Optimizing Versus Organizing: How Data and Communication Tools Reconfigure the Workplace and the Union

Contributor(s)

Frederick Reiber

Abstract

Technology, despite what Silicon Valley billionaires would have you believe, is not a uni-directional beam of progress, it is a bi-product of the contexts that birthed it. Recently, scholars, journalists, and activists have renewed discourse around issues of technological development, highlighting the myriad of biases within algorithmic systems. Other times technologists will theorize around tools to reduce tech-driven inequalities or highlight challenges in adapting to technological change. However little work or attention has been given to resistance - both in terms of resistance to tech, but also how tech reshapes resistance. In this talk, I will highlighting how recent computational developments have restructured the workplace, leading to increased challenges in workplace organizing. I will also highlight the tech workplace activists use to overcome these technical challenges, along with a brief discussion on designing for worker liberation.