The Worker Agency and the fight to beat Big Tech

How a Trinity alumni took on some of the world’s largest tech companies

In 2008, Trinity graduate William Fitzgerald landed a job in what was at the time, deemed one of the world’s best companies to work for: Google. The former business and politics student was working in policy communications, when the team he was working with signed a contract to utilise artificial intelligence in drones for the US Department of Defence. This, for Fitzgerald, was a “red line”. 

Following this, Fitzgerald orchestrated a whistleblowing campaign which forced Google not to continue with the contract, which was successful. “That was kind of the end of the 10 years at Google” he tells me.

Now, Fitzgerald spends his time helping other workers stand up to Big Tech organisations. Since founding The Worker Agency in 2018, Fitzgerald and his team have represented workers from Facebook, Lyft and Uber, to name a few. 

The Worker Agency specialises in narrative change and storytelling for workers who feel they have been treated unfairly. They utilise media outlets to challenge the positive narrative surrounding many of the world’s biggest tech firms, acting as investigators and campaign strategists for workers. 

Fitzgerald noted that many of the services offered through the Worker Agency were actually learnt while working for Google. “I was learning how to write an op-ed, how to get a research commision, how to negotiate legislation, but I was always eager to take that and do it with groups I was more aligned with”. Much of his free time while working at Google was spent helping other workers, before the Worker Agency was even created. “I lived in Hong Kong for years, and I set up a thing called the HK helpers campaign, which was helping domestic workers in Hong Kong who were getting mistreated. So I was kind of using that skill set that I was learning at Google to advance the rights of domestic workers in Hong Kong”. 

Fitzgerald, who gave a keynote address at the conference, was one of the few speakers to criticise certain uses of artificial intelligence by big tech companies”

I met Fitzgerald at Websummit in Lisbon, a tech conference which aims to connect investors, CEOs, founders and politicians across the world. Though not an explicit theme, there was a common trend amongst many of the startups there; artificial intelligence. Fitzgerald, who gave a keynote address at the conference, was one of the few speakers to criticise certain uses of artificial intelligence by big tech companies. He tells me that “one of the speakers here, he’s from Scale AI. That’s one of the companies that does a lot of cleaning up of the data for AI. But it’s all these subcontracted workers in emerging markets, who are underpaid and mistreated and don’t get healthcare”. In a sea of bright-eyed young people eager to talk about the benefits of AI, Fitzgerald was certainly a minority voice at the conference. 

Speaking to a crowd of tech-geeks, investors and journalists, Fitzgerald called on workers to consider whether their business is contributing ethically to the technology ecosystem. He referenced the use of artifical intelligence to target drones in Palestine, and software being used to deport millions of people, as possible reasons someone should “speak out”. “The window has shifted. They (big tech companies) own the means of communications and it’s actually going to take smaller businesses speaking out to actually shift it back in a way that human rights have more value than pure profits”. 

Because “they” own the means of communications, the Worker Agency takes matters into their own hands when it comes to producing counter-narratives that supports workers. During the pandemic, Fitzgerald and his colleagues assisted Facebook content moderators who weren’t permitted to work from home, despite other Facebook workers being able to do so. Fitzgerald tells me “they were being forced in the office during Covid, and also, there’s a whole issue of PTSD with these content moderators”. The Worker Agency pitched the story to RTE, which led to a PrimeTime investigation. They also grabbed the attention of TDs such as Sinn Féin’s Louise O’Reilly and the Green Party’s Patrick Costello. “Ultimately, the Irish government set up this Future of Work parliamentary committee”. According to Fitzgerald, “this was the first time ever that a content moderator testified to a national parliament about their working conditions”. Fitzgerald said he was trying to “hold a mirror up to that base and put pressure on Meta (Facebook) to start treating these workers better”. 

Fitzgerald says that the Worker Agency gets “a lot of requests” for their services, so they’re always looking for the issues that are “the most pressing”. He gives the example of when he moved to Silicon Valley, and was “reading newspapers that were talking about how amazing Uber was as a technology”. He referenced “a big op ed in the New York Times” written by the CEO of Uber, which discussed how flexible the company is to work for. But after talking to many of Uber’s drivers, he found that the majority of them were sleeping in their cars. “So after Google, I reached out to an organisation called Gig Workers Rising, because I wanted to work on that issue, and change the way the issue was being discussed”. As part of their narrative-shaping service, the Worker Agency helped an Uber driver to write an op-ed for the New York Times accounting for his experience with the company. A lot of what we do is working with groups to make sure that the voices of the workers are being included in the conversation”. 

Taking on such large companies comes with its challenges. “We work on campaigns where we’re often, like, massively outspent. We’re up against corporations, so we have to be really creative all the time.” Fitzgerald noted that when they took on Uber, the company spent around 230 million dollars to undo protections by state law to have drivers classified as employees, affording them the same rights as other workers. “On our side, I think in the end, we spent within 20 million”. One of the ways The Worker Agency has gotten “creative” against such challenges is through public art campaigns, “we’re trying to put people onto a thing that they may not really care about, by storytelling”. 

It’s not just big tech companies that Fitzgerald challenges, however. The Worker Agency has worked with the Anti Police-Terror Project in Oakland to advocate for non-police alternatives to public safety, and has campaigned with Raíces for immigrants’ rights in the United States. Fitzgerald tells me that “we’re actually about to go on strike, we’re helping a group of researchers from UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA, the UC system in California”. He tells me “there’s a lot of public funding”, but “researchers are just being underpaid”. He added that the Worker Agency is “helping with their communications”, “because a lot of when you go on strike is working with the media”. 

The situation in the UC system may resonate with some Trinity students, particularly postgraduates who in January of this year, went on strike to demand labour law protections, a living wage and parental leave, amongst other things. Fitzgerald’s advice for any Trinity student about to enter the workforce is to “talk to your co-workers. I think a lot of people have grown up in a world where unions haven’t been as cool or as prominent in our society, and I think it’s wrong”. He added that “corporations have done a really good job to make it feel like unions are things that aren’t good. But the truth is, if you’ve got a problem in the workplace, it’s pretty hard on your own to go up against management”. He said that workers should “figure out if other people are experiencing the same issues, and work collectively, as opposed to as an individual.”

Kate Byrne

Kate Byrne is the Life Editor at Trinity News. She has previously served as Deputy Comment Editor. She is currently in her Senior Sophister year studying History and Political Science.