Over the last decade, technology companies have been easing past traditional oil and gas conglomerates to become the wealthiest industry in the world. And yet, despite that vast wealth, there is still a massive tech talent gap. And now there’s a growing trend of tech workers coming together to call for greater unionization in this sector. This is moving beyond petitions and signed letters from staff, to increased walkouts, employee resource groups, and even formal trade unions.
On January 4, the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) launched with 230 members, instantly making it the biggest tech union. A few weeks later, the membership of this American and Canadian union, which includes permanent, contracted and vendor company employees of Google, its subsidiaries, and other Alphabet Inc. brands, has quadrupled. Earlier this week, international Googlers across 13 countries formed a coalition of unions called Alpha Global.
After a Hard Year, Kickstarter Bounces Back By Calvin Reid | Dec 11, 2020
Despite the pandemic, and the round of layoffs and buyouts it heralded, Kickstarter continues to be an important source of funding for independent comics creators, self-published prose authors, and small publishers. Since the crowdfunding platform launched back in 2009, the comics category has raised more than $127 million, according to the company. So far in 2020, the comics category has a 73% success rate and has raised more than $25 million (across more than 1,683 projects). The previous best year for comics was 2019, when it generated $16.9 million in donations across 1,598 projects.
But much like every business, Kickstarter was hammered by the pandemic and subsequent nationwide lockdowns, with new campaigns declining by as much as 40% in March and April. The resulting drop of revenue forced it to announce a round of 25 layoffs in May, in addition to 30 employee buyouts negotiate