$100,000 or the Robot Gets it! Tech Workers' Resistance Guide: Tech Worker Actions, History, Risks, Impacts, and the Case for a Radical Flank

TL;DR

This paper analyzes tech worker activism, its history, strategies, risks, and impacts, proposing that establishing a radical flank could enhance the effectiveness of resistance movements in the tech industry.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic analysis of tech worker actions, situates them historically, and offers a novel catalogue of strategies with risk and impact assessments.

Findings

Contemporary tech activism is less radical than perceived.

Worker actions vary significantly in strategy and perceived effectiveness.

A radical flank could potentially increase the success of worker movements.

Abstract

Over the past decade, Big Tech has faced increasing levels of worker activism. While worker actions have resulted in positive outcomes (e.g., cancellation of Google's Project Dragonfly), such successes have become increasingly infrequent. This is, in part, because corporations have adjusted their strategies to dealing with increased worker activism (e.g., increased retaliation against workers, and contracts clauses that prevent cancellation due to worker pressure). This change in company strategy prompts urgent questions about updating worker strategies for influencing corporate behavior in an industry with vast societal impact. Current discourse on tech worker activism often lacks empirical grounding regarding its scope, history, and strategic calculus. Our work seeks to bridge this gap by firstly conducting a systematic analysis of worker actions at Google and Microsoft reported in U.S. newspapers to delineate their characteristics. We then situate these actions within the long history of labour movements and demonstrate that, despite perceptions of radicalism, contemporary tech activism is comparatively moderate. Finally, we engage directly with current and former tech activists to provide a novel catalogue of potential worker actions, evaluating their perceived risks, impacts, and effectiveness (concurrently publishing "Tech Workers' Guide to Resistance"). Our findings highlight considerable variation in strategic thinking among activists themselves. We conclude by arguing that the establishment of a radical flank could increase the effectiveness of current movements. "Tech Workers' Guide to Resistance" can be found at https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~msa/TechWorkersResistanceGuide.pdf or https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16779082