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Google accused of violating labor law for asking workers to ‘refrain’ from talking about antitrust case

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The Alphabet Workers Union filed a charge against Google with the National Labor Relations Board .

The union charges that Google issued an “overly broad directive” on discussing the case to employees.

The NLRB could still find it to be a violation if it concludes it would likely chill employee speech.

Google says it respects workers' rights to speak about their terms of employment.

NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado told The Verge that its Oakland office is investigating the charge, which was filed on August 15th . The NLRB says it typically takes seven to 14 weeks to determine the merits of a charge, which could kick off a case before an administrative law judge if the government chooses to pursue it. Meanwhile, Google and the Justice Department are set to return to court in April to argue about which remedies that judge should impose to fix Google ’s anticompetitive effects..