Slack union buster feature

This newsletter focuses on design, not politics. If you opened this expecting a nuanced take on unions, you came to the wrong place. I’ve never been in a union. A few of my friends have, and they seem to like it. Good for them.

One thing I have noticed in the past few years is attempts to unionize employees at companies like Starbucks. I have yet to see this sentiment bleed over into tech, but what if it did?

Given how much power large companies have to surveil their employees, I feel like tech could pretty easily squash any inkling of union talk before it gained significant momentum (at least on company channels).

For example, what if Slack could detect language that indicated positive sentiment towards unionizing and shut it down with Slackbot? Is this invasive? Yup. Is it a bit over the top? Probably.

I don’t think there’s a ton of utility here, as people would just move their conversation to channels on other apps, but still, could be funny to have a cute little bot trying to squash unions at work.

Have a friend who’s in a union? Send them this newsletter.

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