TECH WORKERS AGAINST ICE

Description

For this meeting we engaged with this summer’s news about actions of tech workers against ICE and CBP.

Whether at Amazon, Microsoft, or Salesforce, there’s no denying there’s been a surge in tech worker agitation against employer contracts with immigration agencies. Many of these actions are pressure campaigns against CEOs and managers, mainly in the form of circulating petitions.

At the meeting we reviewed the various actions of tech workers, outlined here in this background document. From there we discussed how, as members of DSA and Tech Action, we might view the effectiveness of these strategies, their strengths and limitations. We used the following statements as jumping off points in our discussion:

• More important than challenging tech workers with the ethics of what they build is asking them why they have almost zero control over what their company builds, which contracts the company makes and with whom; in short, why that right belongs to the CEOs and shareholders instead.

• We believe a primary goal for our working group should remain, as it has since the beginning, to build class consciousness in the tech industry that unites all the workers in the tech workplace, from software engineers to janitors.

Readings

1. Tech Workers Versus the Pentagon. Ben Tarnoff’s interview with a Google worker about Google/Maven activism really shows how much organizing was going on at Google.

2. Why Tech Worker Dissent Is Going Viral. Good overview in Wired about the recent tech worker organizing.

Discussion Questions

1. What are the strengths of pressure campaigns against management? What are the limitations?

2. How can we link tech worker demands in the workplace to the needs of the broader working class, including victims of ICE harassment?

3. What would it mean to build class consciousness and class solidarity in tech workplaces, and what would that look like?