You Don't Live Like I Do

About 9 months ago I joined UTAW, the tech worker's union (technically a branch of the CWU rather than a union in its own right). Recently I left it.

I joined because I was hoping to find a group of like-minded people in the tech industry, to take action on AI/LLM technology, and on the pandemic and Return To Office mandates. I didn't see anything like that on UTAW's website but I was told it'd be like "pushing at an open door". So I signed up, and joined the official Discord.

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Rather than pushing at an open door, I felt like I was in a maze full of open doors, leading nowhere but twisty circles. Nobody ever told me I couldn't do anything, but nobody explained what I could do instead. it was opaque to those not in the inner circle or not familiar with trade unions. I briefly considered standing for election as comms officer to try and fix some of these problems but I felt the union as a whole was institutionally hostile to improving, and my minimal level of engagement was already sucking a lot of my energy.

Resigning was also a farce; the CWU website wouldn't let me log in or reset a password using the email address via which they sent me communications. So I just cancelled the Direct Debit for my membership payment, and they were right on top of that - a few days later I got a letter confirming my membership had been cancelled.

I do think it'd be good to have some kind of organisation working in the interests of the tech sector and tech workers. But UTAW isn't it - it's something co-opting tech workers to serving the interests of the trade union movement. At least I only wasted a relatively small amount of time and money finding this out.