There is power in a union?

[diffrentcolours]

For a while now various friends have been talking about UTAW, the United Tech and Allied Workers Union. Technically it's a branch of the CWU, with a focus on the tech industry, and attempting to organise online rather than through geographical branches.

I've never been a member of a union, and slightly sceptical of them. We had a bad time when mother_bones needed employment support from her Unison branch but they were too busy running a high-profile campaign. And I saw the way some unions backed Labour over the National Identity Database when I was campaigning against it. I did look into UTAW but their campaigns seem worthy but not particularly relevant to the issues facing the UK tech industry. There's nothing there about AI/LLMs, nothing about return-to-office mandates and the associated risks of Covid and Long Covid.

But the people I know who are members are adamant that I would be pushing at an open door if I raised these issues on the UTAW members-only Discord, so today I signed up. We'll see how it goes and whether this is a useful activism outlet for me.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

The union reps at my work are doing very good jobs right now. And they always negotiate us good pay raises and holidays every year, slight decrease in working hours last year, that kind of thing.

I know this isn't the scale you're planning to work on, but if it helps to know that unions are out there doing good, I'm witnessing that right now.

[diffrentcolours]

Yeah, it's not really why I'm joining though.