards with the Mapbox Workers Union (MWU), but elections were held after the company refused to recognize the union voluntarily. In the vote that ended Wednesday, 123 employees voted against the union, with 81 workers in favor, the Mapbox Workers Union announced via Twitter.

The Mapbox employees reached out to organize with the Communications Workers of America, who recently won in organizing the software startup Glitch, and with about 200 workers at Google, who have formed a so-called “minority union” that the company will not be able to force the company into collective bargaining on important issues such as employee salaries.

Mapbox chief executive Peter Sirota said in a statement that the company respected the right of employees to vote on union representation.

For a long time, the tech workforce was considered out of reach for organized labor, but unions have made significant progress in recent months.

In a separate statement, Mapbox said: “We understand why disappointed union supporters might want a do-over in the press, but we ask that they respect their colleagues’ decision. The election is over.”

For more information, read the original story in Reuters.