Unions Empower Workers to Excel in a Tech-Driven Economy

The glory days of Silicon Valley and Big Tech are coming to an end — or, at least, shifting into a new era. The tech workers who held up the industry for years are learning they’re just as easy to lay off or replace as the rest of the working class. This realization is why unionization in tech is having its moment. Far from being technologically averse, unions are striving to ensure that workplace technologies advance job quality and working conditions as well as enhance productivity and profit for employers. Many tech workers who love their chosen field are recognizing the necessity of joining forces in order to collectively bargain for their rights in an industry that is increasingly dominated by corporate interest.

History of unionization in tech

The tech industry has long been skeptical of unions. In an ecosystem that shifts rapidly, the ability to hire and fire employees as needed — and paying them as contractors rather than as salaried workers — is considered essential for success. Although many tech companies describe themselves as being meritocratic and egalitarian, workers and contractors within these corporations have begun to feel otherwise.

Unionization efforts have been under way among blue-collar tech workers for years, usually focusing on wages and safety. For example, workers achieved an historic win for the Amazon Labor Union at Staten Island in April 2022. More recently, white-collar workers have also begun to recognize the necessity of unionization within their sector of tech. Concerns around work-life balance, job displacement, massive pay disparities, sexism, discrimination, and the ethical use of technology have begun to accumulate to the point of organized resistance.

In 2018, 20,000 Google workers in countries around the world staged a walkout to protest the company’s handling of sexual harassment claims and to show support for contractors and others at the company who felt “diminished or disrespected.” Organizers demanded an end to forced arbitration and inequities in salaries and career opportunities, and advocated for access to a secure and anonymous process for reporting any kind of misconduct. In 2019, a group of contractors at a Google office in Pittsburgh formed a union; elsewhere in the tech landscape, workers at Kickstarter and Glitch won their union campaigns in 2020.

In 2021, more than 400 workers formed the Alphabet Workers Union after years of growing concern over Google’s policies on pay and ethics. This labor union exists primarily as an effort to give structure and voice to the role of worker activism at a tech giant like Google, rather than as a traditional union that negotiates on a contractual basis. Workers who are part of the union see it as a necessary means of applying and sustaining pressure on upper management in order to gradually change the culture into one of dialogue and equal opportunity.

“Our goals go beyond [the question of money],” said Chewy Shaw, an engineer at Google and vice chair of the union’s leadership council, in an interview with The New York Times. “Our issues [go] much broader. It is a time where a union is an answer to these problems.”

“As a tech employee, it’s a reasonable ask to ensure that this labor is being used for something positive that makes the world a better place,” echoed Alan Morales, a Google engineer and member of the union, when discussing the Alphabet Workers Union with NPR.

Recent wins

In March 2024, a majority of 400 employees at Chicago-based biotech firm Tempus voted to join the IAM Union (International Association of Machinists) in an effort to secure better safety standards, healthier work-life balance, competitive pay, and transparency from their employer. In December 2023, Microsoft and the AFL-CIO (the largest federation of unions in the United States) partnered to create an open dialogue on how artificial intelligence (AI) must serve the needs of workers and incorporate their feedback in its development and use. This partnership is the first of its kind between a labor organization and a technology company, and it marks an historic shift in anti-unionization sentiment among tech giants.

Whatever Microsoft’s reasons for moving into a neutral stance toward unionization, this move will undoubtedly increase some pressure on the company’s competitors, Amazon and Apple, to consider doing the same.

Why this matters now: the path forward

Technological change is directed by people. The course of its growth and use is often shaped by the desires and interests of powerful companies and governments that lose sight of human interest in their haste to innovate and profit, which is why unionization in tech, at both the blue-collar and white-collar level, is more crucial than ever. The 2023 strike wave in the United States showed that workers can and will band together to level the playing field and gain control over how technology shapes their jobs, their well-being, and the face of society.

Technological and digital innovation should be a net positive for all: workers, employers, and users alike. As unions enjoy a resurgence in popularity, particularly among young people, there is reason to hope in the power of collective bargaining around current and future impacts of new technologies in the workplace.

The tech industry has soared to great heights thanks to the efforts of its workers over the past few decades, and now those workers are fighting for their rights to be properly compensated for their efforts — not just with a decent paycheck, but also with job security, fair pay, and safe working conditions. More broadly, unions fight for the assurance that the technologies workers helped develop and build are being used in equitable, ethical, and sustainable ways for the benefit of everyone.