From: "steve again" <stopera-AT-operamail.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:55:00 +0100
Subject: Re: AUT: How  To Wage Struggle in  Silicon Valley/Technical


> Do any of you have experience waging workplace
> struggles
> in the IT or Technological area?  

If you mean conscious, collective, open struggles like a strike then no.

I've been working in IT in London, UK, for the best part of a decade now, so I've picked up a few anecdotes and stories about collective struggles. 

There are quite a few instances of unionised IT departments or sections going on strike as key workers. This is in the case of an employer not being an IT business, but the union just bringing out a few workers as a matter of strategy. I've heard of this a few times in the case of local government and also in Engineering. As a strategy results seem to vary from 'unsuccessful' to 'disasterous', but I digress.

Another kind of struggle I've heard of happens in IT companies, software companies. Eg, one company wanted to move its offices out of London, in order to save money on rent. A large part of the workforce made it clear that they would resign rather than relocate. The move was abandoned. In another example, a software company was bought by a larger company. They said, from now on everyone has to wear a suit. Everyone threatened to resign. The new dress code was dropped. Neither company was unionised.

Its worth pointing out that both the latter examples occurred before the IT bubble burst, ie when there was a big demand for IT workers from almost all sectors. Very different from what I hear is the situation in the US now, where there is a surplus in many sectors of IT work (but by no means all).

Apart from these kinds collective struggles, there is of course lots of insubordination, slacking off, using specialised knowledge to bullshit managers, 'working from home'. Some of this is not quite individualised, but perhaps not quite consciously openly collective either. 

In my experience, IT work isn't so very different from other sorts of work I've done in terms of worker's obstruction of managment. Not much union style activity, plenty of ducking and diving. More variation between employers than between type of work. 

Seen this? Its kind of unionist.
http://www.techsunite.org/index.cfm
There's a silicon valley section.

Seen this? There's a lot of anti-visa stuff :( but it's more varied than that.
http://www.unemployedit.com/forums/default.asp

Good luck with what your doing.

steve

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