Tech Won't Save Us - How IBM Workers Took On Racism and Apartheid w/ ann haeyoung

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

Paris Marx is joined by ann haeyoung to discuss IBM worker organizing in the 1970s and 1980s against racism and apartheid, and how those stories are important to informing tech organizing in the present.ann haeyoung is a media artist interested in technology and labor. She is also a former tech worker and organizer, and a graduate student at UCLA.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:ann wrote about IBM organizing for Wired, and put together a four-part series on her research for Tech Workers Coalition.Science for the People published an article about tech worker organizing in the 1960s and 1970s.Logic Magazine spoke to Joan Greenbaum about the early days of tech worker organizing.Tech Won’t Save Us is looking for a producer.Support the show

The industry wants to believe that you can have technological solutions to social problems or that you can pretend social problems don't exist if you get so caught up in the shiny new tech. They don't care about social justice. They care about making money. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks. And before we get into this week's episode, just a quick thank you to everyone who supported the show during last month's membership drive. We not only exceeded the 100 new and upgraded supporters at $5 a month goal I set to bring on a producer, but also the stretch goal of 150 supporters. So that is fantastic. We've exceeded what I was hoping to achieve with the fundraiser. So I thank everyone so much.

I've posted the details for the producer on the website. I'll include a link to that in the show notes if anyone is interested, and I'll be open to applications for that until next week. If you supported at $10 a month or above and are waiting on a pin, you can find more information about that over on Patreon, where I wrote up details on the membership drive and, you know, what's to come in the future. And certainly I'll have more updates based on other things, you know, bonus series, Q&As, things like that in the coming weeks. So I'll let you know about all of that as soon as I know about it as well. And so just before we get into the episode, you know, a final list of names to thank

before we get into it. So a big thank you to Jake from New York City, Sima Lin in Seattle, Michael Grandjean, Catherine, Rico in Newark, New Jersey, David Bofa from Madison, Wisconsin, Elizabeth from Seattle, Adam from Tallahassee, Jose de Maso from Portugal, Matias in Nuremberg, Germany, Tyler in Orange County, Zach from San Diego, Marcus Falk from Sweden, Nate from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ben Cruz from Hawthorne, California, Kim Abdul-Jabbar from Brooklyn, Tom in Red Hook in the United States, Bailey in Queens, Greg from British Columbia, John from Philadelphia, Hippira, James, Chris from Louisville, Kentucky, Mark from St. Paul, Minnesota,

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won't save us and becoming a supporter. So thanks so much to everybody. And now let's get to this week's show. My guest is Anne Hayoung. Anne is a media artist interested in technology and labor. She's a former tech worker and organizer and a graduate student at UCLA. As part of her research, she's looking into the organizing that happened at IBM, in particular by the Black Workers Alliance, during the 1960s and 1970s. This conversation is based on some newsletters that Anne wrote for the Tech Workers Coalition last year, and a recent article in Wired where she discusses some of the interviews that she's had with workers who were doing organizing in that period, as well as what she's learned from archives and other information that she's been able to find through that period. And so I think that this is a really interesting conversation because it gives us insight into this organizing that was happening in a different period of the tech industry. And I think it's important to say that retelling these stories is important because it shows how these things are not novel, how this organizing has happened before, how tech

companies have been doing these sorts of things in the past, but also how there is kind of a common through line and how the tech industry promotes itself as progressive and as moving things forward. But we can very firmly see things stay similar over a long period of time in a way that, you know, is not really suggested by their rhetoric and the narrative that they often put out. And so I think this is a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed speaking to Anne and I hope that you enjoy it as well. I would also just note a couple other things before we get into the conversation. If anyone knows or is an IBM worker from that period, feel free to reach out to Anne because she's still looking to speak to people for her

research. And as well, the Tech Workers Coalition will be doing a teach-in and story sharing between elders and contemporary organizers in the tech industry about the power of sharing these stories. Anne said that a date has not been set for that yet, but I did ask her to let me know when that's going to happen so I can let all of you know about that. And obviously, if you do want to know more, make sure you find out. You can certainly sign up

to Tech Workers Coalition's newsletter where I'm sure they'll be putting out information about that. And so with that said, thanks again to everybody who supported the show last month in April. If you want to join them, you can go to patreon.com slash techwantsaveus to do so. And I hope you enjoy this week's conversation. And welcome to tech won't save us.

Hi, I'm so happy to be here. I'm happy to speak with you. You know, this has been a long time coming. We've been planning this for a while. But I'm happy to finally be able to speak to you about, you know, the work that you've been doing the research that you've been doing on the history of tech worker organizing at IBM in particular, and the lessons that we can pull from that for today, as we see this kind of continued resurgence, I guess, in tech worker organizing that we're seeing at, you know, these major tech companies today, that we're increasingly seeing spreading and growing across the economy as well with what's happening with Starbucks workers. Of course, Amazon workers, you know, notably in the

news right now as well. Apple workers too at the retail stores, which is fantastic. Now, obviously, I wanted to talk to you about what you've learned in doing this. But I feel like IBM is one of those tech companies that we don't talk about so much anymore, but that was particularly important in the history of computing. And that is still important today, even though it doesn't get the attention of like Google and things like that. So when did IBM get started? And how did it grow to become such an important player in the history of computing? Sure. So there was three different kind of punch card tabulating machine companies that combined in the early 1900s, I want to say. And there was, I think he started as a salesman, Thomas Watson Sr. And he kind of, I think, rose up through the ranks in these tabulating companies, combined them.

And then those three companies became what we now know as IBM. And so their main business for much of the first half of the 20th century was punch card tabulating machines. And then it was after World War II that they started developing electronic computers. And they were like the first major company to have commercially successful electronic computers. And that really exploded their business. And then, yeah, as you mentioned, we kind of care less about them in the 1900s. I feel like they didn't transition well to the personal computer revolution. They were much more in the business machines from their name, international business machines. So yeah, we don't hear about them so much today. Yeah, I feel like when we do hear about them, it's like IBM's Watson and stuff

like that. We don't even hear about that so much anymore. But one of the fascinating things I found about IBM's history, like as you say, you know, they were big into like the mainframe computers. But then when you see the transition to personal computers, you don't hear about them as much because other companies kind of take over that segment of it. But in that period where IBM is really dominant, it's not just like an important player in the United States, it's an important player globally. And one of the things that stood out to me as I was reading about the history of tech industries and computer systems in other countries was how in the UK, in France, in like a bunch of other countries, they were concerned about IBM moving in because it was seen not just as like, you know, this major foreign company,

but also as like an arm of American power that was then kind of reaching in. Yeah, there was a lot of very close ties between senior leadership and the Watsons, particularly. So I mentioned Thomas Watson, Sr., who kind of founded IBM, and then his son, Thomas Watson, Jr., took over, I think, in the 1950s or so. So he was the one who really oversaw the transition to electronic computers. But like you said, there are very close ties between the Watsons and other senior leaderships and politicians, particularly Thomas Watson Jr. And President Kennedy had a very close relationship. And I believe Watson Jr., after he left IBM, he took over as president and CEO, I think.

And then he went on to serve in one of the administrations after that and serve as ambassador, I think, to the UK. But anyway, yeah, so there was a lot of close ties there. And certainly the US government thinking of these companies as like ways to know, this history, it's all connected. It all comes together and leads up to what we're talking about today. What we're discussing with this organizing at IBM, the research that you've been doing is really based on my end on, you know, some newsletters that you wrote for the Tech Workers Coalition and for a recent article in Wired. And one of the things you wrote in Wired was about your own journey, right? In coming to this research, in coming to what you're doing today, and how you got involved in tech organizing and at the time, didn't realize that this history even existed and

kind of thought that, you know, this was the first time that people were organizing in the tech industry. So I want to know why you became an organizer, because you had been working in the tech industry for quite a while at that time. And also what it meant to find out that people had tried to do this in the past before, like those IBM workers that you've spoken to and that you've been researching. Richard Hudson said something really wonderful when we spoke about how complaining isn't enough. You kind of just get tired of like, you know, complaining to your friends or coworkers about things that are going wrong at the company. I guess this is to answer your question about why I got interested in organizing, especially since I had been working

in the industry for a little while. And I guess for me, it just, it was like a pretty quick realization that the industry wasn't everything I was hoping for, but then not really knowing what to do about that. And I think for a long time, I thought that the way to make change is to try to change things from the inside, to try to get promoted and have a little bit more influence within the company and to make changes in that way. And then realizing that that was kind of like a hopeless game in many ways, because the structures of the company, it's just not incentivized to make the kind of meaningful changes that I had wanted to see. And so then that's what led me to organizing. I think I read an article that mentioned

the Tech Workers Coalition. And I was like, Oh, what is this group of people? What are they all about? And so started going to meetings with them and met some people through there. And that's how that started. That's awesome. And then as you were doing this organizing, as you said, like this was something that you thought was kind of novel that you hadn't really heard happening before. But then you learned about, you know, that other workers have been doing this in the 70s and 80s, that there had been this history of tech worker organizing at companies like IBM that was kind of forgotten in many ways by many people. It was not part of the history that we're told about the tech industry, the kind of

common narrative that we often get. And so what was the importance of then you were getting involved in this organizing with the Tech Workers Coalition? You know, you were, I guess, questioning the the Tech Workers Coalition. You were, I guess, questioning the structure of these companies and then learning that other workers had done this before. What did that mean for you as someone who was also getting involved in this work? I feel like it wasn't just that I didn't realize that the tech organizing was new. I didn't realize that the tech industry wasn't new generally. I admit that I was super ignorant about history and particularly the history of technology. I feel like aware that

there were internet companies in the 90s and that the dot-com bubble bursting and knowing about that, but not really thinking about how, you know, the history of like the telecom industry and all of these things are very connected and how they all, like the people who founded many of these companies went and founded the other companies and like the culture kind of permeates in that way. And so, you know, just learning that like there is this long history of the tech industry and the tech companies and how they're connected was one thing. And then with tech organizing, the first time I learned about the history was through Joan Greenbaum, who was also an organizer at IBM. There was an interview with her, I think, published in Logic magazine. I want to say it was in 2018 or 2019. So I saw that article and was just kind of like, wow, like, I had no idea that this had been happening. And it was just really exciting to read about that, like, that there was this connection. And there was somebody who had thought about all of it, or not just one person. There were a lot of people who had been thinking about this before and had been encountering a lot of the same issues that we were encountering.

And I feel like there wasn't anything in particular I was wanting from looking at the history at first. But I reached out to Joan Greenbaum. I invited her to come to a Tech Workers Coalition meeting. She had a meeting, I want to say about 30 people showed up. It was just like a really great conversation. So that's kind of what started the interest for me. And I think in that interview, she mentioned that the organization that she was with, the group she was a part of, was trying to unionize IBM workers, and they weren't really

making much headway, but they were getting a lot of interest from Black IBM workers. It was kind of just like a one sentence that she mentioned in this interview, but I was like, wait a second, I didn't know that there were many Black workers in tech historically. First of all, I didn't really know there was much of a tech industry, and then also realizing that there were a lot of Black workers and enough to form the basis of a union drive was just really fascinating. And so I wanted to learn more about that. So that's kind of what drove me to seeking out this history. That's so cool to hear about, like, you know, your story and figuring those things out. And, you know, I feel like it's perfectly normal for workers and people who are getting into the

industry not to realize like the extent of the history, right? Because especially with the way that the narrative is formed, like, you know, you might know that Apple computers got started in the 1970s and then the internet companies in the 1990s. But like, I feel like there's an explicit effort to ensure that there's not much known about the history of the industry. And then what is known is in service of the major tech companies that exist today and kind of the ideas that people want to have about the tech industry itself. And one of the things that stood out in your writing was how you said you read this Logic Magazine article and you were able to

speak to this former IBM worker, but how it was incredibly difficult then to find out more about the organizing at IBM or other people who were involved with it. Because while we have these kind of professional histories, you can go back and read about the history of IBM to a certain degree because that's been recorded because the company would be recording that and the business press and things like that, there was less of this history of what the workers were doing and how they were pushing back against some of the actions of the company. I mean, I'm sure that there's so much more information that's locked away in the corporate archives. I know that IBM has very extensive corporate archives, but accessing that and saying that you're interested particularly in

this organizing history is not exactly what they're looking for and how they want to be depicted and they want their story to be told. And then you also have organizations like the Computer History Museum, which I think is pretty heavily funded by industry. So like you were mentioning, there's a lot of interest in when these histories are written, that they are telling a particular story of how technology creates progress, how tech will save us, right? So it's really difficult to then go in and find other histories that aren't in service of that narrative. So that's one side of like the corporate archive and the corporate history. And then there's also kind of a lack of interest anywhere. So there's no way to have access to

those. And then I know Ken Branch also had a newsletter running out of the DC office for the IBM BWA. And I haven't been able to track those down. And so just thinking like, there must be so many of these kinds of zines and worker histories, and maybe also oral histories that already exist that I don't know where to find those. And that's part of the reason I wanted to do this project. And I'm still kind of figuring out the part two of like where to host these and house all these newsletters and oral histories so they're accessible to everyone. Because I think that's also a really important part of it is to make these histories accessible to the current workers so that we can listen to them and also share them and add our own stories to them so that someday somebody, others, people can listen to those as well. Now, I completely agree. And I will add a link to the Logic Magazine interview that you

mentioned in the show notes so listeners can check it out. And I'll note that for me, like finding out about this history of the organizing that was happening in like, you know, tech and science industries, I guess, back in the 70s-ish period came from an article in Science for the People that I should have looked up again before this interview, but I forgot to. But if I can find it, I'll put a link to that in the show notes for people as well. But now the period of your research in looking at the organizing by these IBM workers really kind of ranges from, I guess, the 1960s through to the 1990s, right?

Those seem to be the main period when this is happening, particularly the 70s and the 80s. What were the main issues that workers were dealing with in that period and organizing against? For this project, I was limiting myself to just trying to find the history of the BWA, the Black Workers Alliance, which was just one group that was organizing. And also, they were pretty explicit about not wanting to organize a union. They were much more interested in just trying to support workers in whatever way they could. And a lot

of workers maybe were nervous about even hearing the word union. So that was not like a helpful way for them to organize. So they were doing a lot of like supporting people who were trying to file discrimination suits or file grievance letters or educating workers about their rights. A lot of the anti-discrimination laws and stuff were relatively new at that time in the 60s. So there's a lot of education about this is what's happening at other companies and this is what we're allowed to do and what the company is not allowed to do and things like that. And also the BWA was pretty, well, actually, that's not totally true. I was going to say they were mostly corporate employees,

but that's not true. There was also a number of people who were at manufacturing plants that were also part of the organization and being supported by the organization and doing organizing work as well. So that was just one organization. There were several other worker organizations. There were some that were focused on kind of anti-apartheid organizing, and I wasn't able to find as much information on that. There seemed to be like several individuals who were very interested in the anti-apartheid work, but I'm not sure if there were like major worker groups. I know that the BWA had an Africa committee. So that was kind of one aspect of their organizing. There were also other groups that were explicitly focused on trying to form a union. And I mean, IBM,

as we talked about, was a global company. So there were IBM unions in other countries, I believe in Germany and in Japan and in other places. And so they were kind of connecting between US workers and international workers and trying to like form an international union. Then there was other like IBM was huge as you know, offices all across the country, and maybe also more difficult to organize in many different offices than today, just because communication was slower. And so there was a lot of kind of like pockets of organizing in other parts of the company or in other parts of the country. Like I think there was also a group of workers at a manufacturing plant in San Jose that were organizing that I was trying to find more information about. So

yeah, I feel like I've just kind of thrown a lot out there, but there was a lot of stuff going on. No, no, but that's great to get an idea of like the scope of what was going on, even though your focus was on the BWA, the Black Workers Alliance, there were other things going on as well that, you know, maybe we don't know as much about, you don't know as much about because it's not explicitly what you were looking into. But obviously, you know, where you're looking at the Black Workers Alliance, one of the issues that was of particular importance was the racist practices. And obviously, for some of those workers, the sexism in the workplace as well. At IBM, in one of your newsletters, you mentioned or one of the people that you interviewed mentioned that this was a period when these major companies were being integrated. Black workers were being brought in.

There was an explicit effort made to make that happen. And for some of these workers, they believed that IBM was like this meritocratic company where if they did the work, if they put in the effort, then they would be rewarded for that. And what they quickly found was that even though they were bringing in black workers, there was an idea that these workers would do kind of the lower end jobs and they didn't want to see them moving up the ranks, essentially. So can you talk about that aspect of it? And I guess what these workers started doing when they realized that this was what was happening at IBM?

Yeah, that was a question that I had that I feel like I still don't totally have an answer to is why did IBM integrate? Because they integrated before they were forced to. As part of their contemporary corporate narrative, that's something that they really like to talk about is that like, we integrated before all the other companies did, like we really cared about integration. And I'm like, I don't believe that I don't believe that you cared about it. So like, why did you do it? And I don't know, I don't really have a great answer to that. Some aspect of it is the kind of self-image of the Watsons. It's like they thought of themselves as like progressive, good white people. And so hiring some Black employees was like somehow like aligned with their self-image

or something like that. I'm not entirely sure. But they did start hiring more Black workers starting in the early 1960s. But my understanding is there was a lot of segregation within the company, not just between Black and white, but between different nationalities or ethnicities. So it was very segregated within the company between whether you're in different parts of manufacturing, different engineering roles. So anyway, that was that was happening and that was pretty widespread, it sounds like. So a lot of block workers were specifically with sales in the divisions where they were not selling the large mainframe computers,

but were selling kind of like the smaller like typewriters and office supplies that had less commissions. And also that was not the pipeline towards like upper management or being in, you know, manufacturing roles where, you know, all the managers overseeing the plant were white and there was no kind of hope for upward movement there. There was also like, I feel like I'm just like throwing out a bunch of like stories that I remember. But there was also like a programming test for like becoming a programmer that Dr. Hudson had taken. And that was like used kind of as a way of weeding out Black employees who wanted to

move into programming, but like kind of saying that they didn't score high enough in the test. I think they eventually got rid of the test because there were so many complaints about discrimination using this test. But yeah, there was just like a lot of subtle or coded racism. And at least for Richard Hudson, he said that there was less kind of really overt, aggressive racism and a lot more of this like really subtle, systemic racism that just kind of like held you down and held you back. That makes a ton of sense, right? Especially for a company that is trying to, as you say, like present itself as progressive, they're not going to have the explicit racism, but they'll still have the ways to kind of hold these people down and keep them from the upper management roles that they want to keep for the

white man in particular. You talked about how your focus was on the IBM Black Workers Alliance. I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about how that formed and came to be. Yeah, so this is where I really wish I had been able to speak to some folks who were in the DC office, because it started in the DC office with a man named Ken Branch. And he, I believe, was around 30 years old at the time. And he was in, I think his title was a marketing manager, but the marketing team was essentially their sales team, as I understand it. So he's described as being like a very charismatic person, like caring deeply about his coworkers and about uplifting Black people in the community and also helping Black

people within this company. So he is the one that initiated this first meeting, which was, as he said in an interview that he gave, kind of just a place for Black workers to come together and complain about all this stuff that we just talked about, about the racism and everything that was going on at the company. They continued meeting regularly and that turned into the much more like formal structure of the BWA. One of the things that stood out to me in reading the stories and, you know, the interviews that you had with the workers that you spoke to who were at IBM is, you know, particularly on this matter, Richard Hudson talked about the importance of keeping records of everything that was going on that that he was being subjected to that he was seeing that was happening to him, you know, sending letters,

because at the time, there was kind of a culture of you could send these letters to like the higher up management. And also even, I believe, filing complaints with the NLRB, if I remember correctly. What was the importance of that? And what did that mean for him and the ability to ensure that he was treated as fairly as he could be treated in that context, and also to ensure that he was helping other black workers at the company as well? Yeah, I mean, the importance of keeping records, I feel like that can't be stated enough of just having the proof and the paper trail of whatever it is that happened. Maybe because you're, if you take legal action later, like he did, or as others did, or to have

records for doing exactly what we're doing now is like, you know, sharing those stories with folks later on. But he really emphasized the importance of like, writing everything down of keeping track of things. And just so that you can later say, like, he'd have a meeting with a manager, and they would say one thing to him, and he'd go back and jot it down. And then later, when they deny it, he's like, No, I have these notes, I have every everything to say, this is what you said. And later, I guess about the lawsuits that I feel like that is like a whole other thing that would be very interesting to explore is just how the law works, particularly around discrimination cases. My understanding is that it is very

difficult to prove discrimination in a court of law in the United States. So even if you have that paper trail, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to win your case, but it is important to have it for yourself, I guess, if nothing else. Yeah, absolutely. And on that point, one of the things that came out in the interviews was the importance of the political climate in considering whether to move forward with some of these cases, right? Because obviously, the 1970s, 1980s is this period when Ronald Reagan is coming into power. There's this big change in the government's approach to labor, the government's view on unions, you know, crushing unions instead of supporting them. And in that context, one of the things that

I think it was Richard Hudson, maybe I'm wrong about that, told you was that there were just times when it seemed like, or the people he was dealing with told them that it didn't make sense to move forward with these cases because the judicial system or whoever would be dealing with it wouldn't be open to it or wouldn't be sympathetic to those kinds of arguments and might be more likely to rule against, which could also have consequences, right? Yeah, I think that happened to both Richard Hudson and Marceline Donaldson, that they had cases moving ahead at around the same time at the early 1980s. And essentially, it was just kind of hopeless from the beginning. I think Richard Hudson had a case that started much earlier in the kind of mid-1970s and then it dragged on. And then I believe he brought a second discrimination lawsuit when he was unjustly fired. And that was like right at the beginning of the 1980s. I read the court rulings

for Richard Hudson's cases and it's just like really obvious how the judges are finding the evidence to support the argument that they were already going to make or what they were already going to rule on when the evidence seems like really clearly on his side for the unjust firing. But it just kind of feels like if the courts have decided that they are going to side with the corporation in this case, I'm not really sure what you can do. Yeah, no, absolutely. And one of the other people, as you mentioned there, that you spoke to was Marceline Donaldson. Her story was really interesting as well, because she was this black woman who was entering into IBM and really wanted to be on the sales team. But for a while, they told her, no, she needed to go onto a different team first. She couldn't go right onto sales. And then when she did, she like hit her targets. She was above her targets.

She got into like the, the country club or whatever. And like, you know, the, the people who are hitting a hundred percent of their goals and above that, but still she was like having trouble moving forward. And, and they were trying to like get in her way of being able to like rise up through the ranks. Because as you said, it was through those sales teams that, that allowed you to to to rise up through the ranks so what was her story like and what was her experience and then how did that give her the the incentive to then look at organizing unionizing within ibm so she had before ibm had worked at pillsbury and i believe that's where she um had wanted to be on the sales team but was hired onto a different team and told like she had to kind of do that other work before she was ready to move on to the sales team.

And then when she was at Pillsbury, she ended up bringing a discrimination lawsuit against them, which went up to the Supreme Court and was dismissed. And she did that together with the NAACP. And so I feel like she was already pretty jaded about what corporations could be like, but IBM did have a very progressive image. It had a reputation, as I understand it, for being a good place for Black workers at the time. And I think both her and Richard Hudson mentioned something similar happening to both of them, that IBM had recruiters that were looking specifically for Black workers. And so she was contacted by a recruiter who was looking for Black employees. And then that's how she was kind of brought into IBM.

And yeah, I guess quickly realized that there was all the same problems that had existed at Pillsbury were there too. And according to her, that everything was worse because IBM pretended that it was so great and so progressive and was such a family and that made it just kind of like compounded everything and made it worse maybe because it felt like people were a little bit more brainwashed but I think her grandfather was part of the Pullman-Porters Union which was the first Black Union in the United States so I think she has like a lot of personal history and connections to,

particularly to unionizing and that work. And so that was something that she said, you know, when she realized that like IBM was just, I forgot how she described it, but you know, it was just this like enormous presence. And in order to counteract that enormous presence and that enormous control, you needed another like enormous presence and that enormous control, you needed another enormous presence. And so she thought that the best way to do that would be to form a union and to have a counterbalance to IBM's control. Absolutely. It sounds very familiar with arguments that are

being made today about why we need unions in the tech industry to push back against the control that these massive companies and employers have. Another piece of this that you described in your conversation with James Lees was also the apartheid struggle, right? And at this moment, it wasn't just the racism being experienced by workers in IBM in American companies. It was also that in South Africa, there was the apartheid regime. It was being supported by the United States and companies like IBM were still selling it computers so that, you know, it could continue to administer the apartheid system. So what did the struggle against apartheid look like within IBM and with employees trying

to push back against IBM support for that regime? There were a number of, like I mentioned, I think like individuals who were interested. There was the BWA and I saw another group mentioned as well that was also kind of focused on anti-apartheid organizing. And then there were folks like James who wasn't part of any of these groups, but was working in conjunction with them to do this work. And so the angle that they had decided to take with IBM was going through shareholder resolutions and trying to get a lot of media attention and trying to basically shame the company into dropping its business in South Africa. And what

IBM did was they broke off the South Africa business and changed the name of it, but it was still IBM making money off of this new subsidiary called ISM. And so even after IBM did that, the groups and people who were doing the anti-apartheid organizing continued their work, continued bringing shareholder resolutions, continued getting media attention. And yeah, and eventually they didn't so much get IBM to drop the business with South Africa as there was more of just like a kind of a national dropping business with South Africa. And so the way at least James Lea said it is that he likes to think that they're organizing at least added to that wave of people speaking out against this and wanting to boycott South Africa.

And so at least it was part of that. Yeah. One of the things I found interesting about that approach is that James told you that in putting together those resolutions, that also gave you a certain degree of protection because it was submitted at a shareholders meeting. And so the company couldn't then retaliate against the employees or the workers for putting that information out there because it was put out in that kind of forum. And that was regulated by the SEC. So they had some degree of protection in shaming the company and putting out this information about what the company was doing in that way. Yeah, that's something that he kind of emphasized is that,

and I think Richard Hudson said something similar as well of like, not doing anything sneakily, like everything I'm doing is legal. So why do I need to be sneaky about it? Or like, you know, as long as everything you're doing is legal, you should just do it and put it out there because you will be protected for doing it. I kind of like add a little supposedly because Richard Hudson did get fired for doing something legal. But yes, the idea is that if you're doing all these resolutions, like you said, the FCC regulates that. So having that out there, and especially having your name in the press, it makes it harder for the company to then fire you. And you're like, well, now I'm just going to write all these op-eds about how you unjustly fired me.

You know, you're just going to kind of add more fuel to the fire by doing something like that. I wonder, in looking back at those interviews and at what you've learned from that history, are there pieces of it that I haven't pulled out in asking those questions that you think are important to surface that I didn't get to that stand out for you when you think back to that work and that research? I guess something that stood out for you when you think back to that, that work and that research? I guess something that stood out to me when I was having these conversations was just the culture of the companies and how similar it sounds or feels to the culture of companies today. And kind of wondering if like this type of family style culture. It's very maybe particular to tech companies and something that

maybe started with IBM. And I guess that's not entirely true because there's other companies that have this kind of family style culture, but it has been very effective for tech companies and keeping employees loyal. So that was something that was really interesting to hear about just the way that, you know, the company kind of expects so much from you. And then the people, as I think Marceline Donaldson described it, it's like your people are just willing to give everything because they feel like they owe something to this company when really it's a working relationship. You give them your work and they give you money and that's the end of it. You don't owe them anything beyond that. But IBM was very effective in making people feel like they owed their lives, basically, to this corporation.

Yeah, I'll just say from my own experience, not being a tech worker, that it is fascinating to see how that is common at like so many workplaces, this idea that it's more than work that that there needs to be something more to it. And I think that makes sense. I think that people look for that kind of meeting in the things that they do and would hope for that from their workplace as well, even though this is a capitalist system, this is how it works. It's really a transaction, right? You're selling your labor to the company in exchange for a wage, right? So yeah, it's really interesting. And I think looking back at the history as well, it's not IBM, but you can see the opposition to unions all the way back to like HP founded back in like the 30s or 40s and how they kind of pioneer the practice of giving the employees shares in the company so that they feel more

like owners rather than workers. And so then they don't want to unionize. And you see these kind of things then becoming part of the model, I guess, for these companies then moving forward that they all kind of build on and adopt. And one of the things that I found that really stood out to me as I was reading your interviews and your research and your article in Wired was how many of these things that you identified and that these workers were dealing with in the 1970s and 80s are still, you know, maybe they've changed to a certain

degree today, but there's still issues with sexism and racism and inequitable hiring practices and treatment in the workplace in tech companies today that is treated as though it's novel and these tech companies say they is treated as though it's novel and these tech companies say they're going to solve it. And then we can see that these things have been going on for decades and they still haven't been solved. And we can see how there was the issue with IBM and apartheid back in the 70s and 80s and into the 90s and how they never cut ties with South Africa until there was a wider shift in the government itself finally turned against it. And that was, you know, I'm not an expert on the history of apartheid, but I think

that was because it became clear that the apartheid regime itself was collapsing, right? And I think we can see that today with Israel and how these companies are just dedicated to doing work with Israel's apartheid regime. And they will continue doing so until there's a wider shift, I think, in what's happening there, even though the work of these workers at these companies and trying to push back and trying to bring attention to what they're doing is super important. So I wonder what you see in those similarities that cross all these decades, even as there was a movement of workers back then, and now there's a resurgent movement of workers and how these companies are supposedly different and bringing progress, as you said, yet there's all these

similarities over many decades that continue to exist. One small thing on the similarities that I thought was just really, I don't know, really hit me in a certain way was there's this like, kind of transcript from the New York City Human Rights Commission, I think it was in 1968, where they were like, looking at a whole bunch of top employers, like largest employers in the New York City area, particularly with like around integration of white collar employees and IBM, like submitted in their, you know, statement of like, why they're so great about how they're doing all this investment in the pipeline. They didn't use that word, but just like, you know, if you've been investing in the pipeline for the last 60 years,

then maybe the pipeline's not the problem. Maybe it's you. But yeah, I think the numbers of, like, the percentage of Black employees at the company hasn't really budged since 1968 with that New York Human Rights Commission. But sorry, I feel like now I went on a bit of a tangent and lost the question.

That's completely okay though. But the question was just about, what you see in those similarities and how these things continue to persist in this industry that tells us that it is the symbol of progress and moving us forward into the future. And yet it is unable to deal with these serious issues that have been present within the industry for a very long time, but that it also wants us to forget

exist or have existed for so long, right? Yeah, I mean, I feel like the industry wants to believe that you can have technological solutions to social problems, or that you can at least pretend social problems don't exist if you get so caught up in the technology and having like fun with shiny new tech. And so, I mean, like the industry is not like progressive, right? Like that's not what they care about. They don't care about social justice. They care about making money. And so, of course, it's not surprising that these problems continue to persist and that the industry continues to be terrible. I think that what changes is the language that they use. I think that what changes is the language that they use. Like you can see them incorporating the language that's used by people who do care

about social justice, and they just co-opt that. And you see them co-opting the work that the BWA was doing, like they were pretty explicitly doing that and then saying, you know, this is why we're so great. And so the companies are very good at doing that. I don't know if they're doing it consciously, but I feel like this is just how it works. But I also think that what was so great. And so the companies are very good at doing that. I don't know if they're doing it consciously, but I feel like this is just how it works. But I also think that what was so great for me, like talking to the folks that I talked to, is like, people don't change either. Like the companies, they're not going to change. They're always going to do as much as they can to exploit and extract and make as much money as they can. That's not going to change. They're always going to support apartheid regimes if it means that they're going to make money, whether it's South Africa or Israel. But the workers are not

going to stop caring, whether it's a new generation, whether or not they know about what has happened in the past. It's like people are not okay with their labor being put towards doing horrible things to other humans. And people are not okay with being exploited. And people are not okay with racism and sexism. And so long as the companies continue to be horrible, which they will, there will always be new waves of workers that are organizing. And there has been successes in the industry and there are successes that we're seeing today. And I don't know, I can't predict what's going to happen, but I have faith that there

will continue to be people fighting. Totally. And my intention with that question is not to suggest that there's continue to be people fighting. Totally. And my intention with that question is not to suggest that there's no benefit to workers organizing, drawing attention to these things, trying to change them. As you say, there have been actually wins

in getting the companies at least to change some things and abandon some projects, even if the larger trend is still that they want to engage with Israel or ICE or other organizations that we wouldn't want to see them working with. And I have one final question before I get to that. One thing that was interesting in that answer and that I was thinking about, as you were saying, it was how, you know, I feel like for a while,

there was this idea that tech workers didn't really mind and that tech workers really bought into these ideas of don't be evil and that the tech companies are doing all this good in the world, even though that they are capitalist companies that really only care about the bottom line at the end of the day. And then I feel like in the past, what, seven, eight years, we have particularly seen that start to change with more workers speaking out. But then at the same time, I feel like there has been the workers speaking out, but then there are also workers who say like, no, like this is good. We shouldn't be concerned about these social justice issues. I guess there's this divide, which is reflective of the wider divide that we see in society. And so I wonder if you think that that was always there as well, or if those things kind of developed in tandem with one another, as some workers were saying, this is not okay, and we need to draw attention to this and push back against it. Other workers were saying, like, what are you talking about? This is fine.

Stop being so concerned about these things. Like, tech is great or whatever. Yeah, I think that there was always a lot of those workers for sure in the 60s also today. And I would venture to say that the majority of people were probably fine. That, you know, like an organization like the BWA, at least with their newsletter, they had several thousand subscribers in a company that had like over, I think, 100,000 employees. So this is not like, you know, the entire company, but like, the hope is that you have a core of noisier people. And then there are a lot of people who, you know, maybe agree with them and are ready to move in that direction. Once you start getting

small wins, like once you do see, you know, Union Drive be successful at one company, or you do see the company drop its business, like not IBM, but workers at Polaroid did get the company to stop selling to South Africa. So there, you know, hopefully you get these small wins, and then it does kind of chip away. No, I think it makes perfect sense, right? And what I was thinking about, as you were saying, that was what we're seeing with the Starbucks workers right now. And you know, you see one coffee shop that's able to successfully unionize and then all these other workers say, hey, they can do it. Why can't we? Because we have the same

issues. And now we see this wave across the United States. And, you know, hopefully a similar wave is coming for Apple and Amazon as well with the unionized Amazon warehouse in Staten Island and hopefully unionized Apple stores in New York and Atlanta. So yeah, I completely agree. And I think the same holds true at the headquarters and the HQs with the white collar workers as well. What we're seeing in the games industry, in the tech industry with workers at those workplaces organizing too. Now to end this fantastic conversation, I did want to ask you about the importance of remembering these histories and telling these stories. You know, because as we were talking about, it's easy to forget that these things happened because you need to actively make an effort to tell people that these things happen, to make sure that people remember to say, like, this is not the first time that people have ever organized in the tech industry. This has all happened before. And what is happening today, what workers are doing today exists in this longer

history of workers who have been doing the same things. Maybe there's things that can be learned, but at least it allows workers then to say, like, we're not the only workers who have done this. People have done this before. We don't need to be so worried about speaking out against these companies and these bosses and what they're up to. So what is the importance of sharing these stories and learning these histories as workers continue to organize in the tech industry? Part of it is just the connection you feel to this like larger organizing, whether it's stuff that's going on outside the tech industry, stuff that's happened historically, just feeling like that this is all connected and that you're part of this like larger story and larger history and I feel like there's just so much joy that comes in sharing these stories and feeling like

you're not alone and that you're not like the only person who's ever thought about these issues before I think there's also something very eye-opening at realizing how the tactics that the companies are using haven't changed and that like you know thinking like well it'll be different this time it's like really like are you really going to convince yourself of that after knowing that it hasn't changed since the last like 70 years? So there's a lot of power and just like, seeing the companies for what they are like kind of seeing through their bullshit. And I believe so much in the power of just sharing these stories and building our confidence as well that the

stories matter, that there are people that want to listen to these stories. I feel like that's like a huge part of it as well. For me, learning about these histories and hearing about the things that workers have done, but also learning about aspects of the tech industry that can be hidden or that aren't in the official histories are really important to getting context on what is happening and to get a fuller picture of the industry itself, to get an understanding that goes beyond the don't be evil and the official narrative, right? And that feels like it's really, really important.

And I think that these worker stories that you have been researching and kind of bringing back to light for you and some of your comrades is really important as well. So Anne, it has been fantastic to speak with you. I've really enjoyed this conversation. And I thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah, thank you so much. This has been really great. Anne Hayoung is a media artist,

former tech worker and organizer and a graduate student at UCLA. She is not on Twitter, but you can follow me at at Paris Marks. You can follow the show at at Tech Won't Save Us. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, and you can find out more about that at Harbinger Media Network dot com. And if you do want to support the work that goes into making the show every week, you can go to Patreon dot com slash Tech Won't Save Us and become a supporter. Thanks for listening. Thank you.