This repository was created for my BSides Las Vegas 2025 Talk 'UNION SELECT * FROM hackers; Why We Should Be Building InfoSec Worker Power Through the Labor Movement'
If you want to learn more or get involved, join the Tech Workers Coalition and say hi in the #cybersecurity channel!
In addition to the slides, I'm incorporating the turn the tables repository and its excellent collection of resources for tech workers looking to build and use power on the job - many of which were used creating the presentation.
I've also included sources for headlines and images used in the slides.
Copied from the turn the tables README
From the NLRB (more here):
- Protecting Employee Rights
- NLRB Flyer
- Employee Rights During a Union Organizing Campaign
- Basic Steps to Forming a Union
Others:
- Thinking about quitting your job? Here are 5 things you can do first. by the EWOC
- Bargaining for the Common Good
- Key Elements of bargaining for the Common Good Campaigns
- Just Cause - Using the Seven Tests by the Teamsters Union
Longer print-outs:
- DMs Open: A Zine About Remote Organizing by Collective Actions In Tech (24 pages)
- Concrete Examples of Bargaining for the Common Good (18 pages)
- Bargaining for the Common Good Racial Justice Guide (46 pages)
- The Rise of the Videogame Union by Polygon (56 pages)
- Secrets of a Successful Organizer: Training Guide by the NEA (146 pages)
Posters:
- You Don’t Have To Hate Your Job To Want A Union by Sam Wallman
Stickers:
- You Deserve a Tech Union by Ethan Marcotte
- Team Building: A Memoir about Family and the Fight for Workers' Rights by Ben Gwin
- There Is Power In a Union by Philip Dray - long but gripping complete history of labor in the United States
- Red State Revolt by Eric Blanc - deep dive on the 2018 wave of wildcat teachers strike, fascinating and engaging
- No Shortcuts by Jane McAlevey - urgent and compelling call to change in how we organize, a little inside baseball (probably shouldn't be your first union book)
- Strike for America by Micah Uetricht - the story of the transformation of the Chicago Teachers Union, also a little inside baseball, but again great
- Secrets of a Successful Organizer by Alexandra Bradbury, Mark Brenner, and Jane Slaughter - a classic
- The Kickstarter Union - An Oral History by Clarissa Redwine
- What Tech Workers Can Learn from Harry Bridges by Kelsey Gilmore-Innis at the Forward 3 Web Summit
- Organizing To Improve Your Workplace: Know Your Rights by Shauna Gordon-McKeon at PyCon 2020
- Know Your Rights as a Tech Worker by Shauna Gordon-McKeon at SeaGL 2021
- Communication Workers for America (CWA) (C.O.D.E. Initiative)
- Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) (Tech Workers Local Union 1010)
United Steel Workers (USW) (Federation of Tech Workers program)NOTE: USW no longer organizes tech workers
- Rideshare Drivers United
- Gig Workers Rising
- Turkopticon (Amazon Mechanical Turk users)
- Bargaining for the Common Good
- The National Labor Relations Board’s website
- Definition of protected concerted activity
- CWA guide to forming a union
- Guide to Whistleblowing by Tate Renner (see also whistleblowers.gov)
- Kickstarter United (organized with OPEIU)
- HCL union (Google contractor) (organized with USW)
- Glitch union (organized with CODE-CWA)
- Blue State Digital union (organized with CODE-CWA)
- Alphabet Workers Union (organized with CODE-CWA)
- Googlers for Climate Action
- Google Walkout for Real Change
- Googlers for Human Rights
- Alphabet Workers Alliance
- Workers for Workers (Facebook)
- Facebook Employees for Climate Action
- Square Workers for Good
- Microsoft Workers for Good
- Tableau Employees Ethics Alliance
- Amazonians: We Won't Build It
- Githubbers
- Kickstarter
- Glitch
- HCL
- Amazonians United
- Googlers Against Forced Arbitration
- Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act
- Organizing of Amazon’s warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota
- Amazon workers push for union in Bessemer, Alabama
- Layoff Guide by Collective Actions In Tech
- Voluntary Layoffs
- Alternatives to Layoffs by the UE Steward
- Status Quo Protections for Unions by the News Guild
- How newsroom unions intervene when members get laid off
- HUCTW's Worker Security Program for Layoffs (NOTE: this is the union profiled in the excellent book We Can't Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard)
- Code for America union agrees to new severance agreement after layoffs
- Workers in the game industry turn to unions for protection from rampant layoffs
- https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/288035783/The-Plan
- https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2021/12/hacker-journalist-among-cisa-directors-23-new-cybersecurity-advisors/187192/
- https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/white-house-cybersecurity-500000-job/726162/
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/08/16/nearly-4-million-cybersecurity-jobs-are-vacant-heres-why-you-should-consider-breaking-into-this-sector/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUEjbuiAX18
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/addressing-risks-from-chris-krebs-and-government-censorship/
- https://therecord.media/trump-dhs-removal-private-sector-members-advisory-boards
- https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/16/cve_program_funding_save/
- https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-cybersecurity/2025/04/14/cisa-cuts-open-season-for-us-00288451
- https://apnews.com/article/trump-ftc-firings-bedoya-slaughter-488bfe5419e48d5acbd95d3f9401404b
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/exclusions-from-federal-labor-management-relations-programs/
- https://www.scworld.com/brief/federal-agencies-ordered-to-avoid-cyber-staff-layoffs
- https://layoffs.fyi/
- https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/27/some-animals/#are-more-equal-than-others
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/07/crowdstrike-announces-5percent-job-cuts-says-ai-reshaping-every-industry.html
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/23/5-years-into-the-remote-work-boom-the-return-to-office-push-is-stronger-than-everheres-why.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/04/11/ibm-reportedly-walks-back-diversity-policies-citing-inherent-tensions-here-are-all-the-companies-rolling-back-dei-programs/
- https://bsides.org/w/page/12194156/FrontPage
- https://drive.google.com/file/d/13DcLNELETMfI0gWdNt-WijaF4NHALxvh/
- https://openssf.org/
- https://owasp.org/
- https://cltc.berkeley.edu/program/cyber-resilience-corps/
- https://www.blacksincyberconf.com/
- https://www.wicys.org/
- https://hackersonthehill.org/
- https://iamthecavalry.org/
- https://www.wired.com/2008/12/hackers-others/
- https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576114/nsa-director-heckled-by-hackers-at-black-hat-2013
- https://www.npr.org/2022/09/12/1122441128/frances-haugen-facebook-meta-twitter-whistleblower-mudge
- https://www.torproject.org/
- https://phrack.org/issues/7/3c
- https://www.npr.org/2011/02/17/133847336/wis-democratic-lawmakers-flee-to-prevent-vote
- https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/05/tech/smalls-graham-amazon
- https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/donald-trump-saying-everythings-computer-163816498.html
- https://www.techpolicy.press/doge-understands-something-the-us-policy-establishment-does-not-technology-is-the-spinal-cord-of-government/
- https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/31/unsatisfying-answers/#systemic-problemsc
- https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security
- https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1ke0k8a/whistleblowing_in_federal_it_what_i_did_why_it/
- https://www.wired.com/story/government-employees-lawsuit-privacy-doge/
- https://jacobin.com/2024/11/union-contracts-artificial-intelligence-workers
- https://healthmanagement.org/c/cybersecurity/news/nurses-demand-safety-precautions-amidst-ascension-ransomware-crisis
- https://twincitiesdsa.org/2024/06/solidarity-culture/