- The widespread tech layoffs shattered long-held illusions about the tech industry and its culture.
- That's pushing interest in organizing and unionization efforts across the tech industry, labor experts said.
The layoffs that swept Google in January accomplished two big things.
First, it successfully shattered the illusion that tech giants like Google are completely immune to the whims of the economy — despite a famously whimsical corporate culture that encouraged employees to think of working at the search giant as a lifestyle.
Second, the episode drove several hundred Googlers to sign on as members of the small-but-growing Alphabet Workers Union, said Emma Kinema, a lead organizer at Code-CWA, which helps organize the group and others.
As tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Google, Salesforce, and others continue to cut jobs and slash costs, labor experts say that now is exactly the right moment for tech workers to get organized and demand better treatment from their employers.
"These layoffs are a huge culminating moment where that rose tinted glasses, it's just getting absolutely shattered," Kinema said. "And so in many ways, it really just helps bring about a tipping point in this industry where people are already starting to normalize the idea of organizing."
The tech industry has largely avoided unionization over the last several decades, as high wages and generous benefits have removed the urgency of taking collective action. Now, however, the looming risk of recession is pushing those same workers to claim a certain degree of agency.
Additionally, support for labor unions is the highest it's been in more than half a century, with 71% of American workers saying approve of labor unions, according to a Gallup poll released in August. Still, it's far from certain that we'll see a wave of unionization across Silicon Valley, the way that the United States has seen a massive upswing in the number of Starbucks stores that have formed their own unions.
One challenge is simply that the traditional approach to unionization and collective bargaining may not work in tech, where there's so little precedent and it's not clear the best way to take action. And employees may be more unwilling to stick their necks out in an increasingly-tight job market, potentially slowing the wave of unionization right as experts say it's needed most.
"We are on the brink of a new wave of worker organizing," said Susan J. Schurman, labor professor at Rutgers University. "The question in my mind is what form of organizations will they create? Because many of the types of unions and the structures of unions that we have today simply are not gonna be effective in the we call the knowledge based industries."
Collective action in the tech industry has already been growing
Unionization and collective action in the tech industry is well behind other industries, partly due to the fact that tech is relatively new in the last several decades and that the traditional factors motivating unionization, like wages and benefits, haven't impacted tech workers on a large scale.
However, there's been more collective action in recent years, Schurman and other experts said. There are unionization efforts like the Alphabet Workers Union, which any type of employee at the tech conglomerate is free join.
Over the past several years, we've also seen employees at Salesforce, Google, and others come together to push their company to stop using their technology for things that employees consider unethical.
For example, when Salesforce employees penned a letter to Marc Benioff in 2018 saying the company should not sell to customs and border patrol. Also in 2018, Google employees protested a Pentagon contract called Project Maven, which would have used the company's artificial intelligence technology to analyze drone surveillance footage.
These episodes show a certain appetite for collective action in the tech industry, the experts said, laying a foundation for things to come.
The layoffs are pushing workers to rethink their relationship to their employers
The layoffs of the last several months have recharged employees and their willingness to demand more from their employers, labor organizers said.
That's already been seen by the increased interest the Alphabet Workers Union has seen since the layoffs, said Hayden Lawerence, a software engineer at Google, who is a member of the Alphabet Workers Union.
"It has definitely made people more open to the idea of collective action, he said. "We saw plenty of high performers get laid off. So I think that made it clear to people that their individual performance really isn't enough anymore."
Tech workers have taken inspiration from the service workers at their respective companies, many of whom have unionized in recent years, Code-CWA's Kinema said. There's a growing realization that they're all in the same boat, at equal risk of getting laid off in a downturn, she said.
That's why the Alphabet Workers Union is open to all employees, whether they're full-timers, contractors, or vendors, she said.
"There's something very powerful about having workers from every part and across the spectrum of conditions at Alphabet, all organizing together one way or another," Kinema said.
Despite a change in perspective, there are still hurdles ahead
Despite the change in sentiment, however, at companies without that existing infrastructure, it is hard to organize. The layoffs have made people nervous about job security, and more fearful of retaliation.
It's also more difficult to organize in workplaces that allow for remote work, said a tech employee who has organized their colleagues previously. The employee, who is from a major tech firm that has had layoffs recently, asked not to be named, as they were not authorized to speak with the press.
The irony is, as tech companies push for employees to return to offices, they could also tip them further towards collective action or unions, because employees still largely want flexible work policies, that tech worker said.
Ultimately, the experts say, tech workers just want to have a voice in a fast-changing industry.
"This industry has enjoyed a real facade," such that "if you're fortunate enough to work in this industry, you're treated really well," Kinema said. "I think the layoffs are really a massive shattering of that view."
Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at pzaveri@insider.com or Signal at 925-989-8866. (PR pitches by email only, please.)