Issue 7: See you at Salesforce on Monday
06 Jul 2018
Our movement is growing stronger by the day! Over 100,000 people have signed petitions calling on the major tech companies to drop their contracts with ICE and Customs & Border Patrol. We need to keep turning up the pressure internally – the public is beginning to stand up behind us!
Worker’s Perspective
Our movement is growing stronger by the day! Over 100,000 people have signed petitions calling on the major tech companies to drop their contracts with ICE and Customs & Border Patrol. We need to keep turning up the pressure internally – the public is beginning to stand up behind us!
Last week, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff rejected the demands of over 700 employees, who had signed an internal petition to cancel the company’s contract with CBP. But the fight isn’t over yet.
This coming Monday, there will be a rally at Salesforce HQ in San Francisco, calling upon the company to “Cancel the CBP Contract!” Together we will take to the streets, sending a strong message to our fellow tech workers at Salesforce: We are with you, we support you, and we will not back down!
From the official press release:
On Monday, July 9th 2018 at 10:00AM, please join The San Francisco Progressive Alliance and allied organizations and individuals for a press conference outside of 415 Mission St (Salesforce Tower), where we will formally denounce the company’s continued engagement with agencies that perpetuate human rights abuse.
We stand in support of Salesforce employees and the marginalized populations that continue to be targeted for abuse by CBP. We demand that Salesforce’s contract with CBP be canceled, and that a plan be implemented to evaluate the ethical impact of all current and future Salesforce products.
More updates on the global fight to end family separation and #AbolishICE:
In Washington, D.C., actress Susan Sarandon, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and over 500 other women demonstrators were arrested in a mass demonstration at the Hart Senate Office Building as they called for the abolition of ICE.
It seems that even some ICE agents now believe that their organization has exceeded its mandate under the Trump administration. Recently, at least 19 ICE investigators signed a letter to Kirstjen Nielsen asking to dissolve the agency (but naturally, they want a new one to take its place…).
The #OccupyICE movement has expanded to protest camps and blockades of ICE offices across the country. Turn out wherever people are organizing near you; in San Francisco meet at 444 Washington Street at 12 pm tomorrow, and follow @OCCUPLYICESF for updates.
“We will be here as long as we can,” said Imri Rivas, a 25-year-old camped outside a San Francisco Ice building on Tuesday. “What’s important for me is the active disruption of ICE operations. I hope people do it everywhere.”
Our immigration fight is going global. Some European countries are now using smartphone data to deport refugees. The technologies that we work on and design are often being turned against their users. Let’s mobilize our European colleagues!
Upcoming Events
Rally at Salesforce: Cancel Your CBP Contract!
Monday, July 9 10:00AM at 415 Mission St, San Francisco
Facebook Event
TWC Monthly General Meeting
Thursday, 7/12 6:30PM at Seattle Labor Temple Association in Seattle
Discuss our workplace experiences
Saturday, 7/14 4PM at TBD in San Francisco
Meetup
Learning Club: Labor Law for Rank and Filers
Saturday, 7/21 4PM at Unite Here! in San Francisco
Meetup
The Code of Conduct is in effect at all TWC events.
In The News
Two years after Marriott implemented a new “productivity app” for room cleaning, housekeepers say it actually makes their job harder. The new tool “allows managers to give them room assignments on-demand, [which] takes away their ability to organize their day and makes the work more physically demanding, as it sends them zigzagging across the hotel floors.”
Amazon is plowing through workers faster than they can find them. Individuals without any delivery or logistics experience can apply to enter their courier entrepreneurship program and begin delivering Amazon packages, with an advertised annual earning potential of $300,000. Sounds familiar. Also see this day in a life of an Amazon Flex driver.
“Tesla’s battery factory brought high-paid tech jobs to Nevada – but is soaking up huge tax breaks that critics say have seriously depleted public services.” “Working stiffs” are pushed out of their homes by surging rents, a result of the tech influx. Counties eliminate school bus routes for 4,000 students. And the story ends with Tesla pocketing the $131 million in cash by selling their tax credits to casinos. Concerned? Corporate accountability resource center Good Jobs First takes a look into the tax credit schemes between Amazon, Tesla, Apple and local governments.
In case you needed another reminder of all the ways the boss is screwing you: Through a new salary survey service called, “Option Impact,” company executives share their employees’ salaries among a pool of companies, and you can probably guess what they use the data for: “‘You get into the venture capitalist club and get all the magical data, which puts you in a power position,’ he says. He recalls walking away from negotiations with a newly hired employee thinking, ‘Man, this guy is underpaid—we got a good deal.’”
And from Tesla’s manager handbook: “The 1st Goal (Accomplishing Assigned Tasks) has Priority Over the 2nd Goal (Promoting the Well-being of Team Members).” “Saturation on the second goal can result in a threat to the team itself.” Your well-being is a threat to your boss.
Lyft and Uber expand to bike sharing.
Last Thursday’s passing of AB 375 privacy measure does more for Google and Facebook than it does for individual Californian’s privacy.
“We demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places… The increasing centralization of the Web has ended up producing—with no deliberate action of the people who designed the platform—a large-scale emergent phenomenon which is anti-human.” Tim Berners-Lee on his regrets and the failure of the internet.
A victory for organizing Deliveroo couriers: a ruling this Wednesday by the High Court determined that while couriers are self-employed (as Deliveroo prefers it), they are free to organize with The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB).
Worker power is spreading like wildfire in the UK gig economy.
“If Apple were a worker cooperative, each employee would earn at least $403K.”
Song Of The Week
Tracy Chapman - “Talkin’ About A Revolution” (Official Music Video)
While they’re standing in the welfare lines / Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation / Wasting time in unemployment lines / Sitting around waiting for a promotion / Don’t you know you’re talking about a revolution / It sounds like a whisper