Google, the ONLY highly paid tech company with a union has LITERALLY 400/180,000 employees unionized but OpenAI can get 85% OF THE EMPLOYEES TO FIGHT FOR THEIR HIGHEST OVERLORDS???
Part of this is your average craven tech worker. But I don't think that's all of it. Maybe not even half.
The other part of this is that you can't organize workers to build shop floor power in the open, with the tools built for organization and used by the workers. Like even for the few non-bullshit jobs employed in tech, easily over 50% of the worker's time is spent doing organization. On slack, in jira, over email, etc. etc. etc. Building worker power would be trivial if you could harness those tools and time to organize the workers to act collectively against management. But you get fired or otherwise retaliated against if management even catches a whiff that you might have aspirations at any amount of worker control (I've seen it). Whereas the board only manages the company through the C-level, so Altman himself or one of his lackeys easily could've fomented this direct action with those tools, with no fear of reprisal.
I know a few Google union workers that have openly advertised the union in group chats of thousands of people after every layoff + benefits cut and have the AWU logo in their profile picture that gets prominently seen on every software they use
My friend has also talked shit about Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google founders + 51% voting share owners) to try and stop the worship of them on these same group chats
huh, fair enough. I've only ever organized in smaller shops (200-30k fte) and I've seen people retaliated against for merely asking if the company would voluntarily recognize, or if there could be a c-level position held by a worker rep
shows what management thinks of the threat posed by the AWU tbh.
if I'm understanding what you mean by group chats, part of that goes to my point tho--they're doing this in group chats or on blind or whatever, not using the tools & time dedicated to organizing by the company itself.
they're doing this in group chats or on blind or whatever
This is through the company Google chat instance in community group chats that the union thinks is best reachable like all the new grad groups, trans groups, black groups, etc.
Part of this is your average craven tech worker. But I don't think that's all of it. Maybe not even half.
The other part of this is that you can't organize workers to build shop floor power in the open, with the tools built for organization and used by the workers. Like even for the few non-bullshit jobs employed in tech, easily over 50% of the worker's time is spent doing organization. On slack, in jira, over email, etc. etc. etc. Building worker power would be trivial if you could harness those tools and time to organize the workers to act collectively against management. But you get fired or otherwise retaliated against if management even catches a whiff that you might have aspirations at any amount of worker control (I've seen it). Whereas the board only manages the company through the C-level, so Altman himself or one of his lackeys easily could've fomented this direct action with those tools, with no fear of reprisal.
I know a few Google union workers that have openly advertised the union in group chats of thousands of people after every layoff + benefits cut and have the AWU logo in their profile picture that gets prominently seen on every software they use
My friend has also talked shit about Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google founders + 51% voting share owners) to try and stop the worship of them on these same group chats
None of them ever got talked to by HR
huh, fair enough. I've only ever organized in smaller shops (200-30k fte) and I've seen people retaliated against for merely asking if the company would voluntarily recognize, or if there could be a c-level position held by a worker rep
shows what management thinks of the threat posed by the AWU tbh.
if I'm understanding what you mean by group chats, part of that goes to my point tho--they're doing this in group chats or on blind or whatever, not using the tools & time dedicated to organizing by the company itself.
This is through the company Google chat instance in community group chats that the union thinks is best reachable like all the new grad groups, trans groups, black groups, etc.