| title | date |
|---|---|
Meeting #5 |
2019-10-10 19:00:00 +0200 |
Tech Workers have a lot of potential power to change society. Anyone who identifies as a tech worker and is interested in learning how to build collective power or get involved in a campaign is welcome. Tech Workers are currently organising against gender pay gaps, workplace harassment, surveillance technologies and now climate change!
The fifth meeting of Tech Workers Coalition Berlin
Bilgisaray, Oranienstrasse 45, Berlin
Bilgisaray is a smoke-free environment. Children are welcome. Unfortunately, it is not wheelchair accessible. We will try to ensure that future venue spaces are accessible.
- 19:00 - Brief introduction for newer folks
- 19:15 - Introduction, find note takers
- 19:30 - Report back from climate strike
- 20:00 - Breakout group: strategy
- who do we want to reach out to?
- what are our main topics?
- 20:30 - Report back to group discussion
- 21:00 - Announcements, Topics for future Meeting
The notes are organised in two sections. Politics and logistics.
After the overview of Climate Strike presentation, we discussed our role/involvement with broader social movements as opposed to traditional workplace organising.
We discussed future activities such as hackathons, since have many technologically savvy people, and can also network/meet other groups/individuals. Something Data for Social Good does.
A member invited members of TWC to join a grassroots digitization participatory planning strategy meeting for Germany. This would be a longer term project, but an entry into policy arena.
Relatedly, we discussed five growing/strategic sectors in Berlin to examine based on their (negative) social impact on city, and also organising potential:
- Fashion
- Medical Tech
- Property Tech (PropTech)
- Urban Mobility
- Finance (FinTech)
Towards end of meeting, two Game Workers Unite members came, and reported back on their meeting with a Ver.di representative. From there, a discussion ensued about the strength and failures of German unions. Ver.di expressed interest in meeting with TWC as well. Their IT sector is undergoing several changes at the moment, for example merging with Media sector, similar to Communication Workers of America union in the United States.
GWU and TWC agreed to continue to collaborate, as we are operating in similar industries and - despite the differences - share many core values (empowerment of workers, etc.)
9 people were present at the meeting, including several new people, as well as 2 representatives of the Game Workers Unite Deutschland.
We can promote events, if we plan ahead online and in print at StressFaktor, a local counterculture calendar.
Missing from the demo, and in general for outreach are stickers, flyers and more importantly clear message of what TWC Berlin is focused on. Without clear messaging, the rest of outreach will not be as impactful. We discussed creating a MeetUp.org account to promote events, however recent news make the future of Meetup.org uncertain.
For example our website could do better to also link/refer to other existing organisations or groups, whether it's Critical Workers legal services, or basic know your rights (bonus for translations).