Tech workers need unions, just look at Twitter

It might have been a little longer than 280 characters, but the email sent to Twitter staff globally last month announcing huge redundancies might as well have been a retweet of P&O’s approach to UK employment law. Locked out of systems with no notice, a total lack of empathy, potential breaches of UK employment law – and this time with the added cowardice of CEO Elon Musk signing off the announcement as “Twitter” rather than with his own name.

Just a couple of weeks later, employees were given less than 48 hours to decide whether to fill out a form and click a button agreeing to a “hardcore” culture of “long hours at high intensity”. Failing to click that button was treated as a resignation.

The events at Twitter might be exceptionally poor practice, but they give lie to the siren call from all big tech firms to their staff: that you don’t need a union because we’re one happy family.

Internal comms might call their staff Tweeps, Metamates, or Googlers, but when it comes to employment law and HR, they’re simply workers – and disposable ones. Bean bags and free breakfasts are a poor substitute for a union ready to help you enforce your rights at work.

As Twitter staff have found, electing representatives to be “consulted” after the event – who are themselves at risk of redundancy – means you have brave people facing the challenge of speaking truth to power, but without the backing of union officials who don’t have to fear management reprisal.

Casual observers of this story could be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu. Following the immediate dismissal of hundreds of workers over Zoom by P&O, the Government promised to take action to prevent this happening again. No action has been forthcoming, and far from learning from the P&O scandal, the Government seems bent on loosening protections – not tightening them.

The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill currently before Parliament would see all EU-derived law automatically expire at the end of 2023, and grants ministers the power to revoke, restate, replace, update or delay individual laws by statutory instrument – a process involving next-to-no parliamentary scrutiny or debate.

This is an unacceptable way to handle hard-won employment rights: protections against unfair dismissal, maternity and parental leave rights, the working time directive and life-saving health and safety rules to name a few.

There is no mandate for this course of action. Brexit campaigners promised stronger employment protections after leaving the EU – not a deregulation frenzy. The Government pledged to prevent another P&O happening – not stand idly by as a digital version unfolds before our eyes.

It is time for the Government to make good on these promises. In his first Queen’s Speech next year, Mr Sunak must bring forward the Government’s long-promised Employment Bill and use it to end British labour law’s reliance on post-fault remedy.

Simply increasing the damages paid by rule-breakers will not be enough, because for some firms it will be cheaper to simply break the law and pay the fine. Instead, we need to recalibrate the balance of power to give workers and their representatives the means to enforce a fairer system.

Unions must be allowed to apply for injunctions to stop dismissals taking place without consultation. Rule-breakers should be barred from holding senior positions in companies to introduce a personal cost to egregious breaches of employment law. Greater compensation should be made available to the victims of cowboy employers and big tech bros who think they’re above the law.

Prospect will continue to campaign for stronger employment protections in the months ahead. In the meantime, however, tech workers wondering if what happened at Twitter could happen to them can act now to protect themselves – by joining a union.