A book titled Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry, authored by Clarissa Redwine and JS Tan — both described as longtime organisers within the sector — traces the arc of the tech worker movement, from its initial gains through the subsequent period of pushback and drift toward corporate dominance. Drawing on firsthand experience at leading technology companies, the book maps the workplace pressures staff face as a small cluster of dominant firms consolidates both financial power and policy influence, while job cuts continue to accumulate across the industry.
Redwine was let go from Kickstarter after engaging in union activity, and Tan departed Microsoft following internal objections to the company's relationships with fossil fuel industries. Both have expressed a shared aim of encouraging a younger wave of technology workers to build collective power from within the industry's dominant corporations.
Redwine entered the tech sector in 2016, at a point when many in the industry held considerable expectations about what the field could deliver for the public good. The crowdfunding company built its identity around bringing creative ventures to life, positioning itself with a notably idealist outlook.
At the outset, technology executives and their workforces appeared to share common ground in their tensions with the administration, yet a number of those same companies later adjusted their positions and, according to critics, lent institutional support to the growth of nationalist online movements.
A shift in direction at Kickstarter came about when a campaign on the platform drew calls from a far-right-adjacent online movement for its removal. Redwine, joined by colleagues, pushed for the project to remain on the platform. Driven by that shared episode, they moved toward institutionalised representation through a union campaign — one that eventually delivered the bargaining rights they had pursued.
Redwine was one of approximately a third of the organising committee members whose positions were cut within the same seven-day window — a concentration of job losses that occurred at a point when those workers had an active union representation effort under way. According to her stated position, the Kickstarter campaign demonstrated to workers across the tech industry that pursuing union recognition through collective action could produce tangible results. Her work in labour organisation and the development of collective worker influence has continued from that point forward.
Tan's entry into the technology sector came through a post-graduation role at Microsoft, placing him among the wave of professionals who joined the industry around the mid-2010s. A shared conviction among him and many of his contemporaries held that internet platforms, once built, would push society toward greater openness, connectivity, and democratic participation.
Tan has stated that the industry fell short of pledges made to workers and the wider public across that period. Commitments made across the sector ran into practical obstacles that prevented them from being fully honoured. The platform, once envisioned as a tool for broadening civic participation, has instead become a channel through which false narratives spread, in Tan's view.
Redwine has pointed to resistance from corporations against union organising efforts as one factor behind what she describes as a rightward shift in the tech sector's political outlook.
The book enters a debate that has been under way for some time, at a point when the tech sector has already put artificial intelligence tools, automated systems, and expanded workforce monitoring into active use. Under a new programme at Meta, employee activity data — including cursor movements, keyboard input, and periodic screen captures — would be gathered to support the development of AI systems intended to perform those same roles. Some Meta employees turned to United Tech and Allied Workers — a branch of the Communication Workers Union — to explore organising options and map out a collective response.
Redwine and Tan have expressed a desire for their book to motivate technology workers to build collective power within the companies where they are employed. Coordinated effort across the workforce, they argued, stands as the foundation for any workplace reforms that hold over time.
