Due to the evolving nature of technology and work, different government agencies have conflicting definitions for who is a tech worker.
In practice, the two largest trade unions, IG Metall and ver.di[a] have been competing since the early 1990s to represent the tech industry which are part of the newer economies.
[13] Tech companies in Berlin have increasingly formed works councils, notably at TikTok, Tesla, Gorillas,[14] N26,[15] and Zalando.
[17][18] Cellular, Internet and High-Tech was founded in 2014 as an affiliate of the Israeli trade union confederation Histadrut.
[19][20] It represents 3,000 workers through the collective bargaining agreement it has with 6 high-tech firms including the Israel divisions of SAP and Visonic.
[22][23] Most trade union chairs in China are company managers, party cadre members and appointed, rather than elected.
It represents 90 percent of Foxconn's 1.4 million workers in China and is a company union dominated by management.
[26] In March 2019, Chinese tech workers mobilized, after an anonymous person uploaded a repository named 996.icu to GitHub.
[32][33] Sindicatul IT Timișoara (SITT; Romanian IT Union) represents 3,000 IT and outsourcing workers at Alcatel-Lucent, Wipro, Accenture and Alto since 2009.
[35] IT, tech, and game worker unionization is a recent trend, located primarily in the Pangyo Techno Valley with a first wave of organization in 2018 and a second in 2021.
Unite has a number of collective agreements with tech companies such as Fujitsu, DXC & Daisy Group.
Workplaces are primarily organized with the Communications Workers of America and to a lesser extent OPEIU, USW, Teamsters.
The overall private job sector has a historically low union density rate of 7 percent, with the tech industry being even lower than that.
[55] From 1974 to 1983, the United Electrical (UE) formed a Silicon Valley Electronics Organizing Committee (EOC), which was made up of 1 full time staffer and a dedicated network of rank and file from National Semiconductor, Siltec, Fairchild, Siliconix, Semimetals, and others.
[65][66] One year later, in January 2021, Instacart announced it is laying off 2,000 employees including all 10 remaining unionized workers.
[68][69] Two years later, HCL and 65 workers ratified a three-year collective bargaining agreement, one of the first in tech industry.
[70][69] In January 2018, 15 employees of logistics startup company Lanetix were fired, 10 days after they petitioned to form a union with Washington-Baltimore News Guild (CWA).
[89][90] CODE-CWA has also supported workers at Activision Blizzard by filing Unfair Labor Practice charge with the NLRB.
[94][95][96] Glitch staff announced intentions to unionize with the CWA Local 1101 as part of CODE-CWA in early 2020.
1400) with a rare solidarity union model, which is not registered with the National Labor Relations Board, and thus cannot engage in collective bargaining.
[105] On November 4, 2024 the New York Times Tech Guild conducted an eight-day unfair labor practice strike of in-person and remote workers.
[115] A majority of workers at the e-commerce platform Big Cartel signed union cards with OPEIU Local 1010, calling for voluntary recognition by December 6, 2021.