Longer hours, fewer benefits, a demand that work-from-home-employees return to the office, and less respect as our bosses ask us if what we do can be replaced with a machine are a factor from coast to coast, and across the sea. From China, to India, to America, nobody who works in tech is safe from ever-growing work expectations with the threat of unemployment looming over our heads.
Make no mistake, it is us who hold the power here. We build the tools they rely on to replace us, and without us, they cannot maintain their reliance on technology. Our expertise in the tech sector makes us invaluable, not disposable, and together we can reach across industries to make ourselves heard.
Organizing works! In April 2023, YouTube Music workers voted unanimously to unionize, and held their first strike in September 2023. In Europe, workers with Spotify and TikTok have begun unionizing as well. Unionized X employees in Spain won 33 days of severance pay after illegally being fired, and in Ghana, former X employees are working with the government to compel X to pay out owed wages to their laid-off employees.
These measures are not enough, however. Unionization across the tech sector is slow globally, and many union leaders do not take action until after employees have been fired or their pay has been reduced. Few sectors are willing to strike, and even fewer are willing to organize at all. It’s up to us to bring the union into our workplace, and to fight with every tool in our disposal for the wages, benefits, and policies that benefit us, the workers.
As the backbone of the tech industry, it is up to us to built up union presence where we work and to coordinate strikes across businesses to force the tech companies who have made trillions off our labor to the negotiating table. Together, we can win against the oligarchs who are bleeding us dry!
