How do we represent what Tech Workers Coalition is really about?
Reflecting on our organizing
The first conversation I had with Paige and Matt happened before May Day, 2016. We talked about an event focused on transforming startups into co-ops. Matt was in Japan, but Paige joined me and a few others to organize the very first Co-op Barn-Raiser.
Back then, I think the was mainly Matt, Paige, and Rachel, plus some 200 people on the email list. They somehow fostered decentralized organizing, with a growing group and at least a dozen individuals taking initiative and supporting one another. I hope this reflection contributes to our future work, and helps myself and others get more involved.
Among the dozens of TWC’s organizing and learning events, I believe two in particular show what we’re really about, and will shape our future.
Reclaiming Tech Worker Values
On a Sunday evening last March, some 50 people from TWC gathered to discuss “tech values” — with only a week’s notice. It was a direct response to Sam Altman’s attempt to own the conversation, which has since expanded into his ambition to fund political campaigns for public office.
The opening talk made a simple point: newspaper headlines say “tech workers evict grandmothers in the Mission” while the capitalist elites who are obviously and directly responsible — landlords, developers, and investors — never get mentioned. The rest of the night used open space for eight groups to discuss gig labor, corporate campaigns, race and gender, and more.
Our statement from that event on “reclaiming tech worker values” represents our radical commitment to justice, and to taking action.
Summer Learning Club
Another event — a series, actually — broadened our education and deepened our commitments, too. Over six afternoons in July and August, we hosted our Summer Learning Club. It kicked off with one-on-one conversations inspired by the Workers’ Inquiry, a peer research project in French factories during the 1800’s. Facilitators for other sessions shared readings, guided discussion, and encouraged autonomous projects that addressed a range of topics, from ‘soft authoritarianism’ in the workplace to tech union organizing in the 1990s and recent emergence of workers’ centers. More than a dozen of us spent a full Saturday in an organizer training facilitated by the IWW, too.
We saw enormous potential to seed workplace chapters, support peers with our own workers center and space, run a solidarity job board, and continue participation in coalitions campaigning to improve conditions in companies large and small, like our vital work with organized labor initiatives throughout Silicon Valley.
Best of all, we found camaraderie in an industry with talented jerks and alienation as the default setting.
We could all use more inspiration
Reflecting on these events can inspire us in two ways:
- We share vision, vocabulary, and a commitment to organizing.
- We have a story to tell people working in tech about what we do.
Inspiration from Reclaiming Tech Worker Values and Summer Learning Club is a good start. The more we point to and build on these events — in our conversations with peers, at public demonstrations, on TWC’s website, and elsewhere — the more unity and integrity we’ll see in our future work.
