Tentative bargaining agreement signed in Pittsburgh

 Kim Lyons reports on July 23 in The Verge. No details yet about the paid leaves negotiated. Let us hope their story does not end like our did after the bargaining agreement was signed. The ratification vote is scheduled for July 30. I wonder how the PTO negotiated compares with Microsoft's requirements for their suppliers.

I found out just now the agreement was ratified today, July 29. See the USW press release. Here is the text of the agreement (PDF), provided by USW (Thank you). It looks like they got 15 days PTO, 12 paid holidays and 12 weeks of paid parental leave. 

All our best wishes!

Microsoft's minimal requirements for PTO and paid parental leave:

April 2015, at least 15 days of PTO 

August 2018, minimum of 12 weeks of paid parental leave 

GHOST WORKERS: the web based proletariat exposed by this second French 2019 TV program and feature film

 Initially it is a September 2019 French TV program Cash Investigation that you can see on Youtube. It lasts 2 hours and contains several interviews in English. The producers have adapted a 52 minutes feature film format available on Vimeo (I have not seen it) with the title Ghost Workers. The program focuses on the bike riders for ubereats, the content reviewers working for Facebook via Accenture, labelers working for Google via Figure Eight. The segment about the Figure Eight CEO, Lucas Biewald is amazing, as is the quest to interview the CEO of Facebook France, running away (on camera) from the journalist trying to interview him. 

I have pointed where you can look for those segments in my notes below but I have not found the time to organize them better. Sorry. But this is worth seeing. It exposes the disgusting overexploitative side of AI and the millions made on the back of the ghost workers :(

Invisibles: the click workers. A French documentary about the overexploited workers without a voice

 

Best documentary at the 2020 International Bangkok Documentaty Awards

Content workers for Facebook in Dublin sue FB. Have you heard about it?

Statement in English from the French director Henri Poulain 

The first episode (about bike ubereats riders with English subtitles) where the pressure to deliver leads to accidents, sometimes fatal. When such a tragic accident happens, ubereats refuses to provide any information about the worker! see at 6 minutes.

Apparently the film is available via Vimeo (free 30 day trial and then you have to pay). Not sure how to get access :( 

I am trying to find out how English speakers can see the whole film.

Surprise in the second episode here comes... Lionbridge! see at 1.50 minutes (sorry it's in French). The worker based in France works for Google but this has to remain a secret.

At 7 minutes, she says that in 3,5 years, she has never met in person the employer, everything is done via internet. There is very strict confidentiality clause. 

The film is originally a TV series in 4 episodes (mostly in French).