United States: tech employees are stirring themselves

Until now IT programmers, designers, and all different types of software editors have been quite dismissive of collective action. Being well paid they don’t really see how collective agreements can advance their salary or social benefits profiles. Stock options and promises of an IPO are frequently sufficient to halt any embryonic murmurings from turning into collective demands. Although this approach has dominated for a long time some cracks are starting to appear at Google, Amazon and Microsoft, as well as in the video game segment.
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Google is currently the biggest tech name most concerned, and doubtless because of the level of disaffection felt by its employees who had aligned with the company slogan of ‘Don’t be evil.’ When Google listed on the stock market in 2004 its co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin confidently declared, “We are not a traditional company and we have no intention of becoming one.” Fifteen years later however and Google’s staff were to learn in the New York Times publication that one of the company’

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