Google attempted to hide documents from a trial into whether it illegally fired activist employees, the National Labor Relations Board said.

The documents are key to a case launched in December 2020, when the NLRB alleged that Google illegally fired, interrogated, and surveilled activist employees, based on complaints brought to it by the Communications Workers of America union.

A trial began this August, but had to be put on hold because Google refused to produce 1,507 documents, claiming attorney-client privilege.

Among the documents were training materials for staff on how to campaign against unionization among subordinates, NLRB Administrative Law Judge Paul Bogas said. Bogas was appointed a Special Master to review the documents.

Of the 80 documents Bogas reviewed, only nine of them were properly characterized as privileged.

That “makes it ‘impossible to believe that [Google’s] counsel’ had conducted a ‘good faith examination’ of the documents using the ‘applicable legal standards,” the judge said in a 13-page ruling ordering Google to “immediately” hand over the documents to the lawyer for the fired workers, Laurie Burgess.

“We engage dozens of outside consultants and law firms to provide us with advice on a wide range of topics, including employer obligations and employee engagement,” Google said in a statement. “We disagree with the Special Master’s ruling which mischaracterizes various legally privileged materials and are reviewing our options.”

A new trial date may be set at a hearing today, December 2.