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And now without any further delay,
please welcome dysphoric
unicorn to the virtual stage.
Give a warm round of applause
in the privacy of your viewing bay.
And let's get started with the talk union
busting.
What is it and why should you care?
Hello and welcome to my talk on
the topic of union busting what it is and
why you should care.
Firstly, let's talk a bit about content,
not just us.
During this talk, I will be mentioning
police brutality,
workplace inequality, which is often
caused by structural forms of
discrimination, as
well as the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic.
Just so you know and you can make an
informed decision on whether you want to
keep watching.
OK, so let's get started.
And I've kind of structured this talking
to two main parts.
The first being why you should care,
even though it's the second part of the
sentence.
Well, I'm going to explain a bit about
what humans could do for you, because
I think it's fair to assume that
engagement of people watching this talk
would probably be tech workers
who are not unionized,
who don't really know why they should
be unionized, because
many of us actually have pretty
good workplaces, so we
don't really feel the need for an for a
union.
And then I want to talk about just
the union busting part, what is being
done and
what can be done against union busting.
So you at first, what's the
current situation?
Union membership has been in decline for
decades.
Unions seem kind of antiquated
on its core, and
that's why that's not really
true. There aren't any great at all in
school, they just aren't
as popular as they used to be.
This is caused by a number of factors,
like new industries that never did
have unions like programing.
There never was some general programing
union, at least not in Germany.
And so
many people are working in this new
industry. Industries just never had any
contact to unions and don't
really know their way they would
need them.
More people are in precarious and pseudo
self-employment, and
those are situations in which many people
don't really know that they could
benefit from a union, and
that's intentional on the part of the
employers.
People just aren't as connected to their
work space as they used to be.
People used to work at the same place for
multiple decades.
If your job hopping and just staying in
the same place for one or two years,
you're much less likely to actually want
to change things they are because
you're not going to be that
you are to reap these changes.
And there's also less of
a sense of solidarity between workers,
which got be somewhat
new separation between blue and white
collar jobs,
where people think they are
not like those of the other
other group.
That's actually more things that
the more
things that are similar for us than
things that are different. So there
should be more solidarity between workers
and there isn't as much as they used
to be.
But one of the few things that we're
giving people hope during the
pandemic was that 2020
a solid first increase in union
membership and for a long time.
So I looked around for members
to back up this claim and every,
every single country for which I had no
numbers saw an increase.
So for the first time,
a very long time, the first time in at
least two years,
those sadly didn't.
This increase sadly didn't necessarily
have a positive
reason because many employers just
showed how little they can
do about the employees from being
not providing PPE, making them come
in when it wasn't necessary
and a general disregard for their health
and safety. So
people want when want to fight back
against that.
Also, if so many people are suddenly
dying without much of a warning,
people tend to think more about mortality
and their own mortality.
And if you think about your own
mortality, you are less likely to be
willing to spend your life
working minimum wage or not
much above that for someone
who doesn't care about you.
And also, we just realize that we have to
stick together to survive.
So sure, there was this
minority of people who were refusing
to care about others, but most people
did stay at home.
Most people reduced social contact.
Most people are wearing
masks whenever there
are others, so we're sticking
together to make it through this
pandemic and
and you.
And as a way in which workers stick
together, so that could be
a reason why some people
went back to that idea of unionization.
Sadly, we also saw that this increase is
actively being fought by many employers.
But you know, that's more for Patrick
Typekit. So you,
first of all, why do we even need
unions as employees?
The most important
reason, in my opinion, is definitely
solidarity.
Even if you've got a job which you really
like and where
you've got enough personal time off,
you just got the things you need to
be able to work productively and to enjoy
your work.
You can have other people
who don't who aren't in this nice
position to
get into a better one.
Workplace competitiveness
is the thing that's been kind of flaring
up. Everyone wants to be the best to
get those
get a better wage or whatever.
And I really don't like
workplace competitiveness if people
are working together to improve their
situation at the workplace
instead of working against each other to
look better in front of the boss, that's
better for everyone.
Having those without the means to speak
up have their voices heard.
So imagine your being as
your senior employer employee
and you're
just happy where you work, but you
are realizing that training is just
aren't treated as well.
And the trainees can't really say
anything about that because they're seen
as replaceable.
So when they speak up, they
there won't be
they won't get what they demand.
But if you speak up for
them, that's a much higher chance that
they will be heard.
And you're also more likely to know
about what troubles them.
If you're in the union, if you're talking
with them about their workplace, about
which travel and on its staff
standing together with others makes you
feel less alone.
It's important
to you not to not feel
like you're alone and like,
especially in the case of workplace
competitiveness. You can often feel very
isolated at work.
And another thing
we in tech do have a lot of
privileges that are people in other
industries don't have, and we could have
people out in other industries by
changing what is considered normal.
The first thing is we've got the 40
hour workweek, which was actually a huge
success by unions
to get us to this place because
before we had that, people are working.
Even more so did
the unions thought it would
be fair to to have eight hours
of work, eight ounces of sleep and eight
hours of personal time.
While that isn't true, if you've got
a commute to do, that probably
wasn't as much of an issue back then.
But these days, the 40 hour
workweek just isn't.
Isn't the way to go anymore,
because we've seen a shift to a jobs
where you've got to be concentrated and
creative all the time.
Many cases and
parents have shown that people just
aren't capable of being off concentrating
or being creative for eight hours
at a time, like just sitting
in a chair at their computer
and maybe 45 minutes lunch break or
whatever. But that's enough.
So people are actually on you walking
around three hours a day,
according to polls, and the rest
is sitting at their workstation,
not working,
not doing what they want to be.
Simply because that's normal and because
they have to work that amount of hours to
to make a living and to
pay for their around and whatever.
I actually switched to a 28 hour
workweek this year and
I realized I'm being more productive than
ever. So I've got four
days a week of work and only seven hours
a day, and I'm spending most of the time
being productive.
So my employer is getting
more from my time and I'm
getting more time for myself,
so it's better for everyone.
But it's normal and should be normal.
Time is payment also doesn't make sense
in many cases and for many workers.
But the thing is, if you go away from
time best placement payments,
you're very likely to get underpaid.
So if you've got a union helping you
work out your contract and all that
stuff, it's much more likely
that you could get non time
based on a contract where
that's legally possible.
That's the payoff for you.
Another thing that I think is kind
of scammers has no time
off sick days and parental leave and just
not really regulated in many places.
And just like a 40 hour work week, which
was the victory of unions
that got made until all
unions could fight together to
make those things mandatory for everyone
so that everyone can go on vacation
everyone.
People don't go to work sick.
Even during the COVID 19 pandemic, we've
had employers who force their people
to go to work sick.
And obviously, that may depend on how
much worse
and parental leave.
That should just be something that
everyone gets who gets a child, but
it's not like it had.
So many people don't.
And another thing is it's not normal
that yearly wage increases are
conjecture and match inflation.
If your wage does not increase with
inflation, you're basically being
paid less because you are not able
to pay for as much things, especially
with the the rent increases,
which are often even more than inflation.
You're just not going to be able to keep
your standard of living without
without switching jobs to find something
which is better paid.
If you've had a contract with
yearly wage increases that match
inflation, that would be great.
That should be a pretty fine for
everyone.
And working from home should just be
allowed to have a possible not just
during a pandemic, because
why isn't normal that we spend two
hours or even more of a day just
getting to and from work?
We're not being paid for anytime time.
We can do what we want during that time,
and if that's not necessary, we shouldn't
be forced to do it.
Also, just for accessibility reasons,
many people may not be able to get
to the office, may not be able to use
public transit or whatever.
So working from home should be just
allowed wherever possible.
And in the best case, unions could work
to make that into law.
Some more quick points.
It's fighting workplace inequality.
If that's like named
wage groups, it's
much more likely that people are able to
speak about their own wages.
And
if you know how much your coworkers are
making, you also know if they're being
affected more than you are,
and you could definitely
help with that.
Also, if you work together and
if you're one united voice, you can
much better speak up against impossible
deadlines and crunch.
Those are things that are
very common even in the tech industry,
especially in game development, which
is kind of an industry built upon crunch
and that has to change.
Improving the treatment of Chinese, just
like I already mentioned of the more
senior employees speak
up for genius, things can be better for
them and
another very important.
Thing is that a union can help protect
your contract.
And in Germany, we've got works councils
which aren't really unions but
kind of fall into the category of
unionization, which
get a state in which employees are
being terminated so they can
stop a termination or at least find it
very, very effectively.
And a union won't be able to help
their members with legal procedures
to sue against an illegal
termination of a contract,
which is really good to know.
You have that because many
people just aren't able to find an
immediate termination of the contract so
their employers can just terminate and
whatever they want
and just the endless job hopping that
many people are doing because they just
don't keep up with industry standards or
inflation.
That's not good fighting because
the first couple of weeks,
days, months, whatever when
you're not working productively, but just
learning those are stressful and
those
having those are often as many people
do, or it's just not good for mental
health and it's not good for the
companies you work for because they
constantly have to train new people.
So, yeah, and the stock option really
is a thing that I
think shouldn't be as normal.
And if we were actually unionized,
maybe we could make it less normal.
What upsets do unions have firm plans?
Because actually, if an employer embraces
the union, they can
get upset too.
So it's not just fighting against
employer. Anything keeping talent
in the company is easier.
Just as I said, job hopping will
be less common,
less necessary.
And gymnast
workers, especially those who have
fought for unionization, will feel more
connected to the workplace because, you
know, they work toward
making it better. So they obviously want
to stay there to reap the benefits of
that. And unionized workers
are also more likely to
try and improve things
instead of on your job.
So because they've got the choice
to do so and
they might feel more empowered to do it.
Finding your town is also easier.
People are happy with their jobs, welcome
into friends to apply.
And just knowing that a company has a
union contract would, at least for me, be
a big problem if I were
deciding between office
and me.
But one minor thing is that working
together to improve the workplace
is from a team building.
So, you
know, I guess we'll probably get to know
each other where
it's not liking each other more and be
able to work together better,
not just for unionization, but also for
accomplishing our tasks.
And also very minor thing because
you're going to have spent time
and negotiating with unions, obviously,
but you're not going to spend that
much time on individual in which
negotiations, which
might also be a benefit.
But this talk isn't called why you should
yet join a union.
So let's switch to the main thing I want
to talk about, which
is union busting.
I've kind of split the
different words of strategies
up into three categories.
We've got the government and the union
busting the commercialized anti
Jewish investing strategies that
employers themselves apply.
So let's start with the government.
One common thing is that strikes are
being banned the strangest from banning
strikes of any kind to
or banning just general solidarity
strikes or making legal
strikes extremely difficult by banning
wildcat strikes or
banning strikes for government employees,
which is also something that's
to some extent happens in Germany.
The legality
of strikes being difficult.
It's something that is pretty normal.
General strikes not being allowed on,
which we kind of think that
that's just the way things are, but there
should probably be that way.
Now the thing is police brutality against
workers on strike.
Historically, that was even
they even got help from
the military. These days, the police are
so militarized that they
do not need the military anymore to
be done such as this.
But you know, police
brutality is a two very commonly
just to fight
worker's movements,
refusal to do anything about it being a
union busting practices because they
simply don't care.
And another thing that you might not
think of is union busting.
But it also is because
the inadequate social
systems may losing a job a lot
more scary and stressful,
so you're less likely to speak
up against unfair practices of your
employer.
If
if that could mean losing your job and
unemployment systems
and commonplace
and not being built to
help you get back on your feet are
anything but are bid to make
your fear of losing your job.
They don't respect the people who
need them on
this extreme
amounts of unnecessary and
unnecessary paper
work. You've got to fill out
appointments you've got to attend to.
And also often you can use and
lose your benefits when you don't
accept a job offer and many job
offers just about you should not accept
them because you be
treated fairly if you did.
But you have to accept, accept them
because otherwise you might not make rent
screwed up Medicare systems that are
literally people in debt because
unemployment will almost never
cover paying off debt and in addition
to paying off your cost of living, which
they often don't colorfully.
And as a true little availability of
affordable living space, people might
want to fight me on that because
they don't think that's the government's
job. I think it is.
I think the government should be
providing living space to everyone
who needs it, and they don't.
Instead, they
throw people out of
disgruntled buildings and
stuff so
commercialized, union busting, a
whole industry providing consulting
regarding actions that can be taken
against unionization.
They also provide propaganda films and
mandatory educational meetings
to reduce motivation to unionize.
So, I mean, you can spy on unions and
employees, maybe maybe planning
unionization,
or they might even place people
inside those union meetings
to
to get them to start infighting.
And there's also private security
militias and gangs who intimidate and
beat up workers who want to unionize
or who are currently on strike.
And the union busting strategy
is one thing people might not think of,
as union busting is the very
common, and we're all a big
family.
So this is all just
a family and we
really like each other.
And that basically,
by extension, emotional manipulations to
make workers feel bad for going against
their employer.
They're using social group dynamics to
destabilize relationships, especially
people who might want to improve
things who might fight against
their employers. So they're traitors
against this family,
which is something that that might sound
good on the on the
beginning. But it really
is kind of like if a company presents
a family and one structure,
the company reflects 600 people, and
everyone in management was like, We're on
a big family here with a
very dysfunctional family out there.
But maybe there were some like
what happened?
So the unequal treatment
of workers is don't think that's being
used, giving certain workers as an
option, its privileges than
others without a clear, obvious reason
why it destabilizes relationships
because of envy.
And it increases competitiveness because
everyone wants to be on the better
treat in a place where they've been
treated better.
So that's the thing many humans
sadly tend to do.
It's when
when met with an unequal
and unfair system, instead of wanting to
enter the system, they want more and.
Up on the place where then we
can and
and it's really dangerous for
unionization,
that's also impeding communication
between workers, especially in working
from home. They can ban group chats that
don't have at least one member of
management. And even if it's just
developers talking about technical
issues or whatever they're working on,
it's not as soon as there's not a new
management person in there,
they're going to be very, very sad
that you're stuck to just chat and
they're going to kind of close down
if you're not working from home, there
may be large office rooms where you just
cannot have a private conversation
without.
Yeah, private conversation, where and not
being a member of management.
Yes. Also, the hiring decisions pursuit
of self-employment.
Because if you're self-employed, you
often don't have access to
many union perks, time contracts
that they can just end up
where they can end it whenever they want,
but they can not extend it, or
they can
make people scared that they want
extended.
And also another thing that's actually
illegal in many places.
This at will employment.
That's where
both the employer and employee can
terminate their relationship
at any point without any reason.
So I used
to think those scenes in American movies
or TV shows where someone's like, you're
fired and they have to
stop picking up, have things immediately
went round?
Realistically, they actually are.
If those people are in
network employment, generally,
you really don't want to end up in this
kind of employment.
Another thing they often do is
undermining works councils and union
officials getting people elected who
don't actually want things to change,
maybe even getting loyalists
into work.
Conservatives were
lied to the other employees
about things management is doing.
Are that one step in one management just
doing bad things?
Also, you've got trade union council
members better than others who may be
hired, how
badly workers are being treated
and maybe even bribery, which does
happen.
Then we've got the end of the year,
really dangerous things,
which is first bully employees into
quitting with
a large amount of truth they've got
for that like workload increases
even more impossible deadlines and fewer
performance reviews.
If you've got different shifts, maybe
union organizing organizers
are going to get the bus shifts
that are over
going down and promotions
excluding organizers from company events
to make them feel like they're not part
of the.
And in some cases, even ultimate
harassment and stress.
Then we've got contract terminations.
If you're bullying them into quitting on
their own doesn't work.
It's illegal in many places to fire
people for organizing.
However, other reasons can be made
up of those reasons are actually
things that are created
during the bullying attempts like
performance or whatever.
And once again, not extending time
contracts of anyone who might be
thinking of unionization.
So what can you do against that?
I think before openly
addressing any plans to organize the
workspace, you should talk
privately with colleagues and trust.
And when discussing unionization,
you do not want to use
your company, email, slack or something
unencrypted messages.
You should just private messaging
methods that are secure.
Also joining union on your own before
trying to organize the whole workspace.
Union membership is useful even if you're
not getting a
union contract, and they
can also provide you with info, materials
and fight and just termination
of your contract.
Getting the public on your side,
especially if you've already got a couple
of colleagues helping you out,
is also really useful.
Public pressure can do wonders, and
there's also the possibility of
crowdfunding strike funds.
So if you're going on strike to
get unionized,
you are definitely going to need money
and say it can keep on paying the bills
and everything. And if you don't have
a union backing you, just try to strike
funding yet.
Crowdfunding can have a lot.
Also, join a union if you're not planning
on organizing your workspace.
I'm a union member, even though I don't
have a union contract and I probably
never will have one badge on
my union dues go towards
strike funds for people who need them
when I do so.
It's just a thing of solidarity and
of helping
others against union busting, even
if I'm not directly impacted.
And another thing is just to not
give up, even though
it might feel hopeless and
things might seem really bad.
Um, you yeah.
So I've got some more closing
remarks.
First of all, if you're planning on
joining a union, there's
no craft union for tech workers
in Germany, but I want
to encourage you to consider looking
further ahead than just the big industry
unions that you might want to name.
So there are smaller and
anarchists and the killers unions that
might be able to better match
what you want of your union, and
that might also just be more sympathetic
to you personally. So look.
But furthermore, those
shipments.
Now the thing I'm generally not a fan
of those Marshall comments
questions. Thank you.
But if it's safe for you
to do so, I'd be very interested in
hearing from you during the trial period,
which we're going to stop
soon.
And also, just if you're wondering why
I didn't name the companies
that we're actively
doing gene investing this year, which is
something I was considering, but
I've already was threatened with one
slap suit this year.
So to make me shut up about something
I said about a company and I
would really like to leave it at that.
So I'm not going to name any companies.
But if you look at union websites,
if you look on social media
and look at
unionization and hashtags, you're going
to be able to find those
names of the companies very easily.
So, yes, thank you for your time, and I
think we've gotten about 10 minutes left
for you.
Yeah, thank you.
All right. Thank you.
Now it's time for the Q&A.
You can you can ask questions
on Twitter under the hashtag
three. CW TV.
The hashtag should be visible somewhere
around here.
The same hashtag should be on the
festival's also.
And you can also ask questions on the
India as it happened in the
Channel A-Z three Desh CW
TV just to keep it a bit more varied.
And now I think we will.
We will wait a few seconds and as far as
Unicorn wants to add something to the
talk. In the meantime, yes.
One thing that I wasn't able to add
to the last slide because this
talk was prerecorded a week ago,
is that I've been contacted by the
Tech Workers Coalition who
saw that I am going to hold this talk,
and they asked
if I could say a bit about them.
They're not union themselves,
but instead they are a group of people
who will help others
who want to unionize and support
them in doing so, or unionization
and starting workers concerns.
They've got groups all over the world.
I was contacted by the Berlin
group, but she couldn't find us tech
workers dot com.
And if you're not in Berlin, you confront
the main group at Tech Workers Coalition,
but so.
They seem to be
supporting basically the same
things that I was talking about you.
So, yes.
All right, thank you.
It seems like a few questions are
trickling in so we can start
the first question, maybe from the other
side, actually. So from the perspective
of a founder, how can I support my
employees to organize or join
a union?
That's a really interesting question,
because it's somewhat weirder
farmers want their employees to
set a union, but in general, it's just
important to create an atmosphere where
you think that you can speak openly
with everyone and where people who want
have to fear for their jobs as they do
that.
You could also maybe contact
the union and
ask if they want to
work out a contract with you.
I don't know how many unions would
actually do that when
it's actually started their employees,
but.
Yes, or you could just talk about
this during a meeting or whatever and
just say this is a possibility
for you. You could do this.
Yes, I promise to
not destroy your lives if you try.
Yes.
So another question what does joining a
union offer over having legal expenses
insurance?
So a rather cynical question, I
would say.
Well, an insurance
is probably a good idea as
well, but a union is not
just for yourself, you're also helping
others and also.
Illegal insurance.
They probably are not very keen
on actually paying you in expenses, so
they might try to find a way when
they don't apply or whatever
which so
maybe they are.
They weren't actually pays, and
the union was there for a year
and for other workers, so.
Yes, they exist to pay, not to make
money. They exist to help, not to make
money for themselves.
OK, the next question, I'm not entirely
sure if I understand, but I will try my
best.
What is the benefit of joining a union if
there is no actual outreach of the union
in the workplace, such as the
nonexistence of the Workers Council?
I assume this is about starting
or joining a union if your workplace
doesn't even have a workers council.
I think that's maybe the question.
You know, so the union can help you set
up a workers council,
but.
Like, I kind of wanted to
emphasize the whole solidarity
aspect of the unionization, because
even if even if you're happy with other
workers concerned, you don't think that
your colleagues want one.
Being in a union was to help other people
who actually need their support.
And also,
as I said during the talk,
if you get fired for some reason, that
union can help you find that and.
It's also a social group that's
maybe attending
could be interesting for, you
know, social events.
All right.
Are there any recent success stories of
tech workers unionizing in Germany or in
the EU that are instructive?
And.
There's been a lot of
sad stories,
sort of union busting, which was
effective recently, sadly.
But one thing was the that was
where a lot of people were fired, but
actually those firings were not.
We're not legal, according to
the court. We'll see guerrillas
make this delivery service, get your
groceries in 15 minutes or whatever.
Who fired a lot of their unionizing
workers and they were ordered to
undo that.
And also with, you know, I think
we've seen some successes
in unionization recently.
Do you know what the current status of
the guerrillas union?
I remember there was a lot of activity
a few weeks ago, but I haven't checked in
in a while.
I don't know what the exact stage right
now is. I know that they basically
can't find new employees who
want to work for them, especially now
that they've hired a lot of people.
And.
I.
I'm not sure which delivery service
it is, but one delivery service in Berlin
did actually get a works council
at the end of last month.
So I don't think it was Corona's
because I should have written that
answer.
Well, if someone knows, you can write it
in the Q&A and I read it out.
All right. I think for now, we out of
questions, but our way to wait a little
bit more.
I remember that Kickstarter had a
unionization drive, right?
Did that work out?
I think it did, right?
Yes, that was successful.
They tried to fight it.
But in the end, the union
was successful and it does exist.
All right, very good.
It was guerrillas apparently says to
the chat.
All right, everybody, this is your last
chance for questions
that will be answered immediately.
If you want to say anything, though,
is a good time.
Oh, yeah. I have a question, actually,
have you do you know about anyone
trying to unionize in the sciences
and the universities and things like
this, like I'm a I'm
a Ph.D. student, right?
And I mean, our general
working situation and employment
situation is always a bit tenuous,
and most of the mechanisms for worker
representation are very built around
people having long term contracts and
stuff like this, and not depending
on the employer writing them
a good reference letter in the end.
So have you heard about
anything in that direction?
Not directly.
One thing that I did read about was
a university that mistreated some
workers. I think they fired them,
and the union did actually have them get
the job back.
So where there's not
a union contract or anything because
those things are really difficult to get
for short, short term employment.
You can still get help from a union
to improve
or at least get saved of
if you're fired for that reason or
something.
So I certainly don't know if there's any
and the union drives.
And another thing in science is
that many people here
in Germany are employed
directly by the government and
and they don't they're not allowed to
strike. So that's
not very great for them, although they
arguably already have pretty great.
Conditions.
Yeah, I think if you make it to that
point, you're probably.
Already quite quite good, I would
say.
Yeah, you're probably even be able
to retire.
Imagine.
OK.
I think so.
One person is thinking, you've got to
talk, which is nice, but it's not a
question.
All right.
I think we can wrap it up then.
Thank you for your talk and for answering
the questions.
Where can people find you if they want to
talk further?
Maybe somewhere in the three world
or something, but any
social media or something like that?
Social media on Mastodon
with multiple
accounts. The English speaking one us
at Dysphoric Unicorn at
Cyberweapons Dot Space,
the German speaking one US dysphoric
unicorn and Chaos Torture.
And I'm also on Twitter at
Dysphoric Death and my blog is dysphoric
dot death. So not
cyberspace.
As a very good instance, I would say.
All right, everybody.
Thanks and thanks for joining us today.
Enjoy the remote chaos
experience and
remember to sleep at some point if you
want to.
Bye bye.