The Unionization of Technology Companies

In late 2018, thousands of workers walked out of Google offices around the globe to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment accusations against prominent executives. The same year, hundreds of Salesforce employees signed a letter to CEO Marc Benioff protesting the fact the company sold products to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Also in the headlines was an effort by some Microsoft employees to protest the company's bid for work on the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project. In a letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the employees wrote, "many Microsoft employees don't believe that what we build should be used for waging war." Tech employee activism is nothing new, but the momentum generated by the 2018 wave of protests was.