Against Tech Oligarchy Book Pre-Order Launch Party - Socialism Conference After-Party
As tech bosses fall in line with the right, tech workers have begun fighting back. This is the rousing inside story of their movement—and the way it spawned an anti-worker backlash now reshaping the industry.
After Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the tech industry sprang into action to oppose his right-wing agenda, with workers staging walkouts against ICE contracts and CEOs joining mass mobilizations against the so-called Muslim ban. But it wasn’t long before the tech bosses started to fall in line with the new administration. Using the autonomy afforded to them by the industry’s progressive and mission-driven culture, tens of thousands of tech workers began speaking out against their own executives. This burgeoning resistance included organizing against military contracts, walkouts to protest sexism, agitation about tech’s role in the climate crisis, and even a wave of union drives. By the early 2020s, tech workers had sparked an exciting movement that seemed to hold the potential to check the industry’s rapid growth and reactionary drift.
But as their struggle grew, so did the employers’ backlash. A new class consciousness took root among the billionaire owners. Hellbent on stamping out any and all dissent, tech executives embraced Trumpism, fired organizers, and began lashing out against the “woke” ideology they blamed for turning their once loyal employees against them.
Drawn from their own experiences—from organizing the first wall-to-wall union at a tech firm, to spearheading the ultimately unsuccessful Twitter organizing drive—and their direct connections with key leaders across the industry, Against Tech Oligarchy offers a balance sheet of this inspiring movement’s successes and failures that will prove crucial for anyone looking to challenge right-wing billionaires anywhere.
About the authors:
JS Tan is getting his PhD at MIT and formerly worked in tech. His work has been featured in The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Dissent, Jacobin, Foreign Policy, The Baffler, and The Guardian, among other outlets.
Clarissa Redwine helped organize the Kickstarter union and cofounded the tech organizing conference Circuit Breakers. Her organizing work has been featured in The New York Times, the BBC, The Guardian, The Verge, TechCrunch, and elsewhere.