Wiki
A worker-organizing wiki built to help people get oriented and get steadier.
Browse by issue, work mode, worker status, or campaign stage. The point is to help workers understand what they are looking at, compare notes more carefully, and make a better next move.
Start with the page that sounds most like your actual problem.
If workers are dealing with surveillance, layoffs, burnout, promotions, exclusion, or contractor confusion, begin there.
Then open the work-mode and campaign-stage pages so the tactic matches the workplace you actually have, not the one you wish you had.
If a coworker thinks software workers are too scattered, too well paid, or too professional to organize, the evidence pages are the right place to slow that claim down.
Use checklists and reference pages when you need something shorter, calmer, and easier to share with one trusted coworker.
If the main U.S. private-sector lane does not fit because the workplace is public-sector, outside the United States, or split across unclear statuses, start with the off-ramp pages instead of forcing the wrong frame.
Built as open reference, checklists, and stage-by-stage guidance.
The wiki is organized by issue, work mode, worker status, campaign stage, and quick checklists. That makes it easier to move from "what is happening?" to "what do we do next?" without jumping straight to a dramatic move.
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Search across guides without sending the query anywhere.
Use search when you know the problem but not the page name. Results come from a static local index, so the query stays on the site.
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Optional tags
AI Surveillance and Worker Data
If your employer suddenly wants more telemetry, more dashboards, more screenshots, or more "AI readiness," workers are usually right to pay attention. A system that is sold as effi
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-26
Use when: Use when management expands monitoring, dashboards, or AI-readiness demands and workers need the broader frame.
Company Device and Account Safety Checklist
Assume company devices, company accounts, and company networks are not private. You do not need paranoia theatre. You do need cleaner habits. If you can, do this instead use a pers
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when workers need a calmer digital-safety checklist before they start comparing notes, sharing documents, or moving a conversation off employer systems.
Contractor, Vendor, and Misclassification Questions
Software and game workplaces often mix direct employees, staffing firm workers, outsourced QA, vendor teams, and people labeled "independent contractors." Workers can sit in the sa
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when the workplace is split across contractors, vendors, temps, or unclear employment status.
Discrimination, Exclusion, and Organizing Safely
Two things can be true at once: a worker may be dealing with discrimination or exclusion that needs immediate support, and the broader workplace may also have a collective organizi
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-26
Use when: Use when unequal treatment, exclusion, or discrimination is part of the workplace issue and workers need to organize without flattening it.
First Contract Basics
Recognition does not automatically produce better wages, staffing, remote work protections, or surveillance limits. A first contract is its own campaign. Workers still need structu
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when workers are thinking past recognition and need a clearer picture of bargaining priorities and post-recognition discipline.
First Organizing Conversation Checklist
The first conversation is not a speech. It is a way to learn whether the issue is shared, whether trust exists, and whether the other person is ready for another step. Before you s
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when you are about to have a first careful one-to-one and need a short practical prompt.
Game Worker Crunch
Crunch is often described as passion, commitment, or the price of shipping. Workers usually know better. Most of the time it is a production management problem that gets pushed dow
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when crunch, unstable production planning, or always-on expectations are the live issue in a game workplace.
Layoffs and Severance
Layoffs create confusion on purpose. Information gets fragmented, timelines get compressed, and workers are pushed to make decisions while isolated and off balance. That is exactly
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-26
Use when: Use when layoffs, severance, notice, or abrupt restructuring are the immediate problem.
My Employer Is Tracking Computer Activity for AI Training
If the company is tracking keystrokes, mouse activity, screenshots, app usage, or output history, workers are not overreacting by seeing a bigger issue there. That kind of monitori
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-26
Use when: Use when the concrete issue is keystroke, mouse, screenshot, or computer-activity tracking tied to AI or productivity claims.
On-Call, Burnout, and After-Hours Work
Burnout gets framed as a personal resilience problem all the time. But when the same people are always on, always covering gaps, always apologizing for understaffing, and always ex
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when availability pressure, pager load, or after-hours work is becoming a collective workplace issue.
Organizing Conversations
An organizing conversation is not a speech, a debate win, or a big reveal. It is a careful way to find out whether another worker sees the same problem, trusts you enough to talk h
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when workers agree something is wrong but still need better one-to-one conversations before any bigger step.
Organizing Glossary
This glossary is here to make the rest of the site easier to read. The goal is not legal perfection in miniature. It is to give workers plain language handles for the terms that co
Risk level: low
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when labor terms are slowing people down or making the other pages harder to share.
Outside the United States: Start Here
This wiki is written mainly for U.S. private sector software and game workers. If you are outside the United States, the site can still help with issue framing, organizing hygiene,
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when the workplace is outside the United States or when a worker is trying to use this site from another national legal system.
Pay Transparency, Leveling, and Promotions
Pay, leveling, and promotions get framed as deeply personal questions all the time. But if the same opaque standards, stalled timelines, and moving goalposts keep showing up across
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when promotion standards, leveling, raises, or performance ratings are becoming a shared workplace issue.
Protected Concerted Activity
Workers often have stronger protection when acting together about workplace conditions than when acting alone. Talking with coworkers about pay, hours, surveillance, workload, and
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-26
Use when: Use when workers need the plain-English basics on acting together about workplace conditions.
Public-Sector Workers: Start Here
This site is built mainly for U.S. private sector software and game workers. If you work for a public employer, you are not in the same legal lane by default. The plain English ver
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when you work for a government employer, public university, school district, transit agency, or other public body and the private-sector NLRA pages do not quite fit.
Recognition, Majority Support, and Going Public
Recognition is not a vibes milestone. It is not the point where people are angry enough, excited enough, or tired enough to finally say something out loud. It is the point where th
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when workers are asking whether the campaign is actually ready for a public recognition test.
Remote, Hybrid, and Distributed Organizing
The issue may be the same across a workplace, but the mechanics are not. People build trust differently in offices, across hybrid schedules, and across distributed teams. If you ig
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when the workplace is split across offices, home, or different locations and the organizing path needs to match that.
Retaliation Response Checklist
If retaliation may already be underway, the first job is not to produce a perfect theory. It is to lower the chaos, keep the facts clean, and avoid handing management a second excu
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when management pressure has already started and workers need a calmer first-response checklist.
Retaliation Warning Signs
Retaliation rarely arrives with a neat label on it. More often it shows up as a sudden shift in scrutiny, access, tone, or expectations right after workers start comparing notes or
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when management behavior changes after workers start comparing notes, raising issues, or acting together.
Safety Basics Before You Organize
Safety does not mean silence. It means workers keep control of the basics before a problem becomes a panic. Use this page before moving from private concern to organizing activity,
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-26
Use when: Use before a worker moves organizing conversations, records, or plans into a more sensitive stage.
Software Workers Are Numerous, Strategic, and Still Under-Organized
Software workers get talked about in contradictory ways. On one day, management treats them as interchangeable headcount. On the next, the public is told they are too specialized,
Risk level: low
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when people need a sourced answer to the claim that software workers are too small or too scattered to organize.
Supervisor Status and Exclusion Questions
Titles get sloppy in software and game workplaces. "Lead," "manager," "staff plus," "people lead," and similar labels do not tell you enough by themselves. What matters is the auth
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when a lead, manager, or quasi-manager title is making workers unsure who sits in the organizing lane.
What Collective Bargaining Can Change for Software Workers
Collective bargaining does not turn a bad boss into a good person. It does something more useful than that: it changes the terrain. Without a union, workers can complain, persuade,
Risk level: low
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when coworkers ask what a union would materially change beyond symbolism.
What Not to Do Checklist
Workers do not need perfect behavior. They do need to avoid turning a real workplace problem into an easy disciplinary pretext. Do not organize on company email, company chat, comp
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when people are angry, rushed, or tempted into moves that create easy disciplinary pretexts.
What to Preserve Checklist
You do not need to archive everything. Preserve the facts that help workers compare what changed, who was affected, and whether management tied the issue to performance, discipline
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when workers need to preserve the facts before policies shift, evidence disappears, or management rewrites the story.
Why Software Workers Have Been Slow to Unionize
The simple story is that software workers did not unionize because they did not need to. That story is too neat to be useful. The better answer is that a real set of obstacles kept
Risk level: low
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when coworkers assume tech never organized because unionism does not fit the industry.
Worker Co-op Basics
Worker co ops belong on this site because some workers do eventually look for an ownership model that is not built around extraction, layoffs, and top down control. That does not m
Risk level: medium
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when workers want to think seriously about co-ops after closures, layoffs, or repeated extraction.
Workplace Mapping
Workplace mapping means getting honest about the workplace you actually have: who works where, who trusts whom, which issues are sharpest, and where influence really sits. It is th
Risk level: high
Last reviewed: 2026-04-22
Use when: Use when workers need to understand relationships, influence, and weak spots before escalation.
Jump straight to the right shelf.
Use the shortest page that does the job.
Playbooks explain the problem, the organizing angle behind it, and what kind of next move the page is good for.
Checklists are for moments when people need a calmer, faster reference.
Reference pages help when worker status, exclusions, or labor terms are unclear.
Evidence pages are for moments when workers need numbers, history, and a sober case for why collective bargaining can matter in software.
issue guides
Issue Guides
Start with the problem workers are actually facing right now.
AI Surveillance and Worker Data
If your employer suddenly wants more telemetry, more dashboards, more screenshots, or more "AI readiness," workers are usually right to pay attention. A system that is sold as effi
AI, Surveillance & Worker Data
Read playbookContractor, Vendor, and Misclassification Questions
Software and game workplaces often mix direct employees, staffing firm workers, outsourced QA, vendor teams, and people labeled "independent contractors." Workers can sit in the sa
Contractors, Vendors & Exclusions
Check referenceDiscrimination, Exclusion, and Organizing Safely
Two things can be true at once: a worker may be dealing with discrimination or exclusion that needs immediate support, and the broader workplace may also have a collective organizi
Discrimination, Exclusion & Retaliation
Read playbookGame Worker Crunch
Crunch is often described as passion, commitment, or the price of shipping. Workers usually know better. Most of the time it is a production management problem that gets pushed dow
Game Workers
Read playbookLayoffs and Severance
Layoffs create confusion on purpose. Information gets fragmented, timelines get compressed, and workers are pushed to make decisions while isolated and off balance. That is exactly
Layoffs & Job Security
Read playbookMy Employer Is Tracking Computer Activity for AI Training
If the company is tracking keystrokes, mouse activity, screenshots, app usage, or output history, workers are not overreacting by seeing a bigger issue there. That kind of monitori
AI, Surveillance & Worker Data
Read playbookOn-Call, Burnout, and After-Hours Work
Burnout gets framed as a personal resilience problem all the time. But when the same people are always on, always covering gaps, always apologizing for understaffing, and always ex
Workload, On-Call & Burnout
Read playbookPay Transparency, Leveling, and Promotions
Pay, leveling, and promotions get framed as deeply personal questions all the time. But if the same opaque standards, stalled timelines, and moving goalposts keep showing up across
Pay, Promotions & Performance
Read playbooksafety
Safety Basics
Start here when workers need to lower exposure before taking a bigger step.
work modes
Work Modes
In-person, hybrid, and distributed workplaces need different organizing mechanics.
Organizing Conversations
An organizing conversation is not a speech, a debate win, or a big reveal. It is a careful way to find out whether another worker sees the same problem, trusts you enough to talk h
Organizing Basics
Read playbookRemote, Hybrid, and Distributed Organizing
The issue may be the same across a workplace, but the mechanics are not. People build trust differently in offices, across hybrid schedules, and across distributed teams. If you ig
Organizing Structure & Work Mode
Read playbookWorkplace Mapping
Workplace mapping means getting honest about the workplace you actually have: who works where, who trusts whom, which issues are sharpest, and where influence really sits. It is th
Organizing Basics
Read playbookworker status
Worker Status & Exclusions
Use these pages when titles, classification, exclusions, or the basic legal lane are not straightforward.
Contractor, Vendor, and Misclassification Questions
Software and game workplaces often mix direct employees, staffing firm workers, outsourced QA, vendor teams, and people labeled "independent contractors." Workers can sit in the sa
Contractors, Vendors & Exclusions
Check referenceOutside the United States: Start Here
This wiki is written mainly for U.S. private sector software and game workers. If you are outside the United States, the site can still help with issue framing, organizing hygiene,
Public-Sector & Other Off-Ramps
Check referenceProtected Concerted Activity
Workers often have stronger protection when acting together about workplace conditions than when acting alone. Talking with coworkers about pay, hours, surveillance, workload, and
Rights & Risk
Check referencePublic-Sector Workers: Start Here
This site is built mainly for U.S. private sector software and game workers. If you work for a public employer, you are not in the same legal lane by default. The plain English ver
Public-Sector & Other Off-Ramps
Check referenceRetaliation Warning Signs
Retaliation rarely arrives with a neat label on it. More often it shows up as a sudden shift in scrutiny, access, tone, or expectations right after workers start comparing notes or
Rights & Risk
Check referenceSupervisor Status and Exclusion Questions
Titles get sloppy in software and game workplaces. "Lead," "manager," "staff plus," "people lead," and similar labels do not tell you enough by themselves. What matters is the auth
Supervisors, Leads & Exclusions
Check referencecampaign stages
Campaign Stages
Move from orientation to structure instead of jumping straight to a public move.
First Contract Basics
Recognition does not automatically produce better wages, staffing, remote work protections, or surveillance limits. A first contract is its own campaign. Workers still need structu
Recognition & Bargaining
Read playbookFirst Organizing Conversation Checklist
The first conversation is not a speech. It is a way to learn whether the issue is shared, whether trust exists, and whether the other person is ready for another step. Before you s
Checklists & Tools
Use checklistOrganizing Conversations
An organizing conversation is not a speech, a debate win, or a big reveal. It is a careful way to find out whether another worker sees the same problem, trusts you enough to talk h
Organizing Basics
Read playbookRecognition, Majority Support, and Going Public
Recognition is not a vibes milestone. It is not the point where people are angry enough, excited enough, or tired enough to finally say something out loud. It is the point where th
Recognition & Escalation
Read playbookRemote, Hybrid, and Distributed Organizing
The issue may be the same across a workplace, but the mechanics are not. People build trust differently in offices, across hybrid schedules, and across distributed teams. If you ig
Organizing Structure & Work Mode
Read playbookWorker Co-op Basics
Worker co ops belong on this site because some workers do eventually look for an ownership model that is not built around extraction, layoffs, and top down control. That does not m
Worker-Owned Alternatives
Read playbookWorkplace Mapping
Workplace mapping means getting honest about the workplace you actually have: who works where, who trusts whom, which issues are sharpest, and where influence really sits. It is th
Organizing Basics
Read playbookchecklists tools
Checklists & Tools
Short practical pages for the first moves workers usually need to make.
Company Device and Account Safety Checklist
Assume company devices, company accounts, and company networks are not private. You do not need paranoia theatre. You do need cleaner habits. If you can, do this instead use a pers
Checklists & Tools
Use checklistFirst Organizing Conversation Checklist
The first conversation is not a speech. It is a way to learn whether the issue is shared, whether trust exists, and whether the other person is ready for another step. Before you s
Checklists & Tools
Use checklistRetaliation Response Checklist
If retaliation may already be underway, the first job is not to produce a perfect theory. It is to lower the chaos, keep the facts clean, and avoid handing management a second excu
Checklists & Tools
Use checklistSafety Basics Before You Organize
Safety does not mean silence. It means workers keep control of the basics before a problem becomes a panic. Use this page before moving from private concern to organizing activity,
Safety & First Steps
Use checklistWhat Not to Do Checklist
Workers do not need perfect behavior. They do need to avoid turning a real workplace problem into an easy disciplinary pretext. Do not organize on company email, company chat, comp
Checklists & Tools
Use checklistWhat to Preserve Checklist
You do not need to archive everything. Preserve the facts that help workers compare what changed, who was affected, and whether management tied the issue to performance, discipline
Checklists & Tools
Use checklistreference
Reference
Use these pages to ground the basics before you make bigger strategic assumptions.
Contractor, Vendor, and Misclassification Questions
Software and game workplaces often mix direct employees, staffing firm workers, outsourced QA, vendor teams, and people labeled "independent contractors." Workers can sit in the sa
Contractors, Vendors & Exclusions
Check referenceOrganizing Glossary
This glossary is here to make the rest of the site easier to read. The goal is not legal perfection in miniature. It is to give workers plain language handles for the terms that co
Reference
Check referenceOutside the United States: Start Here
This wiki is written mainly for U.S. private sector software and game workers. If you are outside the United States, the site can still help with issue framing, organizing hygiene,
Public-Sector & Other Off-Ramps
Check referenceProtected Concerted Activity
Workers often have stronger protection when acting together about workplace conditions than when acting alone. Talking with coworkers about pay, hours, surveillance, workload, and
Rights & Risk
Check referencePublic-Sector Workers: Start Here
This site is built mainly for U.S. private sector software and game workers. If you work for a public employer, you are not in the same legal lane by default. The plain English ver
Public-Sector & Other Off-Ramps
Check referenceRetaliation Response Checklist
If retaliation may already be underway, the first job is not to produce a perfect theory. It is to lower the chaos, keep the facts clean, and avoid handing management a second excu
Checklists & Tools
Use checklistRetaliation Warning Signs
Retaliation rarely arrives with a neat label on it. More often it shows up as a sudden shift in scrutiny, access, tone, or expectations right after workers start comparing notes or
Rights & Risk
Check referenceSafety Basics Before You Organize
Safety does not mean silence. It means workers keep control of the basics before a problem becomes a panic. Use this page before moving from private concern to organizing activity,
Safety & First Steps
Use checklistSupervisor Status and Exclusion Questions
Titles get sloppy in software and game workplaces. "Lead," "manager," "staff plus," "people lead," and similar labels do not tell you enough by themselves. What matters is the auth
Supervisors, Leads & Exclusions
Check referenceevidence leverage
Evidence & Leverage
Use these pages when you need facts, history, and a calmer answer to the claim that software workers cannot organize.
Software Workers Are Numerous, Strategic, and Still Under-Organized
Software workers get talked about in contradictory ways. On one day, management treats them as interchangeable headcount. On the next, the public is told they are too specialized,
Evidence, Leverage & Worker Power
Read evidenceWhat Collective Bargaining Can Change for Software Workers
Collective bargaining does not turn a bad boss into a good person. It does something more useful than that: it changes the terrain. Without a union, workers can complain, persuade,
Evidence, Leverage & Worker Power
Read evidenceWhy Software Workers Have Been Slow to Unionize
The simple story is that software workers did not unionize because they did not need to. That story is too neat to be useful. The better answer is that a real set of obstacles kept
Evidence, Leverage & Worker Power
Read evidence