I'm not an activist. I could be. I probably should be. Ultimately my life choices have carried me in a different direction. I say that only to acknowledge that I'm not in the trenches. And so whatever I have to say about the tactics and strategies of activism should be taken with a healthy grain of salt. But as a person who supports these causes, I do have some thoughts that I think are worth discussing.
First and foremost, it's important to understand that what tech activism is up against. These aren't just big companies. These are the biggest companies that have ever existed. They have more resources and more power than most nation-states. So being unable to move them isn't any kind of failure in my mind. It has always been a tall order.
At the same time, I am asking myself what leverage we have as tech workers. What levers can we pull that can actually cause pain or damage to these behemoths?
More importantly, is that what tech activists set out to do? My assumption is that the goal of direct action is to cause pain to the powers that be. That's what makes a demand and not a request.
Google is gonna get some pad press for firing these workers. But that's just not enough. We know that the news environment is pretty broken. Fast news cycles that have to constantly chase new stories ensure that none of this stuff will stick long enough to make a dent. The awareness does matter. But only if it eventually calls a wider group to action. And I'm not sure how that is achieved in this current environment.
The question I'm sitting with is what other kinds of pain can tech workers cause. I was talking to some folks recently and had a revelation about tech workers power. Walkouts aren't going to work as intended. Because nothing breaks when we don't show up. In software tech, we spend a tremendous amount of time and effort building systems that can keep running 24/7. Even while we sleep. That's the goal. It's one way we measure success. So walkouts aren't the right kind of leverage.
@polotek I think SREs are in a position where a walkout could seriously affect a company. OTOH, while I know a lot of SREs are politically active, they also feel strongly responsible for their systems, and wouldn't deliberately destabilise them (thinking of the guy fired while on-call, whose first reaction, despite losing corp access, was to find a way to properly hand his shift off).
I suspect those stories are relatively common in part because SREs feel a sense of obligation to each other more than anything.
I don't want to let down my team, who is responsible. My team has secondaries and a sister team in EMEA who will be the ones to pay the price. Google won't, my EMEA sister team will. My other coworkers will
Google won't care unless all of us go out together, but that won't break immediately
There are ethical solutions, but they require ground work
This is one reason I eschew "activism" (even where I acknowledge it has a place) in favor of organizing. Because without the power what happens is everyone gets fried, there's a bad press cycle, and then the world moves on.
The power doesn't have to be on a critical area, but it does need density and to be about something that these companies care about. 100 people across 100 teams is an easier target for them than 30 people on one team with a deadline for a major event.
@hrefna@sgf no offense, but I feel like we have to agree that there's nothing special about SREs. The feeling is valid, but it's not unique. Lots of people care about the impact of not doing their job. I mean teachers still have to choose to strike when it means literally leaving thousands of kids with no education. This is hard for everybody.
It's more likely that tech workers just aren't actually impacted enough to reach that breaking point.
It's not the caring about the job, I'm trying to make a more nuanced point than that that I think may agree with what you are saying: it's that you care about your coworkers, who are the only ones who are negatively impacted unless you've built density.
Basically I'd argue: it isn't the feeling of responsibility for production, but that you need to do the work to get the entire team on the line together for it to matter to the company.
@hrefna Personally, I feel it's a matter of ethics - I've been entrusted with the system, and I don't want to break that trust. If it's a product I don't feel I can ethically support, I'll try to transition away from it smoothly, in the same way that "no heroes" means raising an issue and clearly stepping away rather than silently dropping stuff. In turn, this is why I think job mobility and a decent sense of ethics are important. This may all be a manager-shaped view, though.