IBM workers picket Second Life

It’s a fundamental right of workers to protest at mistreatment, and staff at IBM Italy have had to take a €1000 pay cut that they’re not happy about. Pickets normally take place either at the factory gates or somewhere more public. The RSU union have decided to go down the “more public” route.

Marketing execs are seeing Second Life, the leading “virtual reality” world online, as a new way for large corporates, such as Dell, Cisco and IBM to have a “presence”. They spend big money to design, construct and maintain showrooms that people can wander through and virtually examine their wares. Many argue that the volume of people using SL right now isn’t great enough to make the numbers add up, but the companies are seeing this as a long term thing. IBM even use it as a private colaboration tool. Rather than travel to meet face to face, or use teleconfernecing, they’re meeting virtually in a SL boardroom. Cisco are even using it to hold new employee interviews!

The RSU are going to picket the IBM building in SL on the 25th September. They’re giving out strike kits that include avatars with slogans on their t-shirts, and placards. It should be interesting….

From New World Notes, via Boing Boing

Update: John has posted a comment to say that the 25th is just the start of the public campaign. The actual protest will be a flash mob event, at a future date. Sign up at uniglobalunion.org to find out when the flash mob will form.