1. A Status Update
#DL14, 14 November 2014, New York

2.  How do problems of Digita Labor (DL) compare to
those of non-DL, unorganized labour?
 How do we understand the current strategies and tools
being used to improve conditions for DL?
 Can we imagine and implement more opportunities and
tools for self-organizing?
 How can we add action based organizing to current
predominantly reputation based organizing?

3. SAYS-US.NET
Frank Kashner
 From GE IUE factory to software engineering to social
work & SEIU
 From South Bay Mental Health to jobvent.com to says-us.
net and digital solutions
 Says-us.net
 Online platform to enable working people to voice &
hear complaints about work (+)
 To find each other, to organize, and to take action

4. Digital Labor is Labor
 Jeff Bezos / Amazon = Innovator, Employer,
Aggregator, Boss, Enabler, Exploiter
 Requesters and Turkers = bosses and workers
 DL faces small employers, lawless, abusive, low
wages, divisions, isolation

5.  There are multiple rating & review systems
 ratemyemployer.ca, jobvent.com, jobitorial.com, glassdoor.com,
fixmyjob.com, coworker.org, contratados.org, Dynamo, Turkopticon,
hylo.org, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter
 Turkopticon ratings:
Communicativity, generosity, fairness, pr
omptness
 Wages & working conditions
 Reddit and other forums – community,
discussion, learning, action

6.  Dynamo – what is to be done?
 Turkopticon, contratados,
RateMyEmployer: using reputation to gain
power has limits – Soutbay Mental Health
 Petitions require signatures : anonymous
vs. attributed conundrum

7. Can we / how do we
 Identify “features” that will enable all labor?
 Add organizational to reputational power?
 Capability for anonymous communication
 Ability to take action – petition, flash mob,
demonstration, legal,?

8. Can we / how do we
 Give users control over movement from
anonymous to attributed?
 Enable users to reach out to outside, helpful
organizations?
 Solve challenges of large data, security, capability,
capacity?

9. GNUnion
Örsan Şenalp
 Unionist, immigrant-flex, knowledge worker
 Social Network Unionism, WikiStrike, NetwOrganizing,
Networked Labour
 Global Networked Labour Union (GNUnion) as a
distributed organized and networked labour union
design: Inspired by GNU/Linux, IWW, and Global
Labour Charter project, Occupy, 15M,…

10. Digital vent and uprising
 Digital and grounded transnational organising
 Wisconsin, North Africa, 15M, Occupy, and Gezi
uprisings
 Expression | anger-vent | self-organisation-hope |
action | pattern went global
 Oakland and West-Coast Shut Dow, MayFirst global
and 14N European transnational general strikes

11. The missing link
 ‘The communities', the people
 Says-Us as an interface? Between the unemployed,
disempowered, and precarious workers and
empowered communities
 An easy access p2p-platform to social networking
tools, skills, resources
 A bottom up built solution focusing on moving from
transnational self-expression, organizing and action

12. Status of our collaboration
 Learning from what exists
 Building online collaboration spaces
 Our web host, MayFirst / People Link
 WIN radio -"the complaint of the day”
 Agaric, a worker owned cooperative
 Collecting "20 questions”
 Unions, activists, whistle blowing groups

13. Help us!
 Concept development and prototyping for Says-us
as an functioning online portal
 Designers, developers, coders, security
 Activists, organizers, communities
 Creating domain specific “20 questions”
 Translation
 Legal advice
 Raise money: CoopFunding.org

14. THANK YOU!
Frank Kashner
Says-Us.Net
info@says-us.net
facebook: says-us
@says_us
Örsan Şenalp (networg.nl)
Global Networked Labour Union
gnunion.wordpress.com
gnunion@networg.nl
@OneBigMeshwork