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

[barakta]

I hope this is worthwhile for you. I am lucky to have been a union member for a while in unionised workplaces but I do know unions more broadly can be very flawed, especially around individual support for complaints/litigation. My local branch at UniBirmingham were amazing but region were arseholes and I had to really kick off (and my branch sec burned a LOT of social currency for me) to get legal support for my claim against the university for fairly epic disability discrimination. I also found the lawyers (Thompsons) were brilliant but SO busy they wouldn't answer emails, so unless you had a f2f meeting you got no control over your legal claim at all (I had to push for copies of MY legal data). Can't fault the solicitor though, massively overworked and did a good job and patiently explained why my claim didn't work how I thought it should (cos the law is an arse).

I think one issue is that there's a lot of 'quiet' background stuff *good* local union branches can do that isn't obvious even when they have more obvious failings like not providing legal support without a real fight for it. I find this is partly cos the good work is done by people largely in their own time even with 'union time' allowed.

Also the national politics of unions can be pretty rotten. My current one (UCU) has a slight TERF problem and they themselves are being unioned by Unite for their own employees who they seem to be treating badly which I think is inexcusable (as do many others, who are actively campaigning that our union treats people the way we want members to be treated, fairly, ethically and not exploitatively). Again I got lucky with the local branch although I don't know how the chair gets her spoons cos she never stops doing amazing amounts of stuff.

[diffrentcolours]

Fortunately I don't expect to need the services of the union for anything employment-related. As a white cis middle class man in tech, I can pretty much expect an easy ride on that front.

But I am hoping I can encourage their campaigns to be a bit more focused on the industry. Or at least find some like minded people.

[barakta]

I think that's all good actually, recognising different reasons to join a union. Also, arguably those folk least likely to need personal assistance are the ones who should join the most as part of the collective contribution cos if the skew of membership is only people in likely/actual crisis, the union cannot function, it needs numbers and variation and people not needing help to resource those who do need help.

It would be good to see unions be more tech-aware and get more tech sectors unionised cos they are so hostile to people who aren't male/cis/white etc and can be pretty disablist despite having disabled people often working in IT cos it is sometimes accessible with WFH options etc.