Lucas Greene of WebProNews reports on the warning issued by Cory Doctorow, the prolific author and Tech Critic, on "enshittification" - where tech companies degrade services for profit, harming users and Workers amid mass layoffs. Doctorow is now urging Tech Employees to Unionize for better wages, job security and ethical influence, countering monopolies and fostering industry accountability. He says the Labor Movement could reverse the trend and empower Creators. In a recent piece published in Communications of the ACM, Doctorow Unionization was a primary defense for Tech Workers to utilize against this downward spiral. He points to the mass layoffs that have rocked Silicon Valley - from Meta to Google, leaving skilled Engineers and Developers feeling as disposable as Gig Economy Drivers. Enshittification, a term Doctorow coined in 2022, describes a predictable cycle: Platforms start by wooing users with superior experiences, then pivot to extracting maximum revenue from suppliers and partners, and finally turn on their own users with ads, paywalls and diminished functionality. As detailed in his book: Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, this process is exacerbated by lax antitrust enforcement, allowing a handful of giants to dominate without fear of competition. For Tech Workers, the implications are profound. Doctorow highlights how companies like Amazon treat employees as interchangeable parts with grueling conditions and minimal protections. He draws parallels to historical labor struggles, noting that without collective bargaining, Workers bear the brunt of corporate greed - evident in the recent waves of tech layoffs that have eliminated tens of thousands of jobs since 2023. Unionization, Doctorow contends, offers a bulwark against such exploitation. In the Slashdot coverage of his ACM article, he emphasizes Organized Labor can enforce fair wages, job security and ethical standards, preventing companies from “enshittifying” their internal operations. He cites successes like the Alphabet Workers Union at Google, which has pushed back against unethical projects and discriminatory practices.

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