Work here: have a voice and change the world http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2013/04/whitney *Heather Whitney, Berkman Fellow* Today, 6.30 pm Webcast live: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast http://nexa.polito.it/berkman-webcast-live Companies like Google and Twitter and Facebook are thought to provide some of the most envied work environments <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/business/at-google-a-place-to-work-and-pla...> on the planet. These employers promise not only tons of "perks" but the opportunity to work collaboratively on incredibly important, intellectually challenging, and cool problems that matter. These employers also promise employees a real voice <https://twitter.com/jobs/why_work> in the company through things like weekly all-hands where employees can ask top level executives tough questions and a generally flat corporate structure. These are high trust, high cooperation, open work environments and studies have shown they pay off -- employees work harder and companies do better. But should employees be worried that their trust in their employer, so purposefully cultivated, has been built on promises that are more illusion than enforceable promise? What happens when employees, enticed by these dream-like environments and promises of doing good, see their employer make choices that appear anything but? From unilateral and dramatic changes in working conditions (e.g. taking away work from home <http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/27/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-pulls-the-p...> being only a recent example) to normatively-laden business decisions (e.g., entering oppressive regimes and handing over user data to them, using software patents offensively [or not <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/twitter-empowers-engineers-with-new...>], or even donating money to political candidates employees ideologically oppose <http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/in-silicon-valley-techno...>), are these employers holding up their end of the bargain? Are employees really getting a voice that commands employer response? Some in the labor movement think these employers create nothing more than a mirage, that like the now-prohibited company unions of the past, these employers work to ensure workers feel a sense of ownership and voice but, when push comes to shove, have nothing the company cannot just as easily take away. Others, including many who work at these companies, disagree. This talk will outline the debate and try to make headway towards some answers. About Heather Heather Whitney is a Berkman fellow and J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, where she heads up Submissions for the Journal of Law and Technology. Heather received her B.A., summa cum laude, from UCLA in Philosophy (spending much of her time thinking about the intersection of ethics and emerging technologies). Prior to law school, she worked on Google's Global Ethics and Compliance team for three years. During law school, she's worked at the Federal Trade Commission, Jenner & Block's Washington D.C. office, and on Facebook's global policy team. She is currently writing an article examining whether we should rethink the ban on company unions, particularly in work environments like Google.
