The backlash against artificial intelligence (AI) continues to gain momentum in the United States. Recent scandals about how rogue AI agents have been able to break out of their human-created “sandbox,” and reprogram themselves to cheat, lie, hack and even commit felonies in the form of unauthorized digital break-ins into third-party companies’ computer systems, have sounded an alarm that is being heard around the world. In my previous article, I wrote about one manifestation of the backlash – protests against AI data centers all across the US, in both conservative and progressive parts of the country. Other signs of backlash are being organized by workers in the technology industry, including the formation of new labor unions.

In recent weeks, several high-profile AI researchers have resigned from cutting edge labs (what’s known as “frontier labs”), like Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, to sound the alarm about the acceleration of AI development and the rise of uncontrollable autonomous AI agent behavior. In the aftermath of the Hugging Face scandal, a number of interviews have appeared with various AI and tech experts, from Microsoft founder Bill Gates to whistleblowers from AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, sounding the alarm. The story is getting downright creepy. On September 23, Australia announced that rogue AI agents unleashed by OpenAI had circumvented safeguards and hacked the country’s public health website, accessing sensitive patient information that OpenAI didn’t tell the Australian government about for nearly four months. This is the first known case of an autonomous AI agent breaching a government website, adding to growing concerns about the risks of out-of-control AI.

Large layoffs of tech workers

These recent whistleblower episodes have added to the broader industry anxiety that has resulted from massive waves of layoffs linked to artificial intelligence and automation. A number of the biggest corporations have publicly cited AI-driven efficiency gains and structural shifts as the primary rationale behind recent workforce reductions. These companies include business software and cloud infrastructure giant Oracle, which laid off 30,000 employees over a 12-month period, citing the "adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations." Microsoft also announced cuts of about 4,800 jobs as the company realigns its resources to focus on AI infrastructure. Meta has reduced its headcount by approximately 8,000 employees. Block (formerly Square) has cut nearly 40% to 50% of its workforce to transition into smaller, flatter teams powered by intelligence tools. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff cut roughly 4,000 customer-service positions after AI agents began handling about half of customer interactions and inquiries. Uber, Amazon and other companies also have engaged in layoffs. 

In 2025 and so far in 2026, a total of approximately 430,000 tech workers have been impacted by layoffs. While some industry experts believe that certain companies are using AI as a convenient excuse for layoffs, that only adds to the broader anxiety that has gripped the industry. No one knows when the next layoffs might occur, and at what company. The uncertainty is contributing to a rising tide of labor unrest among millions of tech workers. 

Early stage impacts of AI on the broader workforce

Experts have been predicting for several years that AI will slowly decimate the labor force , but the overall unemployment rate in the U.S. remains near a historic low at 4.1 percent. Instead, the real job destruction from AI has been to wipe out careers before they can even begin. Recent college graduates are finding it harder and harder to get their first job. A study last year by Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab found a 16% decline in early-career employment across the most AI-exposed occupations. Unemployment among recent graduates has climbed to 6 to 8%, rising twice as fast as the rest of the workforce. Employment among software developers and engineers aged 22 to 25 has fallen nearly 20% from its late-2022 peak. Software development job postings have fallen 53%, and recent New York Federal Reserve Bank research shows, rather surprisingly, that computer science majors now have more trouble finding jobs than humanities majors. With no entry to the workforce, how will younger people develop the skills and wisdom to lead in the future? 

Still, these have not been broad-based layoffs—rather, they are targeted reductions in the workflows as AI systems are integrated into more workplaces. However, job market confidence has deteriorated significantly, with the share of US workers who say it is a good time to find a job falling from roughly 70% in 2022 to just 28% more recently. The decline is most pronounced among younger workers and the college-educated, who in a strange reversal of historical patterns are now more pessimistic than those without degrees—only 19% of college graduates say it is a “good time” to find a quality job, versus 35% of those without degrees.

The result is a growing sense of stagnation across the workforce. Workers are staying in jobs longer because better jobs are harder to find. In surveys, a majority of workers report feeling “stuck”—either unable to move up or move on. This is what AI-driven disruption of the labor markets looks like in practice so far. Firms are not cutting their overall head count by much, but instead are focusing on getting more output using AI from the same workforce. As productivity rises, the need for new recruits declines. The impact so far is showing up not as layoffs but as fewer pathways into the workforce; the first career steps are quietly disappearing. Hiring has slowed to levels last seen in 2010, when unemployment was near 10% during the Great Recession. Yale business professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld says, “Economists have started calling this a ‘big freeze’: companies are not firing, but they are not hiring either. Employment looks stable. Opportunity is not.”

Tech worker unionization surges

In the tech industry, on the other hand, the consequences are already more tangible: Here, the developments are leading to an unprecedented surge in union organizing and tech worker membership in Silicon Valley. Continuous industry layoffs and widespread anxiety over AI and the decline in career opportunities have boosted unionization. Historically, white-collar software engineers and tech professionals viewed themselves as "elite free agents" with high-paying jobs who didn't need collective bargaining and collective protection. Tech workers who once happily pulled 70-hour workweeks are suddenly realizing that they are expendable, shattering the paradigm of the "dream job" safety net. 

Other realities are contributing to a new tech worker rebelliousness. Employer-employee conflicts have arisen over the work-from-home business model. Hybrid work has become very common and for the most part remains popular among tech workers. Yet there has been an increase in return-to-office mandates by the companies, and a growing gap between employer demands and employee desires for flexibility and continued home-based employment. In addition, many tech workers have become uncomfortable with the nature of some of their work, whether it’s building self-replicating AI increasingly seen as a dangerous and roguish product, or contributing to their companies’ servicing the national security state and signing national security contracts.
 
With all of this tension rising, the activity of labor unions and labor-supportive organizations has intensified. Several major labor unions now represent technology professionals, software developers, game workers, and IT staff. Labor unions representing tech workers are actively cooperating with and embedded within traditional labor unions, rather than being seen as "pseudo-unions." 

Established unions like Communications Workers of America (CWA), Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), the Teamsters, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and others are driving and funding the organizing push into Silicon Valley to adapt to a changing workforce. 

The CWA has become a primary force behind tech organizing through its Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) initiative. It has been absorbing pre-existing tech worker groups directly into its ranks, including the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU-CWA Local 9009) at Google, video game workers at Microsoft/Xbox, and thousands of IT workers across public universities. The Alphabet Workers Union at Google has continued to grow through collective action and threats of strikes to secure concessions, such as return-to-office extensions and better severance. AWU also smartly is trying to incorporate into their efforts the vast army of contractors that work for Alphabet/Google. Separately, hundreds of engineers and workers at Google and its parent company Alphabet formed a union affiliated with the CWA, pushing back against the development of AI for military use and corporate decisions made without worker input. Microsoft’s ZeniMax tech workers have successfully unionized, its video game developers also joining the CWA. And media companies like The New York Times and The Washington Post have been organized through CWA’s CODE initiative.
 
At the University of California, over 2,100 IT and technical employees at 10 campuses across the UC system voted to join the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE-CWA Local 9119), creating the largest tech worker union in the US with 8,400 members. Their goals are negotiating for better pay, layoff protections and remote work rules. The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) is actively organizing tech, IT, and video game professionals to secure workplace representation and collective bargaining. The New York Times Tech Guild was launched when over 600 software engineers, designers, and data analysts at the newspaper voted to unionize with the CWA, creating one of the largest certified tech unions with full collective bargaining rights. 

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Machinists Union (IAM) have negotiated contracts for tech contractors, biotech developers, and corporate tech specialists at firms like Facebook, Apple, and Google. Workers at the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter successfully organized with the OPEIU, a traditional white-collar and office workers union, following a series of workplace disputes; that paid off when the union negotiated a new contract that included a four-day workweek, a minimum salary for all workers, protections against replacing full-time workers with contractors, and an agreement that management cannot replace roles with AI. 

The momentum is also visible among the blue collar contract workforce that keeps Silicon Valley physically running. For instance, in September 2026, 14,000 unionized security guards represented by Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West  (SEIU-USWW) launched a massive strike affecting the offices of AI and tech giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and Salesforce. The workers demanded higher wages as their roles become more critical amid high-profile security concerns. Teamsters Local 853 represents tech drivers and operational logistics workers who contract with corporations like Google, Apple, and Facebook. The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US representing nearly 15 million active and retired workers, has made organizing tech workers into a strategic priority.

Some tech workers have not formally declared a union, but instead are participating in pro-labor advocacy groups. OPEIU has created Tech Workers Union Local 1010, a specialized “almost-union” built specifically by and for tech industry employees such as software engineers, designers, trust and safety analysts, and product managers to provide resources and institutional backing, without operating with formal collective bargaining recognition. Worker-led advocacy groups have formed inside Microsoft to protest their employer's classified war production and military use of AI. The Alphabet Workers Union has been organized the Googlers Against ICE Campaign, opposing their employer’s anti-immigration partnerships with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

And in response to Meta's demand for their employees' computer data to train their AI models, over 1,600 workers across five US offices signed a petition to fight back against the policy. Other workers have protested their company's military contracts with Israel over concerns about the use of the company's technology in the Gaza conflict. This is a new horizon, of workers organizing not only over their own job fears and working conditions but also about ethical questions over those parts of their employers’ business that conflict with their personal values.  Some of these groups collect dues and exercise power via public activism and whistleblowing, but without formal recognition. 

But the Silicon Valley companies are hardly rolling over and submitting to union organizing. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has documented hundreds of unfair labor practices, including illegal retaliation, worker surveillance, hosting "captive audience" meetings to warn workers, and threatening employees over union activity, including firing pro-union organizers. Some believe that one of the motivations for the wave of recent layoffs in Silicon Valley is that it could undermine labor union plans to organize big tech. Amazon has led the way in union-busting, hiring anti-labor consultants, firing activist employees, and developing the blueprint for how companies can resist. But even so-called “good” tech companies like Apple have instructed its managers to engage in subtle threats, both broadly and in one-on-one meetings. 

Will workers’ opposition make a difference?

While private sector tech union membership still sits in the single digits, that’s no less than the unionization rate for the rest of private sector workers in the US. Nevertheless, the new and renewed activity is encouraging. Organizing among tech workers is no longer a fringe concept—it has become a mainstream mechanism for Silicon Valley's workforce to claw back leverage from venture capitalists and tech executives. And most of these workers lean progressive over a basket of political, social, environmental and free speech issues, as these high-skilled practitioners consider whether their company – and by extension themselves -- is contributing to the well being of society, and pursuing a broader purpose than simply creating higher shareholder value. That positive vision was part of the original allure that attracted many of these computer experts to work for companies like Google, Apple and Facebook. Now these workers find that vision is shriveling on the vine. It will be crucial to track when, where and in what form their protests emerge in the months ahead.