TechScape: Netflix and the future of tech employee activism

The decision brings a close to the most recent chapter of activism at the company and one of the more visible tech industry walkouts in the last few months. But the momentum of internal organising, particularly around social justice issues, has been building for years.

In October 2021 alone there were several walkouts in Silicon Valley in addition to the movement at Netflix, including at grocery delivery platform Instacart. And in November, Amazon workers in at least 20 countries staged a strike to demand the company pay higher wages and allow them to join unions.

The groundwork for this particular brand and scale of internal activism was laid in 2018 when more than 20,000 Google employees walked out in response to news the company had given a $90m severance package to an executive forced to step down over sexual misconduct allegations (which he has denied).

While strikes are often focused on wages and working conditions, increasingly workers are taking aim at company ethics and demanding more diversity, progressive policies, and commitments to LGBTQ rights. And they are waging their battles in a public forum, experts say, eschewing the internal pressure campaigns blue collar tech workers have historically relied on.

Here are some more key examples of worker actions within the growing wave of tech activism in recent years.

Meta

The most prominent and highly-visible recent example of employee activism comes via Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data engineer turned whistleblower who shared thousands of documents with the Wall Street Journal and Congress revealing the company knew of its negative public health impacts and refused to address them.

Google

Also in 2018, Google discontinued its work on Project Dragonfly, a partnership with China, after protests over government censorship concerns. Social justice-related demands continued in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, during which Google employees demanded the company halt partnerships with police.

Amazon

In 2021 one vocal warehouse worker was fired for speaking out against what he called unsafe working conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the company saw a massive unionisation effort in Alabama.

Meanwhile, white collar workers have organised to demand the company halt partnerships with police and improve its policies relating to climate change and the environment.

Apple

Known for its secretive corporate culture, Apple has remained largely unscathed by the rise in employee activism in recent years.

From an excellent piece in the Verge, Zoe Schiffer writes:

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