Google workers have announced their intention to form a union, under the auspices of @CWAUnion Local 1440. The union is called @AlphabetWorkers (Google maintains the legal and accounting fiction that it is a division of a holding company called "Alphabet").

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Speaking of legal fictions, the union is opening membership to "TVCs" - temps, vendors and contractors - employees who have deliberately misclassified so as to avoid paying them benefits or extending normal workplace protections to them.

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It's a bold move, a countermeasure to thwart the other commercial advantage from worker misclassification: by creating multiple categories of workers, bosses can pit employees against one another, by dangling privileges in front of one group but not the other.

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But it comes at a high price: to gain official legal recognition, more than 50% of eligible workers must join the union. By including more workers, the union is setting a higher bar for official status.

https://t.co/QjVkkM5hXC

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But the union has momentum: a series of high-profile googler uprisings - driven by official tolerance for sexual misconduct, complicity in US military drone programs, secret collaboration with Chinese surveillance and censorship, and more - show how radicalized googlers are.

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Google's management - who cultivated an air of participatory, cuddly collaboration - have arrived at a point where the contradictions between their "values" and the company's profits can no longer be reconciled.

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In Dec 2020, Google fired @timnitGebru, an eminent Black AI scientist who refused to retract a paper critical of its profitable Big Data research. Management compounded their sins by making false claims about Gebru's dismissal.

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The unionization drive is under the CWA's #CODE (Coalition to Organize Digital Employees) project. Though CODE is no stranger to conflict, Google represents a serious challenge, thanks to its partnership with notorious union-busters @IRIConsultants.

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(IWI's tactics pale in comparison to the mercenaries that @Amazon has hired to bust its unions: the @pinkerton company, who have spilled rivers of workers' blood in their murderous history):

https://t.co/XE1gb7GTbk

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For important context on the drive, check out @tech_actions' article on the announcement, which explains why googlers have formed a "non-contract union" that does not yet have official recognition.

https://t.co/3qrQEXeMit

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"Non-contract unions embody the idea that worker power does not come from legal processes, but rather through building power through solidarity."

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More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: ADT insider threat; Billionaires think VR stops guillotines; Privacy Without Monopoly; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/nu1HbReiEX

#Pluralistic

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This Wednesday, I'm giving a talk called "Technology, Self-Determination, and the Future of the Future" for the Purdue University CERIAS Program:

https://t.co/po5IivZyr4

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ADT insider threat: If you build it they will spy.

https://t.co/kJrmtu8L3S

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Billionaires think VR stops guillotines: TARP with tasps.

https://t.co/MIKwvsICkr

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Privacy Without Monopoly: Podcasting a reading of the latest EFF whitepaper.

https://t.co/R2sl75y4rb

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Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Dependency Confusion; Adam Curtis on criti-hype; Catalytic converter theft; Apple puts North Dakota on blast; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/Osts9lAjPo

#Pluralistic

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This weekend, I'll be participating in Boskone 58, Boston's annual sf convention, where I'm doing panels and a reading.

https://t.co/2LfFssVcZQ

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Dependency Confusion: A completely wild supply-chain hack.

https://t.co/TDRNHUX0Ug

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Adam Curtis on criti-hype: Big Tech as an epiphenomenon of sociopathic mediocrity, not supergenius.

https://t.co/MYmHOosTk3

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Catalytic converter theft: Rhodium at $21,900/oz.

https://t.co/SDMAXrQwdd

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I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):


The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹


References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹