Surveillance, Spacing, Screaming and Scabbing: How Digital Technology Facilitates Union Busting

2026-03-03

AI Summary

This study examines how U.S. employers systematically deploy digital technologies to obstruct unionization efforts during workers’ campaigns for collective bargaining rights. Through qualitative case analyses of Amazon, Starbucks, and a university, the research identifies and conceptualizes four distinct techno-managerial anti-union strategies characteristic of the digital era: digital surveillance, algorithmically enforced spatial segregation, automated information flooding, and gig-platform-enabled strike disruption. Drawing on publicly available evidence, the analysis elucidates the cross-contextual operational mechanisms and strategic logics underpinning these tactics. Beyond exposing how digital tools are weaponized to suppress labor organizing, the study offers theoretical and practical insights for developing worker resistance strategies, guiding future scholarly inquiry, and informing the design of supportive sociotechnical interventions that advance labor rights in digitally mediated workplaces.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: AI & Jobs/Labor
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Web
• Humans and AI: Crowd Sourcing and Human Computation

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Responsible Web: Social and technical mechanisms of refusal for web technologies and applications
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data quality in the era of algorithmically-generated content

Abstract

Despite high approval ratings for unions and growing worker interest in organizing, employees in the United States still face significant barriers to securing collective bargaining agreements. A key factor is employer counter-organizing: efforts to suppress unionization through rule changes, retaliation, and disruption. Designing sociotechnical tools and strategies to resist these tactics requires a deeper understanding of the role computing technologies play in counter-organizing against unionization. In this paper, we examine three high-profile organizing efforts -- at Amazon, Starbucks, and \university -- using publicly available sources to identify four recurring technological tactics: surveillance, spacing, screaming and scabbing. We analyze how these tactics operate across contexts, highlighting their digital dimensions and strategic deployment. We conclude with implications for organizing in digitally-mediated workplaces, directions for future research, and emergent forms of worker resistance.

Problem

• union busting
• digital technology
• employer counter-organizing
• collective bargaining
• worker organizing

Innovation

• surveillance
• spacing
• screaming
• scabbing
• union busting