Little bit of a late entry, but last week at WBUR I published an op-ed on the OpenAI workers’ letter. You know, the letter that very likely saved Sam Altman’s job as the CEO of OpenAI.

Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

That’s a large part of why it was difficult for me to cheer the OpenAI workers’ letter. What made it even harder was comparing it to the last several years, in which tech workers have been steadily building collective power: They have signed open letters to move their leadership in more ethical directions; they have openly shared salaries to push for more equitable pay structures; they have staged mass walkouts to fight for safer working conditions. And they haven’t stopped there: Tech workers across the industry have formed unions, fighting for the guarantees that a union-negotiated contract can bring.

In short, these are big, courageous, structural fights. In each instance, tech workers were fighting for a seat at the table — not just to improve their wages, benefits and working conditions, but to also have a say in how their labor is used. Against that backdrop, the OpenAI letter felt almost modest to me. Their boss got his high-profile job back, it’s true — but what did those workers win for flexing their power?

Ethan Marcotte, “OpenAI is a threat to labor, but its employees staged one of the most successful collective actions in tech”

The essay’s less about the events as they happened, and more about my struggle to form a half-coherent opinion about the letter. By any measure, the OpenAI workers’ letter is a tremendous show of worker power; it also happened in an industry producing software that is, almost by definition, virulently anti-worker. I’m happy with where the piece landed, and I’m deeply grateful to the team at WBUR’s op-ed section for giving me space to work through these issues.

As with everything else I write, I couldn’t have written this without the folks in my corner. I had more than a few conversations with friends and mentors that informed my thinking on the letter — to each of you, thank you.

And of course, my thanks to you for reading. That means a lot to me, too.