Trump’s Tech Opposition
Tech employees who increasingly see themselves as workers will be an important sector of resistance to Trump’s agenda.
The Tech Workers Coalition is an important hub for tech worker organizing in the Bay Area. In January 2017, its members helped stage a protest outside of the Palo Alto headquarters of Palantir — a data-analytics company co-founded by Trump adviser Peter Thiel that helps various federal agencies track and deport immigrants. And the organization has continued to coordinate actions and campaigns throughout the Bay.
Matt Schaefer and Kristen Sheets are members of the Tech Workers Coalition. Schaefer is currently a UX designer and engineer with Loconomics Cooperative, and Sheets is a tech worker and socialist activist with the International Socialist Organization. In this interview, they speak to Ben Tarnoff, a founding editor at Logic, about the obstacles and opportunities for tech organizing under Trump.
This interview appears in Tech Against Trump, a forthcoming book chronicling the rising tide of tech resistance to Trump, assembled by the editors of Logic.