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The Case For IT Unionization

Bob Wildauer

This post originally appeared in the Packet Pushers’ Human Infrastructure newsletter. You can subscribe for free here. We never share or sell your details to anyone.


One unforeseen event following the COVID-19 pandemic has been an uptick in attempts to organize workers. Starbucks and Amazon warehouse employees are two high-profile examples. Though private-sector union membership remains low by historical standards, the public’s approval of unions has risen from 48% in 2009 to 72% in 2022, according to Gallup, creating a more positive environment for organized labor than we’ve seen in decades.

Is unionization in IT feasible? Moving private sector unionization outside its traditional domains in transportation, construction, and service workers would require a major shift in IT workers’ attitudes and expectations.

For example, representation for IT workers in unions looks rather dim at about 4.2% of computer and mathematical related jobs in the private sector – among the lowest participation levels of any industry. The telecommunications sector does somewhat better, at 9.3%. By comparison, participation in sectors such as utilities (20.7%) and motion picture and sound recording (17.8%) is more robust.

IT Workers Of The World, Unite!

At first glance, IT seems ripe for unionization. It’s a critical component of virtually every modern business. IT systems require on-call rotations, maintenance windows outside of business hours, and a low tolerance for downtime. These factors can make IT incredibly stressful and lead to burnout of its practitioners. The same criticality gives workers a lot of leverage in negotiations: an IT worker strike or walkout could affect every business’s ability to function.

For a large chunk of the past decade, IT automation has driven a lot of business investment and employee skill acquisition. While there is certainly an upside to automating mundane and error-prone tasks, management and leadership likely push automation with the goal of eliminating headcount. Billed as “saving labor hours” and “increasing operational efficiency” (or less euphemistically phrased as companies trying to “reduce general hiring” in reports like this one), IT automation efforts are often implemented and maintained by the very people they can replace.

Moreover, with the gargantuan leaps artificial intelligence has made in the past year alone, many business leaders in every sector will look to leverage those systems to reduce costs by replacing humans; IT workers will not escape these pressures. Organized labor could serve as a counterweight to ensure workers are able to work with such systems rather than compete against them.

Additionally, careers in the IT space tend to attract a lot of foreign talent, at least in the US. For visas such as the H-1B visa program, computer-related occupations account for the majority of successful applicants. While such programs serve as incredible engines of wealth and prosperity creation both for immigrants and the US itself, they also carry risks and precarity for H-1B visa holders.

For example, if an H-1B visa holder is laid off it can mean having to leave the country should he or she fail to find new employment within two months. The threat of forced relocation and/or residing illegally within the US can give employers a disturbing amount of leverage over the immigrants they employ. A labor union could help provide basic job protections for workers facing such precarity.

Want to find out more about the movement? In the UK, Prospect looks to organize IT and other knowledge worker industries. In the US, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) organizes workers across the US within the tech space. With successful campaigns at companies such as Alphabet and NPR, CODE-CWA is looking to capitalize on the shifts we’ve seen in the workplace and worker expectations. While still nascent, we may be witnessing (or even taking part in) a major change to the structure of IT employment.

About Bob Wildauer: Bob Wildauer is a network technician and staff supervisor for an MSP in central Pennsylvania. He has worked in the IT industry for over 12 years with a focus in Cisco networking.