Petition Writing for Workplace Rights in Tech

[yanacalou]

What problem are we trying to solve?

In today's workplaces, we use email, Slack and workplace chat tools to communicate with each other across floors, offices, and countries - often these are the only methods we have for communicating with our colleagues. Earlier this year, Google quietly submitted a request to the national labor board to remove a key existing protection for workers: to stop them from using company email/listervs/channels/ internal digital channels to discuss improve their working conditions. This would impact all workers, and even apply to issues like harassment and promotions.

This working group will draft a petition on Coworker.org to say that Google doesn't speak for us and that our work as tech employees connects people, and Google shouldn't be trying to stop all of us from speaking to each other about our own jobs.

Who will benefit (directly and indirectly) from this project?

Tech workers, and all Full Time Employees in the US, who currently have the right to use on-corp email/Slack to discuss our own jobs.

Where can we find any research/data available/articles?

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/24/18195955/googles-legal-stance-walkout-organizers-activists-labor-lawsuit

https://onlabor.org/google-to-nlrb-shut-down-employee-email-access/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/google-urged-the-u-s-to-limit-protection-for-activist-workers

What help is needed at this time?

4-10 people who can draft and help circulate a petition amongst the tech community.

What are the next steps (validation, research, coding, design)?

1. Draft petition during 6.4.19 Hack Night working group
2. Upload petition to https://www.coworker.org/petition/new
3. Create a list of places to distribute & post the petition in our various networks

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Project management

Checklist for NEW ideas :baby:

Hey, you're official! You're now part of the growing Progressive HackNight community. Here's a few things to get started (a couple you've probably already done).

• [x] Create this idea issue
• [x] Flesh out the who, where, and what questions above
• [x] Join our Slack
• [x] Join the #project-leads channel.
• [ ] Ping an organizer to get started (The organizer in charge of onboarding new projects will be listed in the channel topic)

Checklist for ACTIVE projects :fire:

Let's get this project started! When this idea starts taking off, the Progressive HackNight Team will start helping this project's lead(s) out with project management and connecting you to resources you may need. To get there, please complete and check off the following:

• [ ] Update your project at least once a month. This can be either an update on this issue, a ping in the project-ideas channel, rsvp-ing to hacknight, or a conversation with one of the organizers managing project progress (the one listed in the channel topic).
  • It's ok even if your update is just "nothing new happened this month" or "we saw a small increase in traffic to our app this month". If nobody hears from you at all in more than one month, we may mark it as abandoned so that others can pick up this idea and run with it.
• [ ] Create a GitHub repository and Slack channel for work.
• [ ] Create issues to describe each task that you plan to do or need help with and how a contributor can get started on that task. You might start and stop a lot, so consider issues as your to-do list.
• [ ] Create a team for your core contributors
  • This will make it easier for you to manage your github repo access. People on a team have the same level of access. Admin access will allow your trusted contributors to make changes as needed.
  • You can remove and add people to your team as needed.
  • Note: You can also allow collaborators outside of your team and give them more limited access.
• [ ] Create a Google Drive, Dropbox, or other cloud storage to share larger files
  • Github and Data.World are good for code and data, respectively, especially when you need version control. But they're not good for very large files, documentation, articles, etc. A cloud storage option will allow you to easily share, create, and collaborate on documents with your team and help organize ideas and thoughts.
  • Doing this early on can help your team stay organized and to onboard new contributors who wouldn't have access to files you all have shared over email.

If you get stuck at any point, feel free to reach out to the leadership team in the slack channel or with an email to organizers@progressivehacknight.org or come find an organizer at a HackNight. We're here to help bring great ideas to life!

[yanacalou]

I'm excited to connect with y'all tomorrow night! For the past year and a half, I've been working closely with Googlers on thisThere's been no shortage of labor concerns and activism around workplace issues at Google - but the issue we'll be tackling tomorrow affects Googlers and non-Googlers alike. Come catch up on what Google has been doing to silence worker voice, and the upcoming labor board decision that will affect how we speak about our jobs with our coworkers.

Our goal for tomorrow is to come up with a plan for a first draft of a petition to protect our rights to speak about our jobs. We'll create a Google doc for shared drafting & if a repo makes sense, I'll create one too. Looking fwd to tomorrow!

[yanacalou]

Hi all, I’m so sorry but I have an unexpected time sensitive situation that just came up & I won’t be able to make it tonight. I will reschedule this group soon!