The unionization efforts from workers at Amazon’s Bessemer, Ala., warehouse follow several successful union campaigns led by blue collar tech workers and reflect a general increase in activism among tech industry employees. From Amazon workers slamming their employer’s climate change policy to mass walkouts at Google in protest of the company’s handling of sexual harassment, the tech workforce has become more and more vocal in recent years.
According to Collective Actions in Tech, a project documenting actions from workers in the global tech industry, the number of protests, walkouts, open letters and other collective actions in the industry has risen steeply in recent years. In 2020, the website tracked 124 such incidents, up from a combined total of 68 between 2015 and 2018 and from 115 in 2019.
This chart shows the number of documented cases of collective action from workers in the tech industry worldwide.
