Management officially comes out as anti union.
Welcome back to the oral history of Kickstarter’s union. At this early point in the union drive, organizers have been secretly preparing the foundation of the union with process, structure, and expanded outreach across the company. But the union has discovered that management has intimate knowledge of the organizing drive and is on a campaign of their own to bust the union. Just after the nascent union votes to bring on OPEIU, a national union to represent the collective, but before the unionization effort is officially announced within Kickstarter, management starts to openly work against organizing. The bargaining unit was aggressively cut back by threats from senior leadership, management portrayed organizing as an adversarial and bad faith activity, and management had begun making small concessions in order to slow the momentum for organizing. Feeling the conversation was quickly becoming dominated by anti-union rhetoric from management designed to stigmatize union activity, organizers crafted a plan to officially announce the union drive at 11:45 am on March 19th 2019, to reclaim the narrative and regain control.
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The night before the union’s planned debut, organizers are shocked to hear Kickstarter’s CEO, Perry Chen, announce he’s suddenly stepping down to focus on his other role as Chairman of the Board… and the head of Product, Aziz Hasan is stepping into the role as Interim CEO.
Seems to me like... I like... I don't know how that's a coincidence… - Patrick
This leadership change was another clear sign that management had mounted a robust anti union strategy and was willing to do whatever it took to kill this organizing effort before it could get off the ground. Changing the CEO is right out of the standard union avoidance playbook. It’s essentially a hybrid strategy for making a concession to worker demands for accountability and a rhetorical argument for more time to delay union momentum.
Immediately after Perry stepped down, when we would say, Look, they're all these problems at Kickstarter and they've never been solved in the past by all these other means. We think we have a new way of fixing this. Through unionizing their response or the response would always be yeah but all those problems happened under Perry, give us a More chance, give us more time to like figure out how to fix this, you know, we literally switched our CEO like We're committed to improving things moving forward and like, Yeah, you know, like that old CEO was had all these problems, but like, you know, we're making changes here and like give us time, give us a chance. - Patrick
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The morning of the union’s debut, Corey, one of our most active organizers was preparing to send out the announcement email. He took an early lunch, walked to a small coffee shop around the corner from Kickstarter, and opened his laptop.
It was simultaneously anxiety inducing it and also really exciting. - Corey
He’s sitting there, watching the minutes tick by, getting closer and closer to 11:45, the planned send time that we’d been targeting for weeks. What he didn’t know was that management was doing the same thing. Management was sprinting to beat the union to the punch with an announcement of their own. At 11:43, just two minutes before the union’s planned debut, Kickstarter’s new CEO sends out his very first company address titled, Following up yesterday's new. No, I didn’t mispeak, there was indeed a typo in his very first email - not to typo shame, we all have our fair share, this was just one of several factors that made this announcement feel very rushed, as if they were trying to preempt something they knew was coming…. But Corey had no idea the new CEO had just sent his own debut email. He’s laser focused on getting the union’s announcement out at just the right time.
I had two things open. I had the Kickstarter United Gmail account open and I had like Kickstarter united slack. In retrospect, I probably should have been like more of us. They're not just me. - Corey
Corey is looking down at our draft announcement in gmail, when the clock flashes to 11:45, and he sends out the very first email from Kickstarter United to all of our coworkers.
Introducing Kickstarter united handshake emoji. - Corey
It immediately bounces back, the send failed. Corey sees the error message and quickly executes plan B. This time, instead of using the All@ company-wide address, he BCCs every individual at the company from a list organizers had put together in the weeks leading up to the announcement…. A ball of anxiety, he hits send for the second time at 11:50 am, and.... it worked.
Almost immediately, we got a couple responses. - Corey
There’s a burst of activity across the company.
I was incredibly proud. I mean, it felt good. It was nice. It was nice to work on something and then walk through that office and see other people reading it. We would hear stories of folks that were not yet in the Union who said something like, hey, I read that letter. And I really connected with something that was in there. - David
Beyond the beautiful prose our comms working group created introducing our values, this email included a carefully crafted FAQ based on questions that came up in outreach conversations and based on things we as organizers had recently learned. It also invited our colleagues to come ask questions and connect with us after work at a bar around the corner.
Union members floated around the office, grinning ear to ear, and a group clacking on laptops starts to grow in the kitchen. Even though this was an internal announcement, by 2pm we start to see press picking up the story. First is the Verge. They mention in the article that the union’s debut email has been leaked to them. It also touches on something organizers had talked about but never saw in print until this moment: The staff of Kickstarter announced plans to unionize today. If recognized, Kickstarter would be the first major tech company with union representation in the United States. The press keeps rolling in, article after article, twitter was buzzing, reddit was full of chatter, and we were getting DMs from friends and family cheering us on. Coworkers who had been quiet about their support reached out to express excitement and pride. It felt like we took a big leap forward together.
But... there was also a strange quiet energy in the office that felt off.
People started taking over the Sonos in really passive aggressive ways and that was really strange. I’m trying to remember the exact songs. One of them was Foolish Games by Jewel, for sure. These foolish games are tearing me apart. And then there was another one that was like, oh god, because I remember specifically slacking folks about it and being like, Are you hearing this right now. Am I going, am I going crazy and hearing things or is this actually happening like is this Are people actually do we work with children. Like seriously, what the hell. - Toy
This strange dissonance went largely unnoticed by most organizers who were blissfully celebrating the milestone and looking forward to the gathering later that night. After work, we all start to flow out of the office and around the corner to Ramona, a little bar with big open space in the back for us to celebrate, kick off the process of signing petitions and to have conversations with anyone who has questions. There were big bright balloons, we ordered snacks and drinks, and the entire bar started to fill up with joy. There were a few people with clipboards full of petitions, some took pictures tearfully signing, and the whole thing felt historic. There were a couple coworkers who came to ask hard questions but the majority of folks who showed up were openly supportive. We partied for a couple hours, collected the balloons, straightened the tables, and congratulated each other on a great start to a new chapter. Organizers ended the night excited to go right back to the office the next day and continue building Kickstarter United one conversation at a time.
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Another Perspective (March 20th)
The day after the debut is a blur for most organizers. We were still on a high from going public, still discovering new coverage and twitter threads, we were still getting texts from friends and grinning at each other in the hallway. But that high evaporates that evening when the entire company gets an email titled, Another Perspective.
I read it standing in my kitchen and then immediately asked if my roommate could turn the oven off in 20 minutes because I had to leave and go to a union meeting. So I remember running out of the house and you know down the street. - David
This was an email from three senior, non managers who would be eligible for the bargaining unit. It read almost like the scripts that came up in the anti union strategy and rhetoric we’d seen in our research. Organizer pored over this letter line by line.
How can we respond to this in a constructive way. It feels like there's stuff in this letter that is disingenuous. - David
Someone from OPEIU said like this feels like a letter that was written by a union busting lawyer. And I was like, I don't know if that's true. And she was like, This is word for word like the type of thing that they would write. - Patrick
This letter to staff was essentially an open call for opposition to the union effort. It’s the first glimmer of that epic game of tug-a-war, where management and organizers struggle to win over the undecided. It starts off with a classic union busting trope usually employed by management: we support unions, just not here. Quote:
“While we’re politically aligned on the general tenants proposed by the union, we disagree with the interpretation that Kickstarter’s culture isn’t diverse and doesn’t allow for opinions to be heard, that senior leadership doesn’t offer a space for dialogue, and that pay isn’t equitable in the company (pay information is publicly reported in the PBC report and the People team has established a formal review system). Furthermore, we feel we’re owed more detail from the union organizers as to what their specific demands are and how a union will address them.”
The next section introduced our colleagues to a harmful narrative that has been pervasive in tech for decades. It’s the idea that, if the company treats you well, you don’t need a seat at the table. But this is a gilded lie employed to keep workers from having any real power or security. Quote:
“We’re concerned with the misappropriation of unions for use by privileged workers, some of whom receive compensation more than twice the average income in NYC, in addition to flexible work from home hours, above-and-beyond industry standards for parental leave, 25+ days of paid vacation, a wellness stipend, a bike stipend, an education stipend, a weekly catered lunch, and a great deal of other benefits.”
It was shocking to me to see the like language of like misappropriation being used like we are misappropriating unions for like privileged groups of people. And like, like the idea that we're taking You know, like the idea that like by us organizing we're taking a union out of a hungry coal miners mouth or something, you know, it's like you know you're not a scarce resource like we're… like everyone should have one, we're not… like yeah let's organize it and we are in fact maybe encouraging other people to get a union. It's not a. It's not a zero sum game there. - Patrick
I remember the thing that pissed me off the most was there was a line in there about how unions are not for white collar jobs, um, or like not for like, like, um, like we don't need a union in a place that is as privileged as Kickstarter. Um, and that like, felt like the biggest, that felt like the biggest piece of erasure in terms of the diversity of experiences that folks were ex that folks were having at Kickstarter. Um, and so like as a trans person at work, that was really upsetting having like, worked on a team, um, where, like I saw queer women of color, like silenced by the company, um, knowing like the huge pay disparity that was happening. I was just like, what the fuck do you mean we don't need a union here because this is a white collar office. It was just, it was infuriating. - RV
But then, all of a sudden, this opposition letter was in the press, printed in full by Gizmodo, including the names of the three workers who had signed it.
I was angry reading the letter because I knew many of those things to be patently false Um, But I was angrier that someone would turn around and leak the letter to the press. - Dannel
One of the authors of this anti union letter was contacted by Gizmodo and, probably out of fear of being misquoted, suggested to the journalist that the content of this opposition letter be printed in full, this unfortunately included their full names and titles. This is when the workers who wrote the letter became the center of their own internet firestorm. Immediately there was a river of public scorn directed at these three people and suddenly the content of the letter and the way it made pro union workers feel was drowned out by concern for these individuals.
I think my maybe my only message is that, then the next time the next time that anyone even thinks about directing vitriol at this person for that reason like consider that people can change their opinions and be wrong. Knowing more doesn't make you superior. It just means that you are maybe further along, and your understanding of something that someone's trying to grapple with themselves. You know, what a difference time makes. Dannel
The leak of the opposition letter and the public very visible harm it caused the authors, created an opportunity for management to divide eligible workers into two camps: a side that believed the union leaked the letter in retribution and a side that believed management leaked the letter in an attempt to undermine the union effort and counter press from the day before.
I heard allegations that the Union had leaked it on purpose, which to me suggested that folks were imagining folks were imagining Kickstarter united, including myself sitting in a room and voting to leak documents which which is, you know, just a an absurd idea when we were actually dedicating a lot of time in those meetings to be exact opposite. Even the media team would not talk to the press. - David
This moment, when the union is accused of indirectly bringing harm to coworkers is one of the most damaging events for the organizing effort. The debut of the union was joined at the hip to this divisive controversy, allowing management to encourage resentment and erode trust in fellow workers. From then on, the union drive would be an uphill battle.
Suddenly the conversation was not like How can we build a better workplace, how can we like get better worker power at Kickstarter the conversation was, why isn't the Union protecting or like, why aren't you protecting these poor people who are being attacked online for just speaking their minds. - Patrick
Over the following months, anti union pressure from management will foster a period of institutionalized resentment and encourage a painful, palpable, inescapable antagonism that divides the company.
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Aziz’s First AllHands
Shortly after the union’s debut, the new interim CEO, Aziz Hasan, holds his first AllHands. This first address was clearly meant to create a contrast between him and Perry, a striking blend of mood lighting and cloy questions.
It was the ultimate like youth pastor turning the chair around and sitting on it. You know, like backwards being like, All right, guys. Let's get comfortable and have a real heart to heart chat here. - Patrick
To give you an idea of how vacuous the content of this AllHands was, at one point Aziz admitted that his answer to the next question could be quite controversial. His answer... was mint chocolate chip.
For someone to be the CEO and And the like the whole company just be like, hey, Oh, what's your favorite ice cream flavor. It's just like really like What is your plan to move this company forward not like why do you feel there was a necessity to change leadership? - Dannel
In contrast to the soft and friendly leadership style of the new CEO, Kickstarter’s leadership quietly brings on a far sharper countermeasure, Duane Morris, a law firm specializing in union avoidance. Organizers noticed that Eve Klein, the main lawyer advising leadership listed union avoidance as a special skill on LinkedIn, so right off the bat this sent a message.
So one of the earliest manager meetings about the union was when they brought in Eve Klein, who is the lawyer from Duane Morris and she gave this really long rundown of like this presentation on like Basically, it was just like union busting one on one, one on one. It was just like Here's all the things that are bad about unions, it'll make it like less flexible. It'll make your jobs as middle managers harder like both lot like included a goofy slide about how much money. O. P. IU brings in and dues and it's like, yeah, because they're They're running a huge big union like whatever, which is also actually with the inoculation like that's something that we'd actually been prepared for by OPEIU. - Amy
One of the first things OPEIU did to support organizers was to prepare us for what we would hear from management. Hearing common anti union sentiment and learning about the common strategies leadership employs to bust a union gave us a taste of what’s coming and helps us identify these tactics in our own workplace. This process of prepping organizers and union members for pattern recognition is known as inoculation.
They had said. At some point, someone's going to say, Look here, their financials. That means that opiate you is bad, you know, so that was like a fun thing that it was like oh cool like this evacuation thing kind of works because I was, I like immediately saw that slide. It was like, this is bullshit. - Amy
This is when management ramps up their open door practice. They continue to stress that they are an outlet for sharing feedback and talking about the union effort. And they ask staff to give them a chance to address concerns directly.
Management and senior executives at Kickstarter. Always wanted to divide us, they always wanted to get us into one on one meetings with our manager alone, where they could tell us what they wanted to tell us And they really always wanted, if they were always like, you know, if you have problems, our door is always open. You can always come speak to us like drop some time in my calendar. My calendar is public. We will talk it out. And you can imagine how that would go, I mean like one person talking to their manager about structural problems. That's not really going to do much, but that's always what they would try to push and we would always try to push it the opposite way. - Patrick
That was a tactic to break solidarity, because if you invite people to talk individually, then you get a read on how everyone feels and they don't know- It like discourages people from like talking to each other. If you're like, Hey, I'm an outlet to talk to you. Come talk to me. But then leadership's all talking amongst each other is to say, Okay, this person stands here. This person stands here so that they know how to make their next move like against people. - AnonA
Senior leadership began taking individuals and small curated groups out to lunch and coffee to chat through how they felt about the new direction of the company and what workers would like to see from management.
They would both try and like sort of feel out where I was on the issue without breaking any rules or without directly asking me about it. You know, like They would say coded say oh, we all know the code of things. It's like, oh, well, like, you know, a lot of drama lately. How you feeling about it. - Karlee
Yeah, I feel like there was like a phase of Management sort of reaching out to individuals are definitely reaching out to groups like and taking them to lunch. Like, I remember ---- decided at some point to like take each engineering team to lunch like right in the middle of all this mess and I remember I reports coming to me on my team and saying like, I'm so nervous about this lunch like what's going on, like, what's he gonna is he going to ask us something is going to be awkward is going to be weird. So like, and it was definitely just like blatantly like oh, we're just trying to like build a relationship. You know, I don't know, like it was definitely very strange. And then the other like weirdly specific thing I remember is that what was that Mexican place called those so expensive Oxamoco That like we had been told, we couldn't go to for lunch, or lack because it was too expensive, but then like Aziz was taking people there on these like union busting lunches and it was just like, very like wild because it's just like, Okay, this is like blatant. - Amy
Neutral Arbitrator
On April 1st, management announces that on April 3rd a neutral arbitrator named Elliot will quote “present facts and basic concepts of labor law as well as a general overview of the unionization process. Management will not be present. This is a completely voluntary meeting and meant only to be educational. Elliot will not offer a position for or against any union – it is against his job as a neutral party.” In this email they also informed workers that this arbitrator regularly works with OPEIU. Exhausted organizers are now in a tailspin and we need to plan inoculation for the content that might be presented to our colleagues - but there’s no time. Only a couple days later, we’re sitting in the theater at Kickstarter nervously waiting for this arbitrator to kick off an anti union presentation. The only plan we have is to remain calm.
Yeah, so we had no idea what to expect. This was really weird. - Patrick
Before he got into the meat of his talk, he stopped to point out that his daughter was actually joining us today.
That's right, it was like bring your daughter to work day or something. - Brian
And to our surprise, this guest speaker launches into an incredibly solidly pro union talk. After about an hour of pro union talking points, one of our coworkers took the mic and asked the speaker if in his years of experience, he had ever seen a situation where workers are worse off after they form a union. And he scoffed and said no, of course not.
He literally said there is no downside to organizing. - Toy
I remember all of us walking into it pissed. And walking out of it being like That guy's not so bad, actually. - Dannel
Basically, like I remember leaving that meeting and being like, wow, I that guy. Was, you know, pretty pro union, honestly. Like, I don't know if management knew what he was going to say, or like it doesn't seem like they did, but He just came in there and was kind of like yeah unions are good, you'll get a better deal. If you have a union and Traditionally management tries to like Make sure that you don't get one. And, like, my job is to, like, make sure that that proceeding is as fair as possible. - Patrick
This meeting felt really important at the time because this was a person with experience, who supposedly was neutral and had no horse in this race, and was brought in by management who, at the time, the folks who were against the union or on the fence were more likely to trust.
Yeah basically every question he would be asked by people who were You know, had expressed anti union sentiments in the past, every question that you get asked about that he would just be like, Yeah, that's not a problem like unions are good usually and like it's all there. Almost like union corruption is way overblown and like that that's not really a thing. And like you should, yeah, basically just Unions are good for most people, and like Here's the process by which they usually happen. Yeah. So yeah, informative. And pro union, I guess was my takeaway from that. - Patrick
This person was an extension of management telling staff the truth and the truth was that we’d all be better off with a union. This felt like a much needed win. The case for a union was just made by a management supported source and we were ready to leverage these clearly pro-union learnings in outreach conversations with coworkers still on the fence. Management never brought back the arbitrator or spoke of this again. It was a wild and bizarre misstep in their anti union strategy that they would not make again. Looking back at this event in the union drive, what organizers considered a delightful win was actually a far more serious moment. This is the moment when management decides that presenting themselves as neutral is no longer advantageous.
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Pointed Communication
As much as we thought the meeting with the arbitrator had cleared up some of the misconceptions about unions, the series of communications from management that swiftly followed this meeting quickly muddied whatever clarity staff had gained. Just a week after this neutral arbitrator meeting, Kickstarter’s fresh interim CEO, Aziz Hasan ratchets up tension with an email titled, “Some guidelines to help us focus.” It opens with a simple idea:
“the primary focus of our workday needs to be the advancement of our mission. We allow for a very flexible work schedule at Kickstarter. This flexibility allows everyone to work at the times when they are most productive. Please respect that others may have different work schedules from your own. You may be taking a break while others are actively trying to solve a problem.” - Aziz
This immediately positions union organizers as troublesome distractions who are taking advantage of Kickstarter’s flexible working environment to derail our coworkers while they are, in contrast, trying to bring value to the team. The email went on to chill union outreach by saying,
“while we support finding time to get to know each other better, please do not send repeated invitations, including via Slack, to meet during your working time or the working time of other employees on non-work matters.” - Aziz
To send this out to the entire company created a blanket impression that organizers were aggressively messaging colleagues.
Since when our DM Harassment, I mean, I was literally asking people have to copy where we've had a copy plan, following up and saying, Hey should we meet at the door and 10 and then didn't respond. Following up again and be like, I could also do tomorrow, which is Yeah, and normal way of following up on plans. - Alex
Then it got worse.
“We also need to reiterate that we encourage open and respectful dialogue about what organizing would mean. But, we cannot condone and will not allow derogatory references to anyone’s identity including their gender, race, sexuality or socioeconomic standing. If you encounter such behavior, please contact me or Maureen in HR immediately.” - Aziz
This was shocking and confusing. Organizers felt accused and we had no idea what prompted a statement like this from management. This was a blow and it came out of nowhere. They go on to say that they’re doing this for the safety of our coworkers and that quote:
“this is an opportunity for us to come together as a team, treat each other with respect, and define the culture and values we want for Kickstarter.” - Aziz
In this one succinct email, management paints a picture of two very different types of Kickstarter employees. On one side you have the hard working, problem solving employees who need to be protected from the distracting, harassing, racist, sexist organizers. And management assumes the role of bringing staff together, keeping the peace, and safeguarding the core values of Kickstarter.
I just remember Reading the email and immediately recognizing as, oh, they're just trying to pit us against each other. And so it was so obvious. It was fucking transparent. You know, and it, it just It it further it further strengthened my own resolve because there is incredible racism. And sexism problem in tech and Like this, like the workers are trying to figure something out about it. I've rarely seen management figure something out about it. - Dannel
I remember where I was, what the weather was like, how the sunlight was hitting through the windows the moment I read that email. That was one of the lowest moments of the whole thing. Aziz sent out an email that was very carefully worded so that, without directly accusing the union of being racist sexist thugs, it intimated that we were. That was the first thing that mgmt did where I thought, oh they don’t just disagree with us, they are at war. . - Taylor
When we showed these emails to OPEIU, they said they looked very familiar and reminiscent of language union avoidance lawyers draft.
in my experience. Especially working with nonprofits. I have found that you will see the same template of memos to talk to employees about why they should choose a union. from company to company. And that's oftentimes because it's the attorneys and the experts of those firms and sell to actually draft that language. And then give it to the employer to send out. - Grace
Kate would always just be like, don't like They're going to fight you. The entire way. And what you need to be putting your energy towards is Organizing and like having conversations with your coworkers and presenting a positive vision of how things can be better. And your job is just to keep talking about the issues that are important and you just got to kind of keep bringing the conversation around to that again and again. And not get distracted. And it's very easy to get distracted when they're like Talking about How you're personally a bad person, or like your friends or personally bad people and it's like, no, I work with them every day. They're, they're fucking great. - Patrick
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The Rise of the No Committee
Just over a month after the union made its debut, it was clear management’s anti union strategy was working. The divide in the workforce became harder and harder to bridge. Workers who had not been inoculated saw management’s efforts to address systemic issues and better the workplace as good faith attempts while organizers tried to navigate the very difficult task of explaining the anti-worker strategy behind management’s notable concessions and rhetoric. By early April, organizers see management’s effective strategy drastically slow momentum.
I really struggled individually to see people who were aligning themselves with management, maybe we're not themselves managers and Seeing them. really strongly take that side. I always was just absolutely befuddled by it because like Honestly, the idea of the Union seem to so straightforward to me, where it's like, yes, this is a method to fight for your rights in the workplace. I see these people that like have everything to gain and nothing to lose. - Karlee
In April, the union spun up weekly Open Houses after work and open Q&A picnics at lunchtime. The goal was to make organizers as accessible and welcoming as possible to try and bridge this painful divide. And something that came up over and over again in these early outreach meetings, was a misunderstanding of the need for structural change. Some of our coworkers who were learning about what a union means were perplexed by the organizers continued refusal to list out demands. Leadership had seeded this idea. They stated over and over, well, the union hasn’t told us what they want so how could they expect us to make the workplace better? You know, look at us, we’re trying to come to the table in good faith to solve these challenges but the union isn’t cooperating.
People wanted to know what we wanted specifically. They wanted to know concretely like this needs to happen this needs to happen and if these things happen then you all can be happy and that’s the end of it. - Corey
Organizers had seen how management had used concessions almost immediately after learning about the union drive to undercut some of the outreach topics that were most effective in building support. They heard workers wanted an anonymous reporting tool, so they gave us one. They heard workers were unhappy with the CEO, so they brought in a new one. They heard we wanted financial transparency, so they gave a big presentation diving into the company’s financial state. To organizers who’d been inoculated, it was clear these concessions were meant in exchange for our collective power. We understood that any specific request we might have was a manifestation of our larger demand - a permanent seat at the table. This early experience of how damaging concessions can be to building support reinforced organizers’ original commitment to holding off on creating a list of demands until after we had majority support.
We ran a values driven campaign where these are the values we hold. Here are some of the abstract ideas we’re interested in approaching and want improvements on without giving concretes. And this was avoiding them just giving us what we want and that being the end of the conversation. - Corey
Organizers had witnessed that just the threat of organizing had done more in a few months to move the company forward than years of us working as individuals.
Because who knows with the cycle and revolving door of leadership, if they just take back what we just asked for like a year from now. We need to make sure this persists beyond senior leadership’s tenure and our own tenure. - Corey
But to our non-inoculated colleagues, seeing this situation through a management-constructed lens, they did not see this tactic as strategic, they saw the union’s refusal to hand over a list of demands as obstinate and… well ungrateful.
Another issue that came up a lot in the early days was individual agency. Suggesting that the union would make decisions on your behalf that you would not agree with.
I think that people got the impression that there were only like nine people who were driving this thing and that was not the case. - Toy
Ironically this is essentially describing the position workers are in without a union. This was another common trick that management took from the union busting playbook. In a nutshell, management was attempting to create the illusion that acting as a collective reduces an individual’s ability to have influence within the company. And one of the best ways to grow this doubt in the power of collective action is to suggest that you as a worker will not have as much control over decisions as you did as an individual.
Tech is not a monolithic entity. The tech workforce is extremely diverse in background and professional development and all sorts of things. But I think there is a strong strain of individualism that runs through tech. Which also makes it difficult to get people to think about what a more non-hierarchical broad movement can look like. - Oriana
The union had to undo a lot of misperceptions around how decisions are made and repeat a very basic argument for collective power. As a union, workers would have the ability to speak directly to management and have the power to pressure management into making changes with the help of fellow workers. Before, in the system management was fighting to preserve, we had seen how easily the company had overpowered individuals. But it was hard to convince skeptics of how power flowed through the union when they would not or could not come to meetings and see how decisions were made for themselves. Attending any union gatherings was becoming more and more stigmatized and new faces had quickly become rare.
Leadership, like so many people in power kind of treat You know, as a defense. They'll be like, Well, you know, there are two sides to these things. And like there's pressure on both sides. And it's like, both sides are equal one side is like giving you your salary for you to like live on. And the other side like what you could easily just like not talk to them and it would probably be fine. And so I think that the other thing is they would always make it as if there's this like even playing field and they're just like to even sides when like there's already pressure, just from the fact that they're your boss. Like there's already pressure because of the power dynamic that is set. - AnonA
Another point of friction was an idea introduced to staff in the anti-union email sent the day after the union’s debut. This was the idea that we didn’t need a union because the employees of Kickstarter were too privileged. And this idea seemed to gain the most traction in people at the company who were comfortable, isolated, or both. And then there was the challenge of apathy.
Basically they said that sounds bad. I'm sorry to hear that that happens. And I haven't seen any of that firsthand. And that was disheartening to me. That was really disappointing. Both have. I have a personal relationship with this. Person and because the first one had said to me, Oh yeah, my dad wasn't a huge and it served him, but we don't need it. And then when I said actually yes zoo and here's why was like, well, that sounds bad, but Hmm, I don't know if I totally believe it. Or I don't know if it's bad enough. Or I would need to see it firsthand. And it's very disheartening very disappointing. I don't think it's the point. I mean, the source of experience one person reported directly to the person who would soon become our CEO. - Alex
It becomes more and more clear that management is supporting a select group of our peers to strengthen the worker-led opposition. This group of active anti-union workers is what organizers call a No Committee. Finding individuals who had reservations about the union and encouraging these workers to fight against the organizing effort allowed Kickstarter’s leadership to say they were doing what was best for their employees and protecting everyone’s right to vote while simultaneously feeding disinformation and anti union rhetoric to workers across the company. This mostly manifested as anti union coworkers reporting organizers to management and management capitalizing on these reports to build cases against individuals.
I'm having a conversation with someone on my team that I thought was a friend and had known for years. And they say, well, I think I'm just going to remain neutral. And I said, well, I totally understand that impetus, it's very tempting. However, the law is that we need 30% of the employees to sign these cards or we can't file at all and the Union's requiring that we get like 60% so if you don't sign you’re weighted against the card count. And if you do sign the cards you count as a signature. So unfortunately, at this point in the process. There's no neutral spot at all. He got so mad. He said that I was forcing everyone in the company to take sides. And so we walked back to the office and a few days later I found out that he had reported me for harassment. - Taylor
Organizers Treated Differently
With the pressure rising, organizers and union members who had openly supported the union began to feel a shift in their relationships with management and peers.
I did something very small to try and sort of broadcast my you in support. I changed my slack. Status emoji to the Kickstarter, you know, the logo which was designed by my extremely talented friend to me and and It's so beautiful. And I was like, proud of it and happy with it and I was like fuck yeah, like, listen, like, this is cool and I want people to know in the subtle way, but I hope doesn't make anyone uncomfortable, a bit like This is my, this is my position, even taking such a small step like making the You know, just making that little union logo. My slack emoticon like it was almost comical how big of an impact. Like when I especially with my managers. - Karlee
The power that management had over organizers’ roles and relationships became even more noticeable with more visible pro union workers.
Basically after the Union went public and I was one of the people in the organizing committee, like my relationship with ---- was just shot and he basically just treated me like I was completely untrustworthy. And, um, it really impacted not only my relationship with him and my ability to get work done that I needed to do with him, but impacted my relationship and my standing on the entire engineering management team and it became really frustrating to try and get any work done because it really felt like he had sort of D legitimize me and my kind of place on the team and Yeah, there was a couple of times when like up, bring up to me, like, oh, you seem really frustrated and I'd be like, Yeah, I'm frustrated. Because No one trusts me now. And like, that's your fault. - Amy
A lack of trust that had been cultivated and encouraged by management was then weaponized against organizers across the company.
And ---- would save weird things in our one on ones, all the time like he would be like, oh, you know, sometimes people are just Suspicious of your motives and I would be like, What are you Talking about like we're running an engineering team like my motive at my work is within my job at work is to like ship code and like build a website like I just don't understand what motives. You could be suspicious of like making sense to me. - Amy
This strategic undermining of visible organizers was often recorded as official documentation against the worker. Sometimes this negative feedback was as subtle as mentioning the need to build trust with management and sometimes it was far more explicitly related to union activity.
Yeah another actual kind of explicit moment of retaliation was during performance reviews. So you know how performance reviews are right there. Sort of like what were your achievements which has all the like positives, like, Oh, you did all these projects. And then there's like the This one that's like kind of negative, but it's framed in the like future facing tense right. The question was phrases like, where should this person focus their energy in the next three to six months. So ----, like read through what he's wrote about my achievements and then he reads this question and it was like a record scratch it was like he kind of reads this question that's about the future. And then he goes on and says, with the Union effort. There's been some suspicion of motives and Amy shouldn't have done that. But we've mostly moved past it. So I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. This isn't okay you know I was like this, you know, I'm like, this shouldn't be coming up on my review. If I wasn't a manager, it would be explicitly super clear that this shouldn't be on my review. And when I was involved in the unit. I've seen effort. I was like, acting in good faith and he's sort of is like, well, yeah, see, like, you know, you're a manager. So that's not true. So he kind of like throws that back in my face. And I kind of like push back a little bit more that I'm like this just doesn't belong on my review. And after I sort of backed into a corner is when he ends up saying, oh, but when your involvement with the Union, you You kind of put your reputation in jeopardy and having a good reputation is part of being a good leader. So I stand by this been on your review because it's a bad leadership quality that you jeopardize your reputation. - Amy
Workers start to see treatment of union supporters reflect management's strategy to reward loyalty and punish union support. Management used any lever possible to justify under rewarding visible organizers or even formally disciplining them for anything and everything outside of participating in the union. Members of the union’s Organizing Committee, like RV, were demoted or kept from promotions for odd reasons, and this was noticed by the workers around them.
RV had given notable and very publicly visible contributions to the team. They made huge strides to not only like publicly help the company, but also like internally done great work. And we were both up on the same review cycle and because they started two weeks after I did they did not get a promotion, as I did. - AnonB
All of this pressure... and antagonism... and individualized struggle drains organizers of the critical energy the union needed to maintain momentum. The union went public in mid March and just a couple weeks later, management had crushed momentum. By the end of April, just over a month from the debut announcement, things were looking grim for our young union.
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In part two of Captive Audience, organizers scramble to keep up with management’s anti union strategy. Organizers are burnt out, workers are exhausted by the constant tension. And everyone is desperate for light at the end of the tunnel. And management accelerates a litany of anti union activity that pushes Kickstarter to a breaking point.
The shock in the difference in people's moods and morale from when I left in January. So when I came back in May and I mean people who were integral to the United team effort. It was disheartening to see how like worn down tired and demoralized people seem not not ready to give up and obviously not ready to give up. But it was just like to see how How the company that people had, you know, come to for good reasons and how they had like been betrayed by them was just really it was really sad. - Brain
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