Tech Labor Leaders Are Dodging Surveillance on Platforms Like Facebook and Zoom

For worker movements, digital tools are a double-edged sword

Workers protest against the failure from employers to provide adequate protections in the Amazon delivery hub workplace on National May Day/Sick Out organized by workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, and Shipt on May 1, 2020 in Hawthorne, California. Photo: Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

Willy Solis describes himself as someone who never dreamed of being an activist. Last year, the 41-year-old Texan began working for Shipt, a grocery delivery app owned by Target that relies on tens of thousands of gig workers to complete fast, “personalized” deliveries in more than 260 cities across the United States. Shipt sports the airy, pastel positivity shared by many technology startups. As Shippers go about their jobs, Shipt encourages them to embody its corporate mantra: “Bring the Magic.”

But in recent months, Solis grew disenchanted by payment changes that caused many Shipt workers like him to earn less. When the coronavirus hit, Shipt failed to provide masks and gloves to all Shippers, and some workers say the company enforced “cult-like” demands that they not complain about their working conditions. Solis decided to become a workplace organizer. “I started being more understanding of what the company actually was, and what they are doing,” he told OneZero.

Organizing his workplace in the digital era was more challenging than Solis expected. There was no existing forum for workers like himself to privately interact and share their experiences. A…