Marco RogersJul 17, 2024

I consider myself a grizzled veteran of the DEI movement. I don't want to oversell it. But I did a lot of real work in the trenches at several companies. I wasn't naive when I started, but I was uneducated. A lot of this was new territory. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way. Sometimes that's the only way to learn them.

Here's an important one. We should never expect companies to willing give real power and leverage to employees. It probably not gonna happen.

Show threadMarco RogersJul 17, 2024

We did find ourselves in a moment when we had a certain amount of leverage. We could make them acknowledge the legitimacy of DEI concerns. We could make them come to the table and discuss things. We could maybe even get them to commit resources towards things we wanted to do.

But none of that is the same as having real power to make policy and make sure it was enforced. We never had that. It was on loan. And it got snatched away easily.

Show threadMarco RogersJul 17, 2024
We are going to relearn a bunch of lessons about unions too. Yes we've been here before. And yes some of those people are still around. But they're not gonna do the work. There's a whole new generation of people that are going to have to step into doing the work. They're gonna get bruised a lot while they figure out what real bargaining power looks like.
Show threadMarco RogersJul 17, 2024
I don't want to overstate this comparison between DEI actions and labor actions. I'm only taking a moment to try to get at some important distinctions. The goal of DEI was to change companies. To actually modify the work environment so that more marginalized people could get in and survive within in them. And we did a lot of that work before the winds started to change. The goal of unions is to create our own power separate from companies themselves.
Show threadMarco RogersJul 17, 2024
Unions also have a profound impact on the work environment. But it doesn't disappear if you change jobs. It's not something that can be ripped away from you when leadership changes it's mind. It's not something that goes broke because it was always dependent on money that was given willingly by the company. It has to persist outside the whims of leadership. That's why it becomes an actual threat to them and translates into real power.
Austin WillisJul 17, 2024
Show threadMarco Rogers
The thing about creating real power is that you might have to use it. Like actually use it. Stop working. Walk out. Malicious compliance. It's a fight, and you have to be ready to make it hurt. If you find that you're doing those things by yourself, you didn't really accomplish anything. There has to be a critical mass of people ready to do it with you. And that takes a lot of organizing. A lot. Things will get much more heated and tense before it feels like power.
Jul 17, 2024 at 10:43pmWeb
Show threadMarco RogersJul 17, 2024
The reason I get a little snarky when some people talk about unions is that you can tell they haven't done any work. They're still waiting for somebody else to do work so they can just show up and wield the power. This happened a lot with DEI too. And I have to remind myself not to be judgmental and just let people go on their journey of fucking around and finding out. A lot of people wanna create work. Not a lot of people wanna do work.
Show threadMichael W Lucas Jul 17, 2024

@polotek I've been at more than one company where people started talking about forming a union.

I'd present one of the innumerable articles on "how to start a union."

Folks noped right out: some quickly, some slowly, but always 100%.

Show threadMarco RogersJul 17, 2024
@mwl people love to say "we" when they mean "somebody who is not me".
Show threadPär BjörklundJul 18, 2024
@polotek Swedish union history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85dalen_shootings
People tend to forget how much it took to make unions successful and powerful
Ådalen shootings - Wikipedia