Tech workers are resisting Silicon Valley's AI push

Meta employees circulated a flyer gathering over 1,600 signatures against the company's new Model Capability Initiative collecting employee computer usage data to train AI models; Google DeepMind UK employees voted to form a union, opposing the company's provision of military AI; laid-off Oracle employees jointly demanded higher severance and extended health insurance. Since 2025, nearly 400,000 tech workers have been laid off, with over 150,000 this year. Meta said this month it will allow employees to pause data collection for up to 30 minutes at a time. Emily Mazo, a Columbia University researcher on tech worker collective action, believes the current wave of organizing differs from the previous two, with private-sector tech unionization rates below 6%.