NEW YORK – Meta employees distributed flyers at multiple US offices on May 12 to protest against the company’s recent installation of mouse-tracking software on their computers, according to photos of the pamphlets seen by Reuters.
The flyers, which appeared in meeting rooms, on vending machines and atop toilet paper dispensers at the offices, encouraged staffers to sign an online petition against the move.
“Don’t want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?“ they asked, according to the photos seen by Reuters.
The pamphlet distribution comes about a week before Meta is set to lay off 10 per cent of its workforce.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone, asked for comment on the matter, pointed Reuters to an earlier comment the company had issued on the mouse-tracking technology.
“If we’re building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them – things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus,” it said.
The pamphlets and the petition, citing the US National Labor Relations Act, said: “Workers are legally protected when they choose to organise for the improvement of working conditions.”
In Britain, a group of Meta employees has started organising a drive for unionisation with United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW), a branch of the Communication Workers Union.
The employees set up a website to recruit members using the URL “Leanin.uk”, a reference to former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s best-selling book encouraging women to seek equal footing in the workplace.
A UTAW representative confirmed the UK campaign to Reuters.
“Meta’s workers are paying the price for management’s reckless and expensive bets. While executives chase speculative AI strategies, staff are facing devastating job cuts, draconian surveillance, and the cruel reality of being forced to train the inefficient systems being positioned to replace them,” said Ms Eleanor Payne, an organiser with UTAW. REUTERS
