Issue 6: Why Tech Worker Dissent Is Going Viral
29 Jun 2018
The labor of tech industry workers is essential to ICE’s continuing operations. Any tool, program, or database used in ICE’s workflow directly enables the separation of families and the kidnapping of children. When our employers empower ICE, we do not stay silent; we build power to shut ICE down.
MICROSOFT WORKERS SAY DROP ICE banners yesterday at every exit for Microsoft in Seattle (Image from @SeattleDSA) / Source
Worker’s Perspective
The labor of tech industry workers is essential to ICE’s continuing operations. Any tool, program, or database used in ICE’s workflow directly enables the separation of families and the kidnapping of children. When our employers empower ICE, we do not stay silent; we build power to shut ICE down.
This week, all eyes were on the ACLU report detailing the widespread abuse and neglect of unaccompanied children in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. How long have our employers been aiding and abetting these agencies without having to answer for their atrocities? TRIGGER WARNING: the ACLU report details acts of violence committed against children.
Over 650 Salesforce workers are demanding that execs drop their contract to build Customs and Border Patrol’s hiring platform. In response, Salesforce made a $1m dollar donation to immigrants’ rights groups and applauded workers for sharing their opinions; but executives won’t cancel the multi-million dollar contract with CBP. To Salesforce workers we say: Benioff may refuse to cancel the contract. He could distract you with a publicity stunt or insult your efforts, expecting you to back down. He can choose complicity over humanity. But we are with you, and we respect the work you are doing. Keep pushing. Be relentless. Don’t let them get away with this hypocrisy.
This week, Microsoft announced “improvements” to its biased facial recognition software. Their comments (coming one week after workers petitioned the company to end its contract with ICE) are tone-deaf at best, and dangerous at worst.
As if anticipating Microsoft’s positive spin on the technology, Brian Brackeen, the CEO of the facial recognition software developer Kairos, wrote a scathing editorial in TechCrunch that plainly states that facial recognition tech will be weaponized against people of color, whether or not implicit bias of the tools is minimized. “Facial recognition technologies, used in the identification of suspects, negatively affects people of color,” Brackeen writes. “To deny this fact would be a lie.”
Of course, not all data and technology companies are tucking their tails between their legs. Thomson Reuters, parent company of the Reuters News, has been supplying ICE with data for contracts worth as much as $30 million according to The Intercept. Stephen Rubley, Reuters’ Special Services CEO, defended the policy, noting that the company “provides products and services to many parts of the U.S. government in support of the rule of law.” Perhaps it’s time to ask Reuters employees how they feel about this.
Finally, in a strange twist, nine of Amazon’s competitors for the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract have joined forces to make it more difficult for Amazon to win the contract. Longtime rivals Oracle, SAP America, General Dynamics’s CSRA unit, Red Hat, VMware, Microsoft, IBM, Dell Technologies, and Hewlett Packard are using their lobbying arms to try to split the contract among multiple vendors. The deadline for awarding the contract is this September: we’ve got work to do y’all! If you work at one of these companies, find one or two concerned friends and start raising the noise.
Wired published a story that gave us this week’s email headline: “Why Tech Worker Dissent Is Going Viral.” The story details the growing movement of tech workers speaking out publicly about their concerns.
Upcoming Events
Listen Up: Siva Vaidhyanathan on Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
Friday, 6/29 12PM online
Buy tickets
LABORFEST 2018
Kicks off with a bike tour history of labor in the bay, Sunday, 7/1 12PM at 518 Valencia in San Francisco
Full event schedule
Seattle Open Forum: #TechWontBuildIt
Monday, 7/2 8AM at Redmond Regional Library in Seattle
Facebook
Bay Area Open Forum: #TechWontBuildIt
Monday, 7/2 7PM at The Women’s Building in San Francisco
Facebook • Meetup
Learning Club: 1934 San Francisco General Strike — Walking Tour
Thursday, 7/5 5:30PM at Harry Bridges Plaza in San Francisco
Meetup
TWC Monthly General Meeting
Thursday, 7/12 6:30PM at SeattleLabor Temple Association in Seattle
The Code of Conduct is in effect at all TWC events.
In The News
One job should be enough! Hotel workers marching in San Francisco on Wednesday / Source
Hotel workers march on Marriott! Workers marching on Wednesday told execs at the world’s largest hotel chain that it’s time to wake up. The workers are demanding higher wages and better protections against sexual harassment. The campaign’s rallying cry: One job should be enough.
The tyranny of thoughtless rating systems make their colonizing advance into the lives of wait staff at chain restaurants. “‘A guest could order a medium-rare burger, and if it’s cooked medium, they could rate me a four,’ said Mathew. ‘That’s literally not my job. I’m not a cook. I’m a server.’ Brittany, who serves at a Chili’s in the Midwest, meanwhile, said customers have given her low Ziosk ratings because of problems with the plumbing in her restaurant. ‘It … cost me a few shifts, so that was less money,’ she said. ‘I have three kids, so I need all the money I can get.’”
Uber Eats couriers went on strike in the UK this week to demand better pay.
A survey conducted by a London union representing Uber workers, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), found that “nearly half of all drivers say they’ve been assaulted, 78% of drivers were threatened with violence and a further 80% had fallen victim of hate crimes.”
The chilling ramifications of China’s business and citizen social rating program can be felt beyond its border. For example, the Japanese retailer Muji “was fined 200,000 yuan in May for labelling on products sold in China that listed Taiwan as a country. …It is not clear whether foreign companies have access to the information kept on their social credit record, nor if foreign citizens could find out if their nation’s companies have made concessions or changed their behaviour as a result.”
The Koch brothers have launched a war on the union movement, and so far they are winning.
Brave whistleblowers reveal details of the NSA’s hidden spy hubs in eight US cities.
And still—for all the work to be done, we hold onto hope remembering the well-trodden path behind us and we plan for what’s ahead.
Song Of The Week
Deportado - Roy Brown Ramírez, Tito Auger, and Tao Rodríguez-Seeger
Algunos de nosotros somos ilegales y otros no deseados
Nuestro trabajo se contrae y tenemos que seguir adelante
A seiscientas millas de la frontera con México
Nos persiguen como ladrones, como forajidos, como ladrones