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By: Frederick Reiber
Boston, MA – Kickstarter Union (OPEIU Local 153) workers rallied on Thursday outside the 100 Oliver Street offices of Littler Mendelson, America’s largest union-busting firm, to launch their fourth week on strike. Employees from across the country, from Boston to New York City to Seattle, gathered to protest management’s choice to retain Littler Mendelson and press for an “honest, come to the table” negotiation.
Throughout the hour-long rally, workers from across the company spoke on the importance of the strike with reasons ranging from “all workers deserve a living wage” to their children’s futures.
The Kickstarter Union have been on strike since October 2 to defend their 4-day, 32-hour workweek (4DWW) and raise the compensation for the lowest-paid employees of the company. On September 26, 85% of workers voted to authorize the strike after management continued to “block real progress” since bargaining for Kickstarter’s second contract began in April 2025.
A Wall to Wall Union
Consistent in workers’ speeches at the rally targeting Littler Mendelson was the importance of a wall-to-wall union.
A wall-to-wall is a union that includes all workers at a given shop-floor. Unlike other unions, all workers, regardless of role, are covered by Kickstarter United, with bargaining not centered around a specific trade.
As one Kickstarter worker, Dannel Jurado, stated:
It was [our] intention from the very get-go for our union to be a wall to wall union… part of what our contract fight here is about is us recognizing we value your work a lot more.
Another rank-and-file worker argued that the strike wasn’t just about those with the large engineer salaries, but also for the workers who “make the platform run… the outreach, customer support, and trust and safety teams.”
Tech platforms and companies often rely heavily on hidden workers, those who manage and moderate the platforms. These jobs, despite being under some of the wealthiest companies in the world, often come with horrible working conditions and third-party independent contracts. Workers are required to filter through violent and explicit material at incredibly fast speeds, while receiving low pay and little mental health assistance.
One of Kickstarter United’s main demands is to secure a livable wage for these frontline workers. Estimates from the union put the cost of doing so at less than $100,000 per year, something the company can almost certainly afford given the high cost of anti-union lawyers.
Tech Organizing in the United States
This is the second American tech strike, following the New York Times Tech Guild strike in late 2024. The NYTimes strike and Kickstarter’s choice to unionize represent current shifts within American tech. What was once an industry dominated by high-paying jobs and good working conditions has seen continuous backslide as billionaires continue to squeeze workforces for more, with increasingly undesirable work conditions.
Organizing so early in tech means that much of the playbook is still being written. As Jurado put it:
It’s scary, […] it’s a lot of unknown stuff, but at the same time, I think it’s important. We wouldn’t be doing this work, we wouldn’t be out here at this rally if we didn’t think it was important.
One of the significant challenges is figuring out how to organize and strike digitally. Kickstarter is a fully remote workforce, meaning workers do not have an office, instead working from home.
Increasingly, tech workers are finding ways to overcome this barrier.
To some extent, Kickstarter Union workers are not new. It’s been fivr years since Kickstarter buried its fluffy reputation as a startup “public benefit corporation” prioritizing creativity over profits under petty managerial tyranny and vicious union-busting. Littler Mendelson is only the top of the iceberg; in 2019, when workers organized the shop intially, general counsel yelled at rank-and-file workers and then punished them for using company-provided feedback channels. Workers were brought into hostile meetings disguised as feedback meetings during the union “incident.” Workers started Googling how to start a union after discussing their shared fury through digital channels.
As recorded in the Engelberg Center at NYU Law’s Kickstarter Union Oral History Project, during the 2019 campaign for the Kickstarter Union,
This idea of worker feedback as a kind of punishable insubordination would come up again and again as a key tactic in management’s anti-union strategy.
The 2025 fight by the Kickstarter Union shows this has not changed.
Remote work may be a perk of the job, but it also means that the process of winning power in the workplace through the strike looks fundamentally different.
Kickstarter workers run digital community events that build the union’s bonds. For example, Kickstarter workers have recruited individuals to sign creator petitions and encouraged them to put pressure on management at events. Workers have also brought in pro-labor academic, political, and journalistic leaders to speak, including Eric Blanc, Brad Lander, and Kat Abughazaleh, to maintain momentum and deepen solidarity as organizers build the campaign.
Other approaches to remote union-building include workers using more recreational venues such as live streaming on Twitch, running Dungeons and Dragons with Kickstarter creators, and, finally, in-person pressure rallies where workers meet for actions in places like Boston.
Reflecting on Organizing and Community
The October 24 rally may have been targeted, but it also embodies the growing desire and need for unions and community across the board. As the workers at Kickstarter were quick to point out, resisting oppressive work conditions doesn’t happen when we withdraw – it happens when we talk to each other. Jurado stressed:
We need to be more in community with our coworkers, with our own communities, with our neighborhoods.
What the Kickstarter workers made clear is that community is not a side effect of unionization; it’s the goal. In a moment defined by alienation, surveillance, and political fear, the simple act of standing together is itself an act of resistance. That’s what organizing looks like: not grand gestures, but everyday commitments to one another.
Readers can tell management to meet the Kickstarter Union’s demands here.
Readers can also donate to the union’s solidarity fund here.
Frederick Reiber is a PhD student at Boston University researching collective action and technology. He is a member of SEIU 509, Boston DSA, and covers tech, labor, and education for Working Mass.
The post Kickstarter Workers Rally in Boston to Launch Fourth Strike Week appeared first on Working Mass.
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