Post #3084997
2026-05-26 18:49 UTC
@CoralineAda@ruby.social Most of the big tech companies have a two-tiered labor force, where only a minority are direct employees and the majority of tech workers are "contract" workers who, through legal fictions and some hostile court rulings, aren't considered employees of the company they actually work for and aren't legally entitled to collective representation with that company.
Most labor organizing efforts in tech I've seen, in those companies, only tried to organize the direct employees. I've never seen a labor union articulate a strategy for organizing contract workers; at best I've gotten some organizers to acknowledge it's a problem without a word how they might address the problem.
Replies (1)
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@Avner@anticapitalist.party 2026-05-26 22:16
@foolishowl@social.coop @CoralineAda@ruby.social the Alphabet Workers Union (the google tech workers' union) did have a strategy around this, at least as of this 2021 interview. I have never worked for google, so I don't know much about how that's gone in practice. All I can say is that, as I understand it, the type of union you decide to form affects the tools at your disposal for addressing this issue, and that creates structural barriers no matter which way you decide to go. https://logicmag.io/distribution/now-i-know-my-abcs-a-conversation-with-two-organizers-from-the-alphabet/