The Tech Worker Handbook
Regulating big tech is a democratic issue. It’s not up to the individual tech worker to do so, and I’m not convinced that all these movements aren’t “soft-solutions” organised by big tech to avoid people working on real solutions. Solutions like legal intervention from the EU and whatever government you are under.Poor working conditions are solved by forming unions. In Denmark we have strong unions, and while their power is weaning (in parts thanks to big tech platforms jbecoming the middle men and taking 25-50%) our unions are the sole reason we have some of the best working conditions in the world.Because here’s the secret to good working conditions. If you and everyone else in your line of work stops working, along with anyone working jobs that somehow support your lone of work, things change overnight.Just ask MCD why they pay the now famous $22 and hour (or however much it was) when they initially didn’t want to. It’s because it’s hard to sell burgers when the dock workers refuse to unload your bread and the truckers refuse to deliver it.So I’m all for the ideals behind these things, but they need to think bigger if they want to change anything. We shouldn’t need whistleblowers and bad PR to keep Facebook away from our children, it should simply be illegal with mega business ending consequences. When that happens you can be fairly sure that business will start to actually regulate itself, because if there is one thing enterprise businesses care about it’s actual risk.