[ Even if you survive a layoff, without a union, you’re still
left wondering, "Am I next?]
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LET ELON MUSK’S TWITTER BE A LESSON TO TECH WORKERS EVERYWHERE:
IT’S TIME TO UNIONIZE  
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Prem Thakker
November 7, 2022
The New Republic
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_ Even if you survive a layoff, without a union, you’re still left
wondering, "Am I next? _

Supporters of Amazon workers join a rally in support of the union in
Staten Island, New York, April 24, 2022., Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis
via Getty Images

 

Elon Musk’s Twitter has thus far been historic. Thousands of workers
have lost their jobs
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Users are being banned with no warning
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And a platform used by over 400 million people has already seen a rise
in hate [[link removed]] and
misinformation
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Legacies being made.

It’s hard to do much about Musk’s whims
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now—and that should be the key takeaway for all tech workers. If
Twitter employees were unionized, things would have looked much
different.

Last week, Musk fired half of Twitter staff, with little notice and in
violation of federal and California state law.

Some workers filed a lawsuit
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against Twitter, but Thomas Kochan, professor at the MIT Sloan School
of Management, says that’s not enough. Musk, the world’s richest
man, can always find a legal team to give him just enough cover to
avoid actual consequence.

Instead, Kochan says, workers—those laid off and those who remain at
the company—need to act in concert.

“They’re all asking themselves, ‘Am I next? Or am I at risk’?
So they have a common cause,” Kochan said. “It would be good for
the workforce and a good signal to arrogant CEOs that you just can’t
do that.”
 

Unionizing isn’t the only way workers can act on this cause, of
course. Petition-filing, going public with concerns, staging walk-outs
and protests—these are all protected acts. And they can serve to
lobby the public in workers’ favor, which consequently pressures
investors and advertisers, notes Kochan. A strategy like that is
certainly relevant to Twitter, a company reeling
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from advertiser retreat.

Still, a union would have done the basics and prevented such mass
layoffs to begin with.

This should be a lesson as tech companies are entering a sudden
slowdown. Lyft, Netflix, Spotify, Peloton, and Coinbase have all laid
off
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thousands of employees this year. Apple and Amazon have enacted hiring
freezes. Meta is preparing for large-scale layoffs. And this is just a
sampling of the chaos across the industry.

The formula of Musk’s acquisition is a familiar one. Billionaire
owner acquires a new company, then haphazardly fires people in the
name of cutting costs. Challenging this predictable, ruinous cycle
requires worker solidarity.

It requires nothing less than a union.

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From the Washington Post, November 4, 2022, article by Jacob Bogage

" Five former Twitter employees filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday
claiming that the company violated federal and state laws by
proceeding with massive layoffs without warning workers first.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires
employers who are engaging in large-scale layoffs to notify workers
and state and local governments 60 days ahead of the job cuts. It is
designed to give workers time to search for new employment, adjust
household budgets, train in new skills, or learn how to apply for
unemployment insurance."

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* Twitter Layoffs; Elon Musk; Workers' Rights
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