From intense surveillance to retaliation for free speech, tech workers have a lot to say about Big Tech’s labor + human rights violations. 🪡🧵
Discussion
Amazon has a record of putting profits over worker safety, forcing workers to operate at an unsafe pace, with many warehouse workers facing a higher risk of lower back, musculoskeletal injuries and burnout. https://www.economicliberties.us/big-tech-abuse-tracker/
Amazon employees have also reported the need to forego bathroom breaks to meet demanding quotas, some even resorted to urinating in bottles.
Reports suggest Amazon tracks worker social media for activism and internal communications for unionizing indications.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/21/amazon-surveillance-lawsuit-union
Google employees reported their employers' use of surveillance tech to track numbers of its’ workers at gatherings in effort to track union or protest organizing activities and curb dissent.
Microsoft has been accused of similar worker surveillance practices.
Workers from both tech giants have accused their employers of retaliatory firings due to workers being vocal about company complicity in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
Amazon uses an AI automated algorithmic systems to track worker performance, push ‘off task’ warnings, and issue automated dismissal notices. These are biased systems that can disproportionately impact vulnerable and marginalized workers.
Though tensions exist between ‘office’ + ‘non-office’ tech worker activism, the important underline is tech workers have ONE employer animated against their efforts to build power and hold Big Tech accountable.
Whistleblowers like Timnet Gebru, fired from Google for exposing Google’s discriminatory AI products, Apple + Google collective action takers for Gaza, and unions like the historic Amazon Labor Union, all have a place in the struggle for better tech + better working conditions + a better future. ✊
https://onlabor.org/tech-worker-activism-presents-opportunities-for-building-worker-power/