Calling All Tech Workers: First Meeting + Social

Do you dream of a tech industry that treats all workers better? Do you wish workers' ethics could affect companies' actions? Could working conditions be improved, whether for you or your company's maintenance staff? Do you wish you could use your skills, time, and creativity to make life better for yourself and others?

Guided by a vision for an inclusive & equitable tech industry, Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) organizes to build worker power through rank & file self-organization and education. We are starting a San Diego local chapter of TWC. At this first general body meeting, we’ll come together to introduce you to the work other TWC chapters have done to improve working conditions and push for more ethical technology. We will also have group discussions and structured networking to surface concerns and opportunities that are unique to our city.

ALL TECH WORKERS are welcome, whether you're working security at General Atomics, writing code for Qualcomm, cleaning floors at Amazon, or driving for Lyft on the weekends. If your labor produces value for a company that deals in knowledge or technology, you are a part of our movement to build worker power in the tech industry.

CODE OF CONDUCT
All attendees will be held to our values and code of conduct, available for reading here:
https://techworkerscoalition.org/community-guide/

Some highlights:
• Show up. We value all forms of participation, but the most important way to participate is through in-person participation in events, actions, and meetings, as possible. We get things done by people showing up.

• Expect best intentions. Aspire to acting in friendship—make TWC comfortable, welcoming, supportive, respectful, sincere, and open.

• When giving feedback, keep it constructive. We value honesty, but only for the purpose of improvement, not for the sake of cruelty. On the opposite side of the spectrum, sugar-coating feedback in order to spare someone’s feelings is not necessarily constructive either. The goal is to be supportive, honest, and thoughtful.

• We believe disagreement and differences of opinion are a natural part of community and are important to work through when building community, strategizing, and learning from one another, but we do not tolerate harassment in any form. Participants who engage in harassment or abuse may be removed from the group at the discretion of the organizers.

Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

• Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices
• Deliberate intimidation or antagonism
• Exclusionary jokes or comments
• Unwelcome sexual attention or physical contact
• Sustained disruption of meetings, events, or online discussion
• Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease
• Comments that reinforce social structures of domination (related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion)
• Threats of violence

Abuse includes, but is not limited to
• Trolling, misdirection, and disrespectful use of resources and access

If you have been harassed or have witnessed abuse, please bring this to the attention of the group organizers (in meetings) or to members of the steering committee.