This leaflet, written in response to the recent inspiring organizing efforts by tech workers, is being distributed by tech workers to other tech workers. A PDF version is available for printing and distribution here.
The bosses want us divided from other workers not only by dividing us into competing “teams” and “departments” in the same company but also by isolating us from our worker siblings in the rest of the crafts, professions and jobs in the economy and legally allowing us to form unions through the mechanism of disunited, small and weak “bargaining units”, convincing us that the NLRB regimented legalistic methods are the only way to unite and fight as workers, which was almost never the experience of the most combative and effective union fights in labor history!
They want us weak, divided, fighting, betraying and backstabbing each other while stressing us out and underpaying us, so their profits can soar while they lay us off, make us work longer hours and train AI models to replace us, deskill us and lower our pay – in a race to the bottom against other workers in other departments, office locations, companies, industries and countries where they do the same thing to them, too.
Tech unions are starting to sprout in the USA and have already been winning some victories around the world through standing together and through the power of the strike! These are encouraging signs and we have a long way to go!
If we don’t limit our power and coordinate our struggle with the rest of the working class, focused not on what skills or prejudices divide us but on the many common and identical demands we have, we not only are able to demand but also get much more materially than we would otherwise. A rising tide lifts the boats not just of the members of our unions but of the rest of the international working class!
To do that we need to shed our current faulty ideas about union organization and bureaucracy, we need to remove and replace all leadership which collaborates with the bosses and their politicians and stop wasting money on legal battles and electoral fights, which is money that could be going towards strike funds, expanding the union and coordinating better with other unions in all sectors in a common fight.
We cannot let class-collaborationists limit our true power as a class, which lies in coordinated strike activity, and cross-sector collaboration between unions in different crafts and sectors, enabling us to get to having a general strike as an escalation to win our class demands.
Not only do we need to organize the unorganized tech workers into unions but we also have to establish strong combative caucuses within the unions that we are forming, so that we can steer them in the direction of Class Unionism, the general strike and away from boss-linked leadership, which is more interested in preserving its own privileged position as negotiators, rather than effectively leading the fight and risk their position.
We are tech and other workers fighting to build class unions at our workplaces. If this is the type of combative unionism you want to be a part of, get in touch with us and we’ll get back to you to organize and coordinate action together!
