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The proletarianization of tech workers (doctorow.medium.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

106 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://archive.ph/hMZPi

Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

Then that dream shrank to: work for a giant for a few years, quit, do a fake startup, get acqui-hired by your old employer, as a complicated way of getting a bonus and a promotion.

Then the dream shrank further: work for a tech giant for your whole life, get free kombucha and massages on Wednesdays.

And now, the dream is over. All that’s left is: work for a tech giant until they fire your ass, like those 12,000 Googlers who got fired six months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years.

We deserve better than this. We can get it.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I didn't say they didn't work. I said that their livelihood isn't dependant on labouring.

I don't know what you gain out of gatekeeping the working class. The whole invention of the middle class has been a tool by the owning class to separate the working class.

[+] [email protected] -14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I gain nothing other than I prefer politics to be well directed. Unions for tech jobs is clearly needed, and it is fine. As said I work for an unionized company.

Problem of putting together real working class and people like me, or Google engineers that are even in a better position, it's bad to orient policies that helps the real working class. I want everybody to enjoy the privileges of mine and google engineers. Putting as in the same bucket as deliveroo drivers is not good for society. As society, we need to really works on the struggle of real proletariat. As tech workers we are far from the priority. Tech workers need to unionize, yes, but they are not proletariat.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

You keep saying that it's bad, but you haven't actually said why. Just this nebulous idea that standing together is somehow bad. Worker's rights benefit all workers. And the more people demanding them, the better. Even more so if the people demanding them have greater access to the resources needed to actually make a difference.

Never once has "divided we conquer" been true.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Tell me you know fuck all about unionization without telling me. Its all the same. We all, the working class, are advocating for the same fucking rights, boundaries, and protections. Deliveroo driver and tech employee both wanna go home at a reasonable time of night and sleep well knowing they can pay their bills.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Putting as in the same bucket as deliveroo drivers is not good for society.

It's absolutely necessary to improve society. You have way more in common with that Deliveroo driver than with the wealthy C-suites that "run" Google or the company that you work for. Those people could stop "working" tomorrow and would have enough capital to coast the rest of their lives, their children's lives, their grandchildren's lives, etc. You, that driver, and I all have to continue working, because if we don't, there's the imminent threat of poverty, homelessness, and ultimately death.