Tech Workers Rise Up

Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York City voted in favor of being represented by the Amazon Labor Union, establishing the e-commerce giant's first labor union in the United States. The workers of JFK8, the company’s only warehouse in New York City, voted 2,654 to 2,131 in favor of unionizing, the National Labor Relations Board reported on Friday.

The union victory in Staten Island marks a milestone in the years-long unionization efforts from workers at Amazon, which hadn’t yielded any results so far. They follow in the footsteps of several successful union campaigns led by blue collar tech workers and reflect a general increase in activism among tech industry employees. From Amazon workers slamming their employer’s climate change policy to mass walkouts at Google in protest of the company’s handling of sexual harassment, the tech workforce has become more and more vocal in recent years.

According to Collective Actions in Tech, a project documenting actions from workers in the global tech industry, the number of protests, walkouts, open letters and other collective actions in the industry has risen steeply in recent years. In 2021, the website tracked 110 such incidents, up from a combined total of 72 between 2015 and 2018.