Issue 38: Stop wage theft for DoorDash drivers

01 Mar 2019

Workers are holding DoorDash accountable for a dishonest tipping policy that shortchanges drivers and puts more money in management’s pockets.

In an open letter published today (instructions for signing here), signers demonstrate solidarity with drivers and workers who are bringing attention to DoorDash’s wage theft practices. The letter’s demands include a $15 per hour pay floor for all drivers, plus tips.

Read the full letter here


Upcoming Events

Seattle Learning Club: Let a Hundred Zines Bloom
Saturday, 3/2 3PM at Capitol Hill Branch of The Seattle Public Library in Seattle
Facebook

What does Amazon mean for the DC Metro Area?
Monday, 3/4 6:30pm at the WEE Meeting Room of the West End Library in DC
Facebook

Feminist Data Justice with Lauren Hoffman and Niloufar Salehi (Silicon Valley Uncovered Seminar Series) 
Tuesday, 3/5 12:45PM at USF in San Francisco
Facebook

Building Solidarity: Meet Your Fellow Contract Workers
Wednesday, 3/6 7PM at the Poetry Project in New York
Facebook  •  Meetup

Lunch + Discussion: Gendered Experience at Work
Friday, 3/8 12:30PM at Civic Center Plaza (the grassy area) in San Francisco
Facebook  •  Meetup

TWC Austin Meet & Greet
Saturday, 3/9 6:30PM at Monkeywrench Books in Austin
Facebook

Seattle Writing Club at Victrola 
Sunday, 3/15 1PM at Victrola on 15th in Seattle

The Code of Conduct is in effect at all TWC events.


Organizing Tip Of The Week

THERE’S PROBLEMS AT WORK; WHERE DO I START TO ADDRESS THEM?

The answer is always “talk to your trusted coworkers”! (And never “talk to your manager”). Find people that will either support you and have your back, or others who have aligned interests. Look to strength in numbers for addressing any grievance.


In The News

Academics respond to IBM’s techno-utopian, self-adulating Oscars ad with a much better take. Kristen, a volunteer organizer with Tech Workers Coalition, is one of the featured speakers in the video.

Between reviewing videos tagged as “counter-terrorism”, “self-harm”, and “potential imminent risk or harm”, the subcontracted Facebook content moderators are monitored by the second and have their bathroom breaks managed by a browser plugin. More light shed on the brutal working conditions of these tech workers, from outposts in Arizona, Texas, and Hyderabad, India where contractors make as little as $6 a day and screen as many as 2,000 posts a day.  

Student groups at Stanford and Berkeley are saying no to Salesforce and Palantir and “refusing to be a part of the ivy league racist tech pipeline”.

The alt-right YouTube channels identified in Rebecca Lewis’ Data & Society report have been almost completely purged from YouTube’s recommendation system

Elite professionals are unhappy and unfulfilled at work. Human despair knows no class bounds. 

An AirBnB scheme in New York operating a $10 million illegal hotel operation was shut down.

The games industry continues a rough month that started with Blizzard’s massive 800 person layoffs, as Guild Wars developer ArenaNet and games platform GoG lay off employees.

America’s Cloud Act allows the federal government to demand data held outside of the United States, setting up for a showdown between the US and Europe over privacy and jurisdiction.

A study of police departments found engaging in unlawful and biased policing found that many of them also used the data from their dirty policing periods to train their predictive policing models, locking in the bias from that period into their long term practices.

Washington State became the first state to introduce laws around algorithmic fairness and accountability.


Final call for submissions to the second issue of Bug Report! Email the editors at bugreportzine@protonmail.com. Submissions on the topic of “the first tech job” are open through March 15.


Song Of The Week

Fantastic Negrito Transgender Biscuits

All the people with love in your heart
Get unified, get organized (change, change, change)
Unity
Unity
I got fired because I’m a woman
I got fired because I’m black
I got fired because I’m a white man
I got fired because I’m fat
I got fired because I’m an asshole
I got fired because I’m gay
I got fired because I’m a Muslim
I got fired for being late
Ooh, looks like nobody’s coming
To my party, no no no no no no no no
All the people with love in your heart
Get unified, get organized (change, change, change)
Unity
Unity
I got fired because I’m Asian
I got fired because I’m cute
I got fired because I’m ugly
I got fired because I’m a Jew
I got fired because I’m Christian
I got fired because I’m brown
I got fired for being real
I got fired for talking loud
Ooh, looks like nobody’s coming
To my party, no no no no no no no no
Suckas
Uncle gotta find (change, change, change, change, change)
Change
Change
Change, change, chnge (Change, change, change, change, change)
There’s an Oakland rain
Falling on my head right now
Fallin’ on my head (right now)