INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG 70 INTERACTIONS NOVEMBER–DECEMBER2014 FORUM COMMUNITY + CULTURE

oppressive workplace is to cultivate understanding of, and agreement about, the many forms of workplace oppression. Until all members of the group share a nuanced understanding, any other measures for developing a safe space are destined to fail.

External help in this is available and advisable. Groups such as the AORTA Collective offer anti-oppression education and consulting services.

Raising the topic for open and frank discussion with other businesses, labs, or groups can also be helpful in addition to raising awareness. From this basic initial process of reflection will follow specific anti-oppressive workplace policies and measures.

Considering team composition is one such measure. Sassafras has a gender quota of no more than 50 percent plus one of any gender [ 4]. As our organization grows, this basic policy will prevent over-representation of one gender (typically men) in decision-making processes and thus promote further anti-oppressive measures [ 5].

Also important are processes for safe conflict resolution. Raising a complaint about workplace conduct should never be cause for fear, nor should receiving one be. Giving forethought to processes for handling conflicts safely and non-violently [ 6] reduces anxiety and reassures prospective members from underrepresented groups that the space they are entering is an anti-oppressive one. Such measures are especially important in organizations without a hierarchical chain of command since there may be no clear course of action otherwise.

WORKPLACE DEMOCRACY

Just as history has shown that social justice is unlikely to emerge in a non-democratic society, building an anti-oppressive workplace is difficult when decisions are made according to a traditional, non-democratic structure.

In such organizations, those who resist entrenched oppressive workplace behaviors often end up as the target of hostility. Recent incidents at Github and Tinder are examples of this in the tech industry.

For this reason, we have chosen to
build Sassafras as a worker cooperative.
Worker co-ops are similar to the more
the institutional level. They are rooted
in electoral law and their analyses
focus on the operations of the election-
management authorities rather than
individual actors.

Finally, within Sassafras we are developing an application called LaborShare, which will promote equality and visibility of home labor by computing optimal task assignments according to time and preference. Domestic work is traditionally a woman’s responsibility but is usually overlooked as legitimate economic activity. Also, a lack of shared understanding of the work that actually goes into the maintenance of a household can lead to conflict.

We believe that technology can help clarify responsibilities in a household and make home labor more visible, equitable, and enjoyable.

Due to the gendered nature of
home labor, we view this project
as counteracting sexism. It also
operates mostly on the individual
level, household by household. If the
application becomes successful, we
envision it as a platform for promoting
cultural change as well, but this is not
the current focus.

ANTI-OPPRESSION
AT WORK

As with any product or project with a stated ethical foundation, the environment in which the product is created or the project is carried out is at least equal in importance to the end result. Unfortunately, in many tech workplaces, a prominent feature of the environment is a startling lack of women and people of color (particularly African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos). This fact is both a form of oppression (since tech is an ever-expanding field and tech jobs are well paying) and a result of oppression. The invention of anti-oppressive tech also becomes more difficult when some of the very groups for whom the technology might be intended are not represented on the design team.

We believe that the notion of reflexivity as promoted by the anti-oppression framework is central to reversing this disturbing trend. A key first step in constructing an anti-

Figure 2. Logos of the members of the Tech Co-op Network, a consortium of North American tech worker co-ops ( http://techworker.coop).