New York, N.Y. (Feb. 18, 2020) – The Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), AFL-CIO, is proud to announce today that 85 engineers, directors, analysts, designers, coordinators and customer support specialists and others at Kickstarter have voted to affiliate with OPEIU Local 153 in New York, becoming one of the first unions for tech workers in U.S. history.
The workplace issues that more than one year ago spurred the creation of the new union’s organizing committee, known as Kickstarter United (KSRU), are identical to the issues resonating with professionals throughout the unorganized tech industry. Kickstarter employees felt their employer, a public benefit corporation, should live up to the foundational progressive values it espouses by ensuring trust and transparency from management, guaranteeing equal pay for equal work, implementing more inclusive hiring practices and giving employees a voice in the decision-making process,
“We believe unionizing provides a path toward furthering all of our goals,” said Oriana Leckert, a KSRU spokesperson who is a senior journalism outreach lead at the company. “It was truly an honor to get to have deep conversations with so many of my colleagues around these issues. Utilizing our collective power to improve our workplace and our professional lives will increase Kickstarter’s ability to have a radical, positive impact on society by allowing us all to advocate for workers’ rights, which is a core pillar of the fight against inequality.”