At my work just all me and my fellow techs in a meeting we basically expressed shared frustration at wages not increasing at all in last couple years despite the company making billions.
It appears we were all individually expressing this and it boiled over cause nothing was being done.
So are there any organizations collecting signatures or potential members with the goal of forming one later?
Many tech unions have formed under/with the support of CODE-CWA (Campaign to Organize Digital Employees - Communication Workers of America). With their solidarity and guidance, some companies have started unions: Alphabet/Google, Change.org, Medium, NYT, ActivisionBlizzard, etc.
However, a union doesn’t have to be industry-wide or even company-wide. An official union can be as small as a couple people – what matters is that you have a sufficient density in whatever job title or shared responsibilities you are bargaining on behalf of. For example, within the Alphabet/Google here are some examples of small groups which organized, won their union elections, and now have official bargaining rights per the NLRB:
In a blowout victory, the YouTube Music Content Operations Team, subcontracted by Alphabet through Cognizant, won their union election with a unanimous 41-0 vote. The unit consists of workers responsible for music content on YouTube. Despite contributing to the platform’s success, workers face low wages and minimal benefits. In response to the workers’ unionization efforts, Cognizant issued a retaliatory Return-To-Office mandate, leading to the first ever Google strike by workers. The election victory paves the way for negotiations with Alphabet to improve working conditions and pay.
Or, Google Fiber workers in Kansas City: www.wired.com/story/google-fiber-union/
If I were you I would reach out to CODE-CWA and ask if they can extend you resources about organizing in a tech workplace. Organizing can be as unofficial as creating a petition and collecting signatures within your workplace to express shared disagreement to leadership about certain working conditions (and hoping that a unified front sways them), or as official as holding a union vote and forming what’s called a “Bargaining Unit”, which is granted certain protections under NLRA law and that your employer is required to bargain with. Either way, you have the right idea by starting from within – pockets of density highly familiar with your working conditions, i.e. your coworkers.
Oh, and for an example of unionized tech workers that kick ass – check out Kickstarter’s union and the list of things they bargained for and won.
Just wanted to say thanks for the information. I work remotely and I think my coworkers would benefit massively from organizing.
Cognizant isn’t a great example for Google, they aren’t Google employees and after they unionized Google dropped a bunch of outsourcing to them and third parties in general.
The NLRB recently ruled that Google is a joint employer of Cognizant employees contracted to Google, because Google sufficiently controls the working conditions of those employees. Google is attempting to ignore the ruling, which is illegal but slow to have consequences for them.
NLRB is going to have to convince a court (probably several) that their stance is the correct one before that ruling becomes at all real, though.
The idea of a union sounds good but if they have anything to do with Communication Workers of America I’d vote against it. I saw so much sketchy stuff from them when I worked in a call center. A non-affiliated IT union would be better.
It doesn’t have to be officially associated with them. The important thing is resources about unionizing and building solidarity with coworkers.
I’ve asked the same thing to my organizer and it was basically telecom is the closest to it under the AFL-CIO umbrella, and i believe he said they may end up getting an IT specific union once enough get unionized.
It’s so amazing to see a comment like this. For years and years, the tech industry workers were heavily anti-union. I’m glad to see the sentiment turning around.
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No, it still is. Most of the people I work with are boomers that tried to kill unions or upper middle class genx or millennials that think they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. The tech bros have definitely not gone away.
Were anti-union? How is that possible? Why would anyone other than the CEO of the company be anti-union? So many things I don’t understand about America, but this union stuff has to be somewhere in the top 10.
Wouldn’t it be more democratic if the voice of the people would be heard in these matters? Americans say they love democracy, but somehow I’m not seeing much democracy being applied here.
You are correct but many workers in the US (tech and otherwise) are only aware of unions as historical tools of organized crime/corruption, or are libertarian (which gets higher representation in tech circles) and believe the free market will provide for them and/or that unions excessively harm companies. There are likely other reasons but these are what I’ve heard from people I know.
These views are reinforced by corporate and libertarian (which is of course funded by corporate) propaganda.
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Easy way to be identified, I wouldn’t recommend that at this early a stage, especially in company code.
OP I suggest looking at other existing unions near your discipline and other countries that have unions for tech workers. If you look at how they have operated and achieved success, it may help you to navigate that in your world.
These are all long-fought battles with lots of lessons already learnt, find the people who have already fought them and you have a good starting point.
Here’s what I’ve done when attempting at my workplace via the postal workers union.
Get in contact with an organizer, they are there to help guide you or who ever wants to be the main leader of this effort. I will say, as the lead organizer in my attempt, it’s just talking a lot, and getting people to a meeting, it kinda sucks but isn’t a huge ordeal to do, and takes maybe 2 hours in a busy week.
I went through the AFL-CIO website aflcio.org/formaunion and filled out my information, during my major attempt it took half a week to get in contact with an organizer, though it could take a bit longer.
You’ll get in contact with an organizer and they’ll get a rundown of your workplace and what it looks like.
After that there’s about an hour’s worth of training to know your rights and what works for your union.
Then you’ll be pretty much ready to go to start talking with coworkers to try and get an organizing committee (10% of your workplace) which will be your main coworkers who should be all about the idea, after that 10% then you’ll start convincing everyone in your workplace and soon after that collect signatures.
Then you’ll go to an election, sadly I do not have much information to get beyond here as the movement fell apart in my workplace during signatures due to a weak organizing committee.
Hope this helps ya out and if you want any additional information I’m happy to share, we need more unions especially in IT!
The IWW accepts all workers and can work to guide you from a local branch, pretty grassroots organization you can get in contact at https://www.iww.org/organize/ but of course unionizing any way is always good. Good luck!
Also wanna add that IWW can explain not all organizing is unionizing. In knowing your labor rights, you can find tactics that can protect you from your boss, and potentially get better protections and pay even before needing to form a new union chapter.
At a glance, the Teamsters and IWW might have some resources for tech worker unions.
I think, if you wanted to push for a union in your workplace, someone who actually works there would have to lead the charge with signature collection etc.
Yes, it has to be some one actively employed (and not management,) to get it going.
That said, an established union can help and is the way to go.
One thing I always wondered is what counts as “management”?
For example I’m in manufacturing (not looking to start a union, my job treats me fairly well but I support them) and we have “team leads” who technically “manage” people but are very low on the totem pole.
We have supervisors who are higher, about the same as engineers, who “manage” the leads.
The we have directors and managers who basically run their whole group.
The it goes up to vps and divisional vps and eventually CEO and board of directors.
Where does “management” start? Really below vps/dvps everyone is just following orders. They may be following orders but with much more lead way. I can see a case that anyone who “manages” another person, even at a team lead level" could be counted as management and that just doesn’t seem fair.
it depends on your organization. Generally speaking way to know is… can they fire or have underlings fired or disciplined in any way? if so, they’re “management” but again, that depends entirely on your organization.
My two cents is I’d say you’re a ‘manager’ if you have the power to hire people, fire them, discipline them, and determine their pay and working conditions.
Generally a “team lead” is just a more senior individual contributor that can help guide other individual contributors. Management may listen more heavily to their opinions on the matters above but they don’t have any direct control over it past advisory. Sometimes they may perform some light managerial functions like work allocations but they have no direct power to back that up.
Funnily enough I may own that one…
Yup, try the #UnionizeTech tag on Twitter or Mastodon. I’m trying to raise interest.
So far there’s a call, but nobody’s taking action.
On my part, still trying to find work to afford groceries, so I don’t have much energy to spend on anything else.
I’ve wondered the same and I think the most direct way to form something useful is to form a Union at the company where you work. That way you have a chance at getting to 15 or 20% membership, which would form a big enough bloc to have actual influence over real issues at your current job. That Union would matter.
I don’t think a broad “tech workers Union” can come about until we have more of those company unions. Eventually they will band together to enable solidarity. But joining an abstract “tech workers Union” right now seems meaningless to me. Are they going to help with current issue XYZ at my job? I don’t see how.
A union is a good idea but this is also something you can and should take into your own hands too. If your wage hasn’t gone up at all in a couple years you should be complaining about that very loudly to your bosses individually. It helps even more if you can get some other job offers to be able to compare your current wage to
