A tech union is a trade union for tech workers typically employed in high tech or information and communications technology sectors. Due to the evolving nature of technology and work, different government agencies have conflicting definitions for who is a tech worker. Most definitions include computer scientists, people working in IT, telecommunications, media and video gaming. [1] [2] [3] Broader definitions include all workers required for a tech company to operate, including on-site service staff, contractors, and platform economy workers. [4]
UNI Global Union is a global union federation that has an Information, Communications, Technology and Related Services (ICTS) sector. [5]
In 2021, UNI Global Union and international workers of Alphabet, Google's parent company, announced an international union coalition called Alpha Global to assist in organizing the company's global workforce. [6]
Professionals Australia is the union that represents Australian tech workers.
The ICT Union (Czech : ICT Odbory) was formed in the summer of 2021. It has public campaigns with Expedia and Red Hat Czech. It is affiliated with the OSPPP (Czech : Odborový svaz pracovníků peněžnictví a pojišťovnictví, lit. 'Trade Union of Money and Insurance Workers') which in turn is affiliated with the ČMKOS federation. [7]
Solidaires Informatique is a union that includes game workers and filed a lawsuit against game developer Ubisoft in 2021. [8]
The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) has the principle of one trade union for each company. In practice, the two largest trade unions, IG Metall and ver.di [a] have been competing since the early 1990s to represent the tech industry which are part of the newer economies. [10] High-tech workers in Germany have lower union density than other workers, and are less likely to engage in collective bargaining and are more likely to engage in alternative organisations, sometimes in direct competition with trade unions. [11]
At IBM Germany, the two unions formed a joint collective bargaining committee to resolve their internal union competition. [12] SAP employees are similarly represented by both unions. [13]
Tech companies in Berlin have increasingly formed works councils, notably at TikTok, Tesla, Gorillas, [14] N26, [15] and Zalando. [16]
The Financial Services Union (FSU) has produced surveys, research, and legislative action around the IT, tech, and financial tech sectors as early as 2019. [17] [18]
Cellular, Internet and High-Tech was founded in 2014 as an affiliate of the Israeli trade union confederation Histadrut. [19] [20] It represents 3,000 workers through the collective bargaining agreement it has with 6 high-tech firms including the Israel divisions of SAP and Visonic. [21] A further 200 employees of Surecomp are organized through the other Israeli federation, Koach LaOvdim. [21]
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is officially the only trade union in China and acts as an extension of the state's interests. It either co-opts or restricts independent labour organizing. [22] [23] Most trade union chairs in China are company managers, party cadre members and appointed, rather than elected. The Foxconn Trade Union was formed in November 2006. It represents 90 percent of Foxconn's 1.4 million workers in China and is a company union dominated by management. [24] However, since 2010, due to increased labour militancy and strikes, workers through China have been able to demand more worker representation in union elections. [25]
In 2018 Jasic Technology retaliated against a worker led union drive. Over 100 students and workers were arrested including members of Jasic Workers Solidarity Group in what became known as the Jasic incident. [26]
In March 2019, Chinese tech workers mobilized, after an anonymous person uploaded a repository named 996.icu to GitHub. 996 refers to 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week or 72-hour work cycle. [26] Over 230,000 tech workers, mainly in China 'starred' or 'liked' the repository, making it one of the largest tech actions in China. [27] US based Microsoft (which own GitHub) employees signed a letter in support of the 996 movement, opposing censorship. [28]
In the context of the pro-democracy 2019 protests, tech workers founded the Hong Kong Information Technology Workers' Union and developed a database of sympathetic employers who are supportive of the protests. [29] The union was later dissolved due to widespread state repression in Hong Kong following the protests. [30]
The Business Process Outsourcing Industry Employee's Network (BIEN), historically organized call center workers and more recently has focused on organizing tech industry contract workers. In 2021, the union's president had to move into hiding after increased government surveillance and right-wing targeting of left and labor organizers and organizations in the country. [31] BIEN has a long history of organizing in solidarity with US and Canada tech, media, and telecommunications union Communications Workers of America (CWA), including an incident in 2016 where BIEN and CWA organizers were held at gunpoint by an armed right-wing militia during an organizing effort. [32] [33]
Sindicatul IT Timișoara (SITT; Romanian IT Union) represents 3,000 IT and outsourcing workers at Alcatel-Lucent, Wipro, Accenture and Alto since 2009. In 2015, SITT met with UNI Global Union to develop an organizing strategy. [34]
The Association of Internet Workers is a trade union of internet-based platform workers in Serbia. [35]
IT, tech, and game worker unionization is a recent trend, located primarily in the Pangyo Techno Valley with a first wave of organization in 2018 and a second in 2021. [36]
In September 2018, over 300 workers at video-game developer Nexon formed the country's first game worker union across the company's affiliates such as Nexon Networks Corp., Neople and Nexon Red. [37] In 2019 over 600 members took collective action around reorganizations, job security, and other issues at Nexon. [38] The union, known as Starting Point, successfully won significant pay raises for members in 2020. [39]
In 2018 workers at South Korean game company Smilegate also formed a labor union known as SG Guild and successfully got Smilegate executives to sign an agreement with the employees. The union held a demonstration in 2019 calling for "stable work practices". [40]
In March 2021 workers at Kakao's online-only bank firm KakaoBank formed a union. In April 2021, workers at Webzen, an online game developer, established a union. As of 2021 there are also unions at IT, financial tech, and game firms AhnLab, Hangul & Computer, XL Games, and Naver. [36]
In April 2023, Google Korea and Google Cloud Korea formed a union with Korea Finance & Service Workers Union (KFSWU) affiliated to KCTU. KFSWU has previously organized workers at Oracle, Hewlett Packard, SAP, and Microsoft Korea. [41] [42]
Company | Founded | Labor Federation |
---|---|---|
Webzen | April 2021 | KCTU |
Kakao Bank | March 2021 | KCTU |
Hangul & Computer | March 2021 | KCTU |
Kakao | October 2018 | KCTU |
AhnLab | October 2018 | FKTU |
XL Games | ||
Smilegate | 2018 | KCTU [43] |
Nexon | September 2018 | KCTU |
Naver | April 2018 | KCTU |
Swedish unions Unionen and Saco signed a collective bargaining agreement with strategy game developer Paradox Interactive that covers all 200 of Paradox's workers in Sweden. [44]
The Swiss union syndicom covers the IT sector. It is active within Google among other companies. [45]
In October 2019 employees of Google Switzerland invited syndicom to their office while Google management attempted to shut down their talk. [46]
In February and March 2023, employees of Google Switzerland supported by syndicom walked out to protest layoffs. [47] [48]
Unite the Union (and its predecessor Graphical, Paper and Media Union) represents Information and Technology sector workers. Unite has a number of collective agreements with tech companies such as Fujitsu, DXC & Daisy Group. In London, a dedicated Unite branch for tech workers has been established. [49]
In 2020 the first dedicated union branch for tech workers was launched by members of the London chapter of the Tech Workers Coalition. The branch, United Tech and Allied Workers , operates as part of the Communication Workers Union. [50]
In 2018, the British chapter of Game Workers Unite became a legally recognized union with the IWGB for all video game workers. [51]
In November 2021, Prospect union launched a new tech sector, "a new home of tech workers within the union", [52] which has played a leading role in challenging treatment of staff at Twitter. [53] [54]
Tech unionization is historically relatively new in the United States, with the exception of telecommunications. Workplaces are primarily organized with the Communications Workers of America and to a lesser extent OPEIU, USW, Teamsters. The overall private job sector has a historically low union density rate of 7 percent, with the tech industry being even lower than that. [55]
From 1974 to 1983, the United Electrical (UE) formed a Silicon Valley Electronics Organizing Committee (EOC), which was made up of 1 full time staffer and a dedicated network of rank and file from National Semiconductor, Siltec, Fairchild, Siliconix, Semimetals, and others. [56] They had a newsletter called "The Union Voice" in English, Spanish and Tagalog languages. [57]
Between 1970 and 2016, a patchwork of IBM worker initiatives formed including the National Black Workers Alliance, IBM Workers United and Alliance@IBM. [58]
Since 2014, [59] [60] various Amazon worker initiatives have largely unsuccessfully sought union recognition in different Amazon warehouses. [60] In 2021, members of Teamsters voted at a convention to form an 'Amazon division' to make it a strategic priority. [61] [62]
Unionization has picked up speed since 2019 as several unions have successfully launched initiatives to organize tech workers, such as the Communications Workers of America, United Steel Workers and Office and Professional Employees International Union.
In March 2019, 5 employees of npm, Inc. were laid off, 4 of whom were involved in organizing for a union. [63] In July, npm settled with three employees for $105,000 after they filed a complaint with the NLRB alleging retaliation. [63] [64]
In February 2020, 14 Instacart part-time (<30 hours) in-store shopper employees voted to form a union with UFCW, in the first app based union in the nation. [65] [66] One year later, in January 2021, Instacart announced it is laying off 2,000 employees including all 10 remaining unionized workers. [67]
In September 2019, 80 vendor contractors of Google Shopping at the outsourcing company HCL Technologies voted to form a union with Pittsburgh United Steel Workers, making it the first successful tech union for office based workers. [68] [69] Two years later, HCL and 65 workers ratified a three-year collective bargaining agreement, one of the first in tech industry. [70] [69]
In January 2018, 15 employees of logistics startup company Lanetix were fired, 10 days after they petitioned to form a union with Washington-Baltimore News Guild (CWA). [71] In November, the company agreed to pay $775,000 to the 15 former employees after the NLRB found they retaliated. [72] [73]
In January 2020, the Communications Workers of America launched the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) to organize tech, game, and digital workers in the US and Canada. [74] According to the CODE-CWA website "thousands of tech, game, and digital workers" have organized with over a dozen CODE-CWA organizing campaigns, including several certified unions with collective bargaining rights. [75] As of August 2022, CODE-CWA has organized over 3000 union members in various sub-industries of the tech sector across over 25 bargaining units in the last two years of organizing. [76]
Within its first year [77] the CODE-CWA campaign unionized workers at Glitch, [78] Blue State Digital, [79] the Alphabet Workers Union at Alphabet, and game studio Voltage Entertainment. [80] In 2021, workers at Do Better Tech, [81] [82] Mobilize, [83] Medium, [84] NPR, [85] [86] [87] Mapbox, [88] Catalist, [89] Change.org, [90] EveryAction, [91] and New York Times Tech staff launched public unionization drives, [92] with civic tech companies Mobilize, Catalist and Change.org receiving voluntary recognition from their employers. [89] [90] CODE-CWA has also supported workers at Activision Blizzard by filing Unfair Labor Practice charge with the NLRB. [93] CODE-CWA has also organized the first table-top game company at Pathfinder and Starfinder developer Paizo. [94] [95] [96]
Glitch staff announced intentions to unionize with the CWA Local 1101 as part of CODE-CWA in early 2020. The company voluntarily recognized their union. Around the same time, the company laid off a third of its staff of 50 during the COVID-19 pandemic. [97] [98] Glitch signed a collective bargaining agreement in March 2021, the first in the American tech industry. [99]
On January 4, 2021, over 400 employees (out of 130,000) of Alphabet (parent company of Google) formed the Alphabet Workers Union (CWA Local No. 1400) with a rare solidarity union model, which is not registered with the National Labor Relations Board, and thus cannot engage in collective bargaining. [100] [101] Alphabet Workers Union is notably open to non Alphabet employees, including Temporary, Vendor, and Contract workers, who make up almost half of the workforce. [100]
On April 13, 2021, more than 650 tech workers at the New York Times announced that they were unionizing with the NewsGuild-CWA. [102] [103] In July 2021 the workers filed for union certification with the National Labor Relations Board. [104] On August 11, 2021, the New York Times Tech Guild held a half-day work stoppage in protest of alleged union-busting tactics from the New York Times management for which the Guild filed at least three unfair labor practices charges with the NLRB. [105] On November 4, 2024 the New York Times Tech Guild conducted an eight-day unfair labor practice strike of in-person and remote workers. [106] They returned to work on November 12, 2024 without a signed collective bargaining agreement. [107] At the time the union was certified, it was the largest union representing tech workers with collective bargaining rights in the country. [108]
Microsoft recognizes several video game unions at its subsidiaries ZeniMax Studios and Activision Blizzard. [109] [110] [111] Microsoft has a labor neutrality agreement with CODE-CWA that extends to all Microsoft workers, including its subsidiaries. [112]
In February 2020, 85 Kickstarter employees voted to unionize with Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 153. [113]
In January 2021, Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) launched Tech Workers Union Local 1010 as a result of its success unionizing Kickstarter. [114] In August, workers at Code for America went public with their union drive with OPEIU. [115] A majority of workers at the e-commerce platform Big Cartel signed union cards with OPEIU Local 1010, calling for voluntary recognition by December 6, 2021. [116] On December 13, the company announced that they were granting voluntary recognition. [117]
A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with employee responsibilities split between individual disciplines, such as programmers, designers, artists, etc. Most game development companies have video game publisher financial and usually marketing support. Self-funded developers are known as independent or indie developers and usually make indie games.
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors. The union has 27 locals in Canada via CWA-SCA Canada representing about 8,000 members. CWA has several affiliated subsidiary labor unions bringing total membership to over 700,000. CWA is headquartered in Washington, DC, and affiliated with the AFL–CIO, the Strategic Organizing Center, the Canadian Labour Congress, and UNI Global Union.
The NewsGuild-CWA is a labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933. In addition to improving wages and working conditions, its constitution says its purpose is to fight for honesty in journalism and the news industry's business practices. The NewsGuild-CWA now represents workers in a wide range of roles including editorial, technology, advertising, and others at newspapers, online publications, magazines, news services, and in broadcast. The current president is Jon Schleuss.
Graduate student employee unionization, or academic student employee unionization, refers to labor unions that represent students who are employed by their college or university to teach classes, conduct research and perform clerical duties. As of 2014, there were at least 33 US graduate employee unions, 18 unrecognized unions in the United States, and 23 graduate employee unions in Canada. By 2019, it is estimated that there were 83,050 unionized student employees in certified bargaining units in the United States. As of 2023, there were at least 156 US graduate student employee unions and 23 graduate student employee unions in Canada.
The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA) is a labor union representing employees in television, radio, film, and media production. A division of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), NABET represents about 12,000 workers organized into about 35 local unions ("locals").
Mapbox is an American provider of custom online maps for websites and applications such as Foursquare, Lonely Planet, the Financial Times, The Weather Channel, Instacart, Strava and Snapchat. Since 2010, it has rapidly expanded the niche of custom maps, as a response to the limited choice offered by map providers such as Google Maps.
The 2018 Google walkouts occurred on November 1, 2018 at approximately 11 am. The walkout had a large number of participants. The employees demanded five concrete changes from the company: an end to forced arbitration; a commitment to end pay inequality; a transparent sexual harassment report; an inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct; and elevate the Chief of Diversity to answer directly to the CEO and create an Employee Representative. A majority of the known organizers have left the company since the walkout and many continue to voice their concerns. Google agreed to end forced arbitration and create a private report of sexual assault, but has not provided any further details about the other demands.
Tensions between the multinational technology company Google and its workers escalated in 2018 and 2019 as staff protested company decisions on a censored search engine for China, a military drone artificial intelligence, and internal sexual harassment.
The Tech Workers Coalition is a labor rights group seeking to organize the tech industry.
Emma Kinema is an American labor organizer and the senior campaign lead of CODE-CWA, the Communication Workers of America's Campaign to Organize Digital Employees. In the late 2010s, while working as a quality assurance tester, Kinema volunteered as a games industry organizer and co-founder of Game Workers Unite. She was hired by the CWA union in 2020 to lead their initiative to organize video game and tech workers, the first American initiative of its kind in those sectors.
Game Workers Unite is a worker-run, labor rights group seeking to organize the video game industry. Founded during events surrounding the March 2018 Game Developers Conference, the flat organization has grown to over a thousand members across more than 20 international chapters. Its goal is a single union for all games workers, including artists, designers, producers, and programmers. Game Workers Unite has supported actions including Riot Games's 2019 walkout over sex discrimination and social media campaigns against CEOs who executed layoffs. The British chapter of Game Workers Unite is legally recognized as a union within the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain and is working to end crunch overtime practices, improve diversity and inclusion, support targeted workers, and ensure steady and fair wages. Game Workers Unite co-founder Emma Kinema was hired by the Communications Workers of America to organize workers in the high tech and video game industries in early 2020, the first American initiative of its kind in those sectors.
Some warehouse workers of Amazon, the largest American e-commerce retailer with 750,000 employees, have organized for workplace improvements in light of the company's scrutinized labor practices and stance against unions. Worker actions have included work stoppages and have won concessions including increased pay, safety precautions, and time off. There are unionized Amazon workers in both the United States and Europe.
Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), also informally referred to as the Google Union, is an American trade union of workers employed at Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, with a membership of over 800, in a company with 130,000 employees, not including temps, contractors, and vendors in the United States. It was announced on January 4, 2021 with an initial membership of over 400, after over a year of secret organizing, and the union includes all types of workers at Alphabet, including full-time, temporary, vendors and contractors of all job types.
The Campaign to Organize Digital Employees or CODE-CWA is a project launched by the Communications Workers of America to unionize tech and video game workers in January 2020. It sprung out of conversations with Game Workers Unite (GWU) and employed at least two full time staff, including GWU co-founder Emma Kinema and veteran SEIU organizer Wes McEnany. In 2022, Jessica Gonzalez joined, a former Activision Blizzard QA tester.
Trade unions have historically been unrecognized by IBM. Since the company's foundation in 1911, it has not recognized any in the United States, despite efforts by workers to establish them from 1970 onward. In Australia, Germany and Italy, several trade unions have limited recognition from IBM. IBM has been able to minimize union membership even in traditional union strongholds in Western Europe.
Apple Inc. workers around the globe have been involved in organizing since the 1990s. Apple unions are made up of retail, corporate, and outsourced workers. Apple employees have joined trade unions and or formed works councils in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
ABK Workers Alliance is a group of organized workers from video game company Activision Blizzard. Formed in response to a July 2021 state lawsuit against the company for harassment and discriminatory work practices, the worker advocacy group A Better ABK organized walkouts and demonstrations against the company's policy and practices. The quality assurance workers of subsidiary Raven Software went on strike in December after part of the team was fired. The striking workers announced their union as the Game Workers Alliance in late January 2022 and offered to end the strike pending their union's recognition.
Microsoft recognizes 7 trade unions representing 1,750 workers in the United States at its video game subsidiaries Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax Media. US workers have been vocal in opposing military and law-enforcement contracts with Microsoft.
Jessica Gonzalez is an American labor organizer working with CODE-CWA, the Communication Workers of America's Campaign to Organize Digital Employees. She is known for her work organizing in the video game industry and founding A Better ABK, the worker advocacy group at Activision Blizzard, and co-founding ABK Workers Alliance, a solidarity union, and Game Workers Alliance, the Raven Software union.
The AWU is somewhat unusual in that it is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America but won't seek recognition or collective bargaining rights through the National Labor Relations Board. "We will use our reclaimed power to control what we work on and how it is used," AWU writes in its mission statement. "We will ensure Alphabet acts ethically and in the best interests of society and the environment." The group says it now has more than 700 dues-paying members. But that's still a tiny percentage of Alphabet's 130,000 employees—and an even smaller share of the company's total workforce, including temporary workers, contractors, and vendors. The union is unusual in another respect, because it welcomes contractors and temporary workers.