Is There a Benefit to Workers Organizing?

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i feel like for a while there was this idea that tech workers didn't really mind. And then i feel like in the past, what, seven, eight years, we have particularly seen that start to change with more workers speaking out. I guess there's this divide, which is reflective of the wider divide that we see in society. Once you start getting small winds, like, once you do see, you know, you no drive be successful at one company, or you do see the company drop its business - not i b m but workers at poleroy did get the company to stop selling to south africa.

Paris Marx is joined by ann haeyoung to discuss IBM worker organizing in the 1970s and 1980s against racism and apartheid, and how those stories are important to informing tech organizing in the present.

ann haeyoung is a media artist interested in technology and labor. She is also a former tech worker and organizer, and a graduate student at UCLA.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

ann wrote about IBM organizing for Wired, and put together a four-part series on her research for Tech Workers Coalition.
Science for the People published an article about tech worker organizing in the 1960s and 1970s.
Logic Magazine spoke to Joan Greenbaum about the early days of tech worker organizing.
Tech Won’t Save Us is looking for a producer.

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