Fighting back against bad employers (and bad companies)
Changing the narrative and getting creative.
A few weeks ago, I saw a comment on social media: It's so wild to me that people will criticize an employer online. The original poster went on that if other companies saw the post, they wouldn't want to hire the person, thinking the person was toxic.
That is exactly what toxic companies are counting on: that people will stay silent. Glassdoor is certainly an anonymous option, but more power to the people willing to publicly share their experiences. Speaking out is one of the few powers people have to fight back. If employees don't speak out, companies become even more powerful, and their behavior continues, unchecked.
Employers don't get to control the narrative
A few weeks ago, Meta announced a layoff of 5% of its workforce, saying that it would be targeting low performers. "I've decided to raise the bar on performance management," Mark Zuckerberg wrote in an internal memo. This move follows layoffs of 3% (11,000 employees) in November 2022 and 12% (10,000) employees in 2023. This round of layoffs affected about 3,600 people. From a company that used to have an internal motto of "move fast and break things."
The impacted employees did not “go gentle into that good night,” as the saying goes. Business Insider noted that many immediately took to LinkedIn to push back against Zuckerberg's “low performer label.” Many stated that they had consistently received “exceeds expectations” during review cycles. They changed the narrative that Meta had tried to control.
The pushback is a breath of fresh air. Many people are still hesitant when announcing that they lost their jobs, fearing stigma or the perception that they did something wrong. When, in fact, a layoff can be due to any number of reasons — including company mismanagement of its own hiring practices (overhiring) or that the job simply isn't a good fit.
One Meta researcher wrote, "While we can't do anything about being laid off, we aren't without agency." People often forget that, swept up by the emotions of being laid off, coupled with one person fighting a giant company. Meta's employees certainly have numbers on their side, but that's usually not the case. In other instances, companies demand silence by tying a severance package to an NDA or other threats.
Public discourse is crucial to holding companies accountable and bringing about change — especially within companies that are terrible or have toxic work environments.
I recently saw a LinkedIn post from a CEO that made me roll my eyes all the way to the ceiling (with phrases like “suited, booted, and ready to win”). Out of curiosity, I looked up the company on Glassdoor. The reviews were scathing, with most people saying that the company was completely toxic, with descriptions of humiliating employees in meetings and firing people mere weeks after they'd started. To echo the former Meta employee, people aren't without agency. They can reclaim some power.
Fighting back against unfair practices in other ways
Of course, public agency can only be exercised when people feel safe doing so. That's not always the case. But people can — collectively — fight back in other ways, when they think a company's business practices are unfair.
The group Safe Street Rebel opposes self-driving taxis in San Francisco due to the risks to pedestrians and other vehicles. The group put cones on the front of the robotaxis, which disabled the vehicles by blocking their sensors. In October 2023, the DMV stopped the operation of Cruise robotaxis in California because they were determined to be "an unreasonable risk to the public."
Many people are frustrated with how AI companies have scraped online articles and images to train their models without compensating the original creator. Computer science professor Ben Zhao came up with two products — Glaze and Nightshade — to "poison the AI well." On an episode of Freakonomics Radio, Zhao explains:
“Poison is sort of a technical term in the research community. Basically it means manipulating training data in such a way to get AI models to do something perhaps unexpected, perhaps more to your goals, than the original trainers intended to.”
Glaze, for example, disrupts AI mimicry in artwork by subtly changing the artwork in ways that are invisible to the human eye, making it harder for AI to mimic the art.
This type of disruption has always had its place in the working world. Take the Luddites, for example. In the 19th century, Luddites opposed automated machinery that was introduced into textile production. They were concerned about the impact on worker pay and quality output. Highly organized groups of Luddites destroyed the machines (and then faced harsh backlash from government officials).
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, points out how we are still impacted today by the advances in technology. She says:
“As we're seeing the economy change, as we're seeing, for example, new industries emerging, technology and the advent of artificial intelligence, it has become even more clear that workers need a voice. Workers need a seat at the table to make sure that those changes, those impacts, actually work for working people.
We don't all want to show up to a job where we're being managed by an algorithm, or we're being fired by an app. We want to make sure that those systems are actually working for us, not just the wealthy or the bosses.”
AI was at one of the main issues in the SAG-AFTRA strike back in 2023. Actors were concerned that AI could replace them, or create a likeness that could be used without their consent. The union demanded a seat at the table — and won. The agreement reached between the actors and the studios contained provisions about the use of “digital replicas” and “synthetic performers.” The actors' concerns were resolved, for now, but who knows what type of technology capabilities will have emerged by the time the contracts are up for renewal again in 2026? At the rate that AI is currently evolving, probably something we haven't dreamed of yet.
Agency is important. Whether it's protecting ourselves against an employer, or bad business practices, or technology. The end result has to work for us — not for the people who profit off of our talents.
As Shuler notes: "If we didn't have a way to come together to make our voices more powerful, workers would be taken advantage of, abused, disrespected, and would be voiceless and powerless."
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