Surveillance, Spacing, Screaming and Scabbing: How Digital Technology Facilitates Union Busting

TL;DR

This paper investigates how digital technologies are used by employers to hinder unionization efforts, focusing on surveillance, spacing, screaming, and scabbing tactics across major organizations.

Contribution

It identifies and analyzes four key digital tactics used in employer counter-organizing, providing insights into their strategic deployment and implications for worker resistance.

Findings

Digital tactics like surveillance and scabbing are strategically used to suppress union efforts.

These tactics operate across different organizational contexts, highlighting their adaptability.

Implications for future worker resistance and digital organizing strategies are discussed.

Abstract

Despite high approval ratings for unions and growing worker interest in organizing, employees in the United States still face significant barriers to securing collective bargaining agreements. A key factor is employer counter-organizing: efforts to suppress unionization through rule changes, retaliation, and disruption. Designing sociotechnical tools and strategies to resist these tactics requires a deeper understanding of the role computing technologies play in counter-organizing against unionization. In this paper, we examine three high-profile organizing effort--at Amazon, Starbucks, and Boston University--using publicly available sources to identify four recurring technological tactics: surveillance, spacing, screaming and scabbing. We analyze how these tactics operate across contexts, highlighting their digital dimensions and strategic deployment. We conclude with implications for organizing in digitally-mediated workplaces, directions for future research, and emergent forms of worker resistance.