If the myth of tech over the past decade has been one of constant innovation, algorithmic scale, and new products and devices that “simply work,” the truth is that all of those illusions were made possible by the obfuscation of labor: the contract content moderators who sanitize the feeds of Facebook and YouTube from violence and extremist content; the warehouse workers at Amazon fulfillment centers trying to meet the guarantees of same-day shipping; the gig workers of all kinds — Uber drivers, food delivery cyclists, Instacart shoppers, among them — all of whom are at the whims of increasingly efficient platforms and wayward legislation.
And that’s not even to speak of the white-collar tech workforce that, while better compensated, is still being taken advantage of by NDAs and mandatory arbitration clauses that keep hidden the realities of discrimination and harassment in the office. But now, some workers across tech companies are organizing for better treatment and pay. Others are making efforts to unionize. Most importantly, the movement will reach everyone who works in tech — and anyone who uses those platforms. The story of the tech industry over the next decade will be the reckoning brought on by its workforce.
Around 100 employees in Amazon’s gaming divisions are being laid off as part of the company’s broader cuts, according to a report from Bloomberg. While some of the affected employees work at the company’s game studio in San Diego, work will apparently still continue on an unannounced game.
Grubhub has been ordered to pay $65.11 in minimum wage violations to a former driver after a federal court ruling in Los Angeles recognized him as an employee, and not an independent contractor.
The ruling could cost the gig economy industry a lot more than that if it impacts whether other ride-hailing and food delivery drivers qualify for employment benefits like overtime and minimum wage under California law.
Alphabet has appealed the National Labor Relations Board’s decision that it counts as a joint employer for the workers, but the election is still happening. It’s set to start on the 22nd, according to the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA.
You can catch up on the story so far here:
It’s another addition to the growing list of tech workers trying to organize. According to Rolling Stone, employees cited wage disparity and a lack of transparency around Epic Games’ purchase of the music website as reasons they want to unionize.
The autonomous car unit shares its parent company, Alphabet, with Google, which in January cut over 12,000 jobs or about six percent of its workforce. The Information reports that after a new round of layoffs affecting primarily engineers, Waymo has let go of about 8 percent of the people working there.
Like the other recent tech layoffs, it’s a sharp turn from a few years ago — in 2017, Bloomberg reported some Waymo staffers were quitting because the jobs paid so well.
[The Information]
AI is based on low-paid labor. This interview with one of the people who help decide what Google will show you is worth a read — for starters, he says he makes $3 less per hour than his daughter, who works in fast food.
According to a report from The Financial Times, Meta employees say things are “still a mess” and that “zero work” is getting done because the company hasn’t provided clear guidance surrounding budgets for various projects.
Meanwhile, morale remains low as staffers prep for another round of layoffs as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to cut costs across the company, which the FT says could occur around March.
Yahoo is reportedly laying off around 20 percent of its workforce, including 1,600 people in its ad tech department, according to Axios.
The Communications Workers of America has filed complaints alleging the tech giant, among other things, forced employees to go to anti-union meetings at a store in Iowa and at its flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York. It’s a charge the company has faced before, and one that the National Labor Relations Board could issue a complaint over.
The company reportedly told employees that it’d be cutting 500 positions, according to Reuters. It’s another entry for the sad yet informative big tech layoff tracker.
[Reuters]
After alleging safety violations at three warehouses last month (which came with $60,269 in proposed penalties), the regulator says it found ergonomic hazards at three more Amazon warehouses. The inspections that lead to the citations are part of a larger investigation that OSHA says is still ongoing.
The latest mass layoff event in tech is happening at PayPal, where CEO Dan Schulman announced:
I’m writing to share the difficult news that we will be reducing our global workforce by approximately 2,000 full time employees, which is about 7% of our total workforce.
If you’re wondering why we’ve seen so many of these and why the 7 percent figure is so familiar, Elizabeth Lopatto can try to explain.
Viola Zhou writing for Rest of World on the events leading up to riot police beating up protesters at Foxconn’s iPhone megafactory:
He hated the humiliation and tediousness of the production line job, but he gritted his teeth. The pay would be worth it.
It wasn’t — not when promises are broken and working conditions suck for a new generation of young Chinese workers who demand better.
[Rest of World]
Didn’t they just have record-breaking profits?
According to Platformer’s Zoe Schiffer, the company’s employees won’t have to test before coming into the office starting in February, and will be getting less sick leave for covid. Apple implemented its office hybrid schedule last September.
Employees at the trading card marketplace, which eBay acquired in November, are working with the Communications Workers of America on the union. Nicole Carpenter of our sister site Polygon spoke with some of the employees involved.
The company is in the process of laying off 18,000 people, and carried out a round of cuts today. Washington’s publicly-accessible WARN system lets us know how many people in Amazon’s home state were affected: 1,852 in Seattle, and 448 across the lake in Bellevue, for a total of 2,300.
