Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work

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Unions Can Save Tech Workers and Tech Work<br>Interview withDan RussellMax Belasco<br>Two University of California tech workers explain their unionization process — and how unions can help recapture the original promise of tech being used to better people’s lives rather than make the worst people in the world ever richer.

University Professional and Technical Employees members phone bank in their offices at UCLA on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Los Angeles, California, in preparation for a strike authorization vote. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)<br>Get four print issues and full access to our archive for just $20

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Interview byAaron PetcoffA dramatic shift has taken place in the tech industry over the last several years. Industry leaders who once had a reputation as innovative forward thinkers are more familiar as misanthropic paranoiacs. The playful atmosphere of tech offices flush with investment, enjoying luxe catered lunches to attract programming talent, has been replaced by a looming fear that layoffs are just around the corner as artificial intelligence (AI) company executives make repeated public statements that any day now, everyone will be replaced by superintelligent chatbots. The once-sage advice to “learn to code” isn’t heard much these days.<br>One could hardly be blamed for feeling pessimistic about the tech industry. But last May, 2,100 information technology employees at the University of California (UC) voted to join the union of University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE-CWA Local 9119). Among the reasons for joining, members have pointed to the layoff protections the union won in its last contract, as well as the positive social vision of technology for which organized workers can fight.<br>This was the largest effort to organize technology workers in the history of the US labor movement. While the tech industry might still be new ground for unions, the methods it took to win were familiar as ever. Jacobin contributor and tech worker Aaron Petcoff spoke with Local 9119 President Dan Russell and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Unit Cochair Max Belasco about the campaign, what it took to win, and how workers can organize to build technology that serves people rather than the bosses.

Aaron Petcoff<br>To begin, could you each tell me about what you do for work and your role relative to the union?<br>Dan Russell<br>I’m in IT, so I do desktop support and server administration. I got hired at UC in 2012. I wasn’t represented at the time, and I’d been hoping there would be a union for IT workers at UC; it was one of the reasons I was excited about the job. Then I saw a flyer for UPTE, which was trying to organize IT workers into a new bargaining unit. I came to find out that was not going very well. So I got involved.<br>My role was added to the unit around 2016, and at that point I got on the executive board and on the bargaining team for the contract fight that started in 2016. I was part of the officer team of a reform slate that got elected in 2018. We ran another leadership slate in 2022.<br>Max Belasco<br>I’ve been working at UCLA for fourteen years, since right after I graduated from UCLA. I’m a tech worker too. My title is business systems analyst, but my working title is manager of BruinLearn and clinical IT.<br>I’m in charge of instructional technology and IT infrastructure at the UCLA School of Law, for our instructional technology and our clinical programs. The School of Law runs several clinics that interface with clients and the public — housing justice, support for veterans navigating social services, and an immigrant family legal clinic that provides wraparound immigration services for families at LAUSD’s Robert F. Kennedy schools. My job is to support these clinics — make sure they have computers, printers, wireless, and access to the databases and tools they need to provide quality legal representation. It’s an important feature of how UCLA engages with the public in LA County.<br>When the pandemic hit, I pivoted toward developing workshops and helping faculty with varying levels of digital literacy use remote instructional technology. I got credentialed in a lot of that technology through EDUCAUSE, and the work became specialized — instructional design, helping law faculty keep their classes Americans with Disabilities Act–compliant, things like that.

Eventually UCLA wanted to spin that work off into a nonunion title. I was in a union position, and it wanted to roll up what I was doing into a new title and asked me to apply for it, calling it a promotion — but it would take me out of the bargaining unit. So it was a...