What a Year of Reckonings for for Tech and Tech Labor

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The biggest story of the year probably in my eyes at least as somebody who follows tech and tech labor was the Amazon labor union getting the first victory. It's been tumultuous since then but what a historic moment I mean Amazon has just pulled out all the stops to be like the biggest most organized union buster in modern history. The fact that organizing continues to sort of you know move into tech spaces or places that were thought of as tech companies the horizons are expanding. Even apple is having like a whole I mean it had it's the only tech giant this year that had a successful like financial year all the other ones crashed and burned.

Paris Marx is joined by Brian Merchant, Chris Gilliard, and Gita Jackson to discuss the year in tech, including Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, the biggest stories of the year, what they’ll be watching in 2023, and the worst person in tech of 2022.

Brian Merchant is the author of The One Device and Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech. Chris Gilliard is a Just Tech Fellow at the Social Science Research Council. Gita Jackson is a tech and culture journalist. You can follow them on Twitter at @bcmerchant, @hypervisible, and @xoxogossipgita.

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.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Paris wrote about Netflix and streaming services for Business Insider.
Brian wrote about how 2022 was a disastrous year for the tech industry for The Atlantic.
Chris and Kishonna Gray wrote about digital migration and what it means for Black users for Wired.
Gita wrote a review of Dwarf Fortress’s Stream release.
Part of the show discusses a Twitter policy that was briefly launched to restrict sharing of links from several other social media platforms. It was rescinded after the initial discussion.

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