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> Microsoft announced a labor neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America – which has undoubtedly become the most successful tech organizing
by MichaelCollins 4y ago
> Microsoft announced a labor neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America – which has undoubtedly become the most successful tech organizing union. According to the announcement, “The foundation of the agreement is a commitment to mutual respect and open communication.”
> Due to the neutrality agreement, Microsoft was now “a friend of the labor movement”. (A later phone call elaborated that CWA is an affiliate of UNI and helps pay UNI salaries. And that any critique of Microsoft could lead to one or more UNI employees being fired.)
> UNI’s demands were clear: either remove all material except the critique of Amazon or hide UNI’s funding. (It was suggested that Tech Inquiry wait six months before publishing its analysis of Microsoft and Google.)
This makes CWA and UNI seem like farces; tools used by Microsoft, Google and Amazon to neutralize the threat of real unionization.
- forgetfreeman 4y agoIf it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
- encryptluks2 4y agoI find it weird that security experts study social engineering techniques, online manipulation, memetics, foreign infiltration, etc. However, if you somehow mention it being done from people they believe have their best interests in mind all that knowledge goes out the window to question everything.. Literally, you have to question almost everything.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- forgetfreeman 4y agoI'll see you that and raise you all of those things exist in the world, have been made possible at scale by "technology", have rendered most institutions at best ineffectual and frequently actively harmful, has atomized society to the point we've got literal Nazis (miss me with the conservative crocodile tears, I'm talking capital N Nazis) occupying space in public discourse again, and have provided cover for every form of abuse/exploitation/manipulation known to man over the last 40 years. In the face of all of that the most common argument in favor is "innovation" which in practice means a thing that saves a trip to the store or a different thing that shits all over already low wage workers working conditions.