Skip to main content
All Stories Tagged:

Labor

If the myth of tech over the past decade has been one of constant innovation, algorithmic scale, and new products and devices that “simply work,” the truth is that all of those illusions were made possible by the obfuscation of labor: the contract content moderators who sanitize the feeds of Facebook and YouTube from violence and extremist content; the warehouse workers at Amazon fulfillment centers trying to meet the guarantees of same-day shipping; the gig workers of all kinds — Uber drivers, food delivery cyclists, Instacart shoppers, among them — all of whom are at the whims of increasingly efficient platforms and wayward legislation. And that’s not even to speak of the white-collar tech workforce that, while better compensated, is still being taken advantage of by NDAs and mandatory arbitration clauses that keep hidden the realities of discrimination and harassment in the office. But now, some workers across tech companies are organizing for better treatment and pay. Others are making efforts to unionize. Most importantly, the movement will reach everyone who works in tech — and anyone who uses those platforms. The story of the tech industry over the next decade will be the reckoning brought on by its workforce.

A
External Link
Sega union ratifies its first contract.

In spite of unfair labor practice complaints and a round of layoffs, the 150 members of the AEGIS (CWA) union at Sega of America have a new contract. It guarantees members annual wage increases, warnings before layoffs, hybrid work schedule commitments, and severance packages.

There has been a growing unionization movement in the video game industry over the last few years, and AEGIS’s new contract marks the first ratified contract at a major developer.


E
External Link
Not even Meta can pay AI talent enough.

The Information reports Meta has had issues keeping AI talent and has resorted to hiring researchers without an interview. Meta has been losing researchers to Google’s DeepMind, OpenAI, and Mistral, which was founded by former Meta engineers.

One reason could be the salaries AI researchers could earn. Meta reportedly pays AI researchers up to $2 million, which is less than the $5 million to $10 million paid by OpenAI.


W
External Link
The latest SAG-AFTRA AI contracts define voice actors as human beings.

The union’s animation voice actors voted 95.52 percent to 4.48 percent on Friday to ratify contracts that were similar to the deal that ended the actors’ strike last year but didn’t include the same definition, as Variety notes.

The contracts (summarized here) run from July 1st, 2023 through June 30th, 2026, and include pay raises and add limits on the use of AI to replicate voice actors.


R
External Link
SpaceX is facing another NLRB complaint.

SpaceX already filed one lawsuit claiming the agency’s actions o (on a complaint about workers who say they were fired illegally for criticizing Elon Musk) are unconstitutional and now there’s this complaint issued Wednesday night.

SpaceX is accused of using severance agreements with ”unlawful confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses, and an unlawful limit on participation in other claims against SpaceX,” among other issues. The parties can either settle (seems unlikely), or there will be a hearing on October 29th.


E
Twitter
Google’s union filed an unfair labor complaint over firing of YouTube Music workers.

The Alphabet Workers Union alleges Google and subcontractor Cognizant “unlawfully terminated” a group of YouTube Music contractors in February, who had been working for months for Google to recognize them as employees. The union claims Google fired the contractors “in retaliation” for organizing.


M
External Link
OpenAI’s tools showed bias when used for job recruiting.

Bloomberg prompted GPT-3.5 to sort equally-qualified resumes for jobs like software engineer and financial analyst. Over the course of thousands of tests, Bloomberg found resumes with names distinct to Black Americans were least likely to be ranked as top candidates.


Google’s morale crisis is about to get worse

The layoffs keep rolling, Gemini is in trouble, and now Google employees are bracing for lower raises.

W
External Link
Hollywood could be in for another major strike, this time from its production workers.

Deadline reports that film and TV labor unions are ready to strike if talks break down with Hollywood studios tomorrow. Studios previously narrowly averted a strike with one of the unions, the Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), in 2021.

Now, the IATSE is preparing to bargain for health and pension benefits with two other unions for “the first time since 1988,” according to the Teamsters.


A
External Link
It’s RTO for the GTA VI devs.

According to Bloomberg, Rockstar will ask employees to return to the office five days a week beginning in April. In an email sent to employees, Jenn Kolbe, head of publishing, wrote security and productivity were the main reasons for implementing RTO as well as the “tangible benefits” of in-office work.

Security issues are indeed a concern for Rockstar as it suffered a massive data breach in which hackers leaked early footage of GTA VI. But it’ll likely be a hard sell convincing employees to return to the office full-time and could result in increased attrition.


E
External Link
EA is the latest gaming company to lay off workers.

Just one day after PlayStation laid off 900 employees (which followed layoffs from Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, Discord, Unity, and others), EA announced on Wednesday that it’s cutting 5 percent of workers, which amounts to around 670 roles.

The game publisher also said that it’s “moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry,” allowing it to focus on its own IP, sports, and online communities.


L
External Link
Amazon skipped a hearing and now its lobbyists are banned from EU Parliament.

Fourteen Amazon employees can no longer access the European Parliament building without an invitation, WIRED reported Wednesday. And it’s all because they skipped a hearing about working conditions in its fulfillment centers and declined to let policymakers tour them (Amazon blamed the busy holiday period, WIRED said).


E
External Link
“Why are we expected to do the coding Olympics for every company that wants to interview you?”

Wired writes about how tech job interviews have gotten even more demanding after the series of layoffs that rocked the industry these past few years:

Emails reviewed by Wired showed that in one interview for an engineering role at Netflix, a technical recruiter requested that a job candidate submit a three-page project evaluation within 48 hours—all before the first round of interviews.

A Netflix spokesperson said the process is different for each role and otherwise declined to comment.

A similar email at Snap outlined a six-part interview process for a potential engineering candidate, with each part lasting an hour. A company spokesperson says its interview process hasn’t changed as a result of labor market changes.


A
External Link
Vive la résistance!

Nearly 700 workers across multiple Ubisoft offices in France have gone on strike. The strike originally began on February 14th after negotiations between Ubisoft and the STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo) union fell through, citing a failure to agree on wage increases.

Last year, Ubisoft laid off around 124 employees, the majority of which were in Canada.


In defense of busywork

Thanks to AI, rote tasks are ripe for automation. But is that really a good thing?

E
External Link
Mozilla is laying off around 60 workers and scaling back its Mastodon instance.

In a memo obtained by TechCrunch, Mozilla said the company is making a “strategic correction” that will involve “working through a much smaller team to participate in the Mastodon ecosystem.” The company launched its mozilla.social instance last year.

Additionally, Mozilla is shutting down Hubs, its virtual 3D platform initially launched in 2018. Mozilla says the platform’s userbase isn’t “robust enough to justify continuing to dedicate resources” during an “unfavorable shift in demand.” This shift comes just days after Mozilla appointed Laura Chambers as its interim CEO.


AI at Work

In a short span of time, artificial intelligence has gone from a pipe dream to a ubiquitous feature. What does that mean for industries, workers, and consumers?

A
The Verge
Here’s Google CEO Sundar Pichai on CNBC addressing my story about the company’s tense all-hands meeting.

From his full interview today with Andrew Ross Sorkin:

“I don’t think most companies engage with employees in the transparent way we do, and I think that creates some of this conversation outside. But I’ve always viewed it as a source of strength for the company and we’ll work through this moment.”


A
External Link
Warner Music Group to lay off 600 employees and close the Interval Presents podcast division.

WMG CEO Robert Kyncl -- who thinks you could pay more for Spotify-- revealed the record label will lay off 10 percent of its workforce, or 600 employees. It’s winding down the podcast division behind Rap Radar and Drink Champs, and IMGN Media. It's also in an "exclusive process" to sell Uproxx and HipHopDX.

Earlier on Wednesday, WMG reported Q1 revenue of $1.75 billion — its highest quarterly revenue since it went public, and net income of $193 million.


A
The Verge
A vibe check at Google.

Here are just a couple of employee-submitted questions that CEO Sundar Pichai answered during the company’s all hands last week:

“There seems to be a growing rift between leadership and employees. What is leadership’s perspective/awareness of this? Do you think there is a problem, is there anything being done to push us back to a relationship of mutual trust?”

“Why has there been such an extraordinary effort to limit the internal visibility of layoffs announcements? I’ve learned more about layoffs in my own PA from The Verge than from my own employer.”

ICYMI: There’s much from that meeting, including new tidbits about the company’s AI strategy, in the last issue of Command Line.


Inside Google’s morale crisis

At this week’s all-hands meeting, Sundar Pichai faced the music. Plus: ByteDance’s ‘urgency’ push and a big week for Meta.

E
Twitter
Almost 30,000 workers in tech have been laid off this year.

That’s according to data from tech layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi, which recorded 29,995 job cuts across 112 different companies in 2024. The data also includes the 150 layoffs at Zoom that just happened today, too.


E
External Link
Jack Dorsey’s Block is also cutting jobs.

The company, which owns financial services like Cash App and Square, is laying off close to 1,000 employees, according to a report from Business Insider. Here’s what Dorsey told employees in a memo seen by BI:

Why is so much happening in one single day?... We decided it would be better to do at once rather than arbitrarily space them out, which didn’t seem fair to the individuals or to the company When we know we need to take an action, we want to take it immediately, rather than let things linger on forever.


E
External Link
PayPal is laying off 9 percent of its employees.

CEO Alex Chriss told employees that PayPal is cutting existing jobs and open roles as part of an effort to “right-size” the company, according to a report from Bloomberg. The layoffs will reportedly impact around 2,500 workers.

PayPal is far from the only company in the tech industry to get hit with layoffs this year. Microsoft, Google, eBay, and many others have also been affected.


A
The Verge
This is not “Play Nice, Play Fair,” Blizzard.

It seems as if Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch and Call of Duty esports teams are getting hit with layoffs. On the Overwatch side, the entire observation crew has reportedly been let go along with long-time broadcast talent Soe “Soe” Gschwind and Matt “Mr. X” Morello.

On the Call of Duty side, according to a post from Scott Parkin, senior esports operations manager, Blizzard made the CDL team work a major event over the weekend without telling the team if their jobs were safe — only to lay them off on their first day off. It’s unknown if these layoffs are new or part of the 1,900 people let go last week.


E
External Link
Trader Joe’s: run by Elon Musk stans?

That’s right, Trader Joe’s also thinks the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional, just like Musk’s SpaceX. I’m sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with the case the NLRB is bringing against the grocer, and is just a fun coincidence.


E
External Link
TikTok is cutting jobs, too.

Around 60 workers in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, and places outside the US were laid off at TikTok, according to a report from NPR. The layoffs mainly affect workers on TikTok’s sales and advertising teams and follow a string of job cuts from other tech companies this year, including Google, Amazon, Unity, and Discord.

Update January 23rd, 5:16PM ET: Added updated details about the layoffs.


A
External Link
Inside Google, there’s “a pervasive sense of nihilism that has taken hold.”

This vibe check comes from an engineer named Diane Hirsh Theriault who has been at the company for over 8 years:

Google does not have one single visionary leader. Not a one. From the C-suite to the SVPs to the VPs, they are all profoundly boring and glassy-eyed.

With rolling layoffs continuing to hit different teams, including the X “moonshot” division today, Theriault writes that “executives are cashing out their human capital at the very moment it seems to me like they really need it.”