by The Capacitor Collective
Common Notions
11/4/2025, paperback
SKU: 9781945335488
First-hand accounts from the tech sector’s resurgent labor movement as artificial intelligence gains ground in every facet of our lives.
As tech billionaires align with Trump, they are also launching a renewed assault on labor through artificial intelligence and alienating tactics. But for now, it still takes workers to make fortunes for the bosses, and collective action is again on the rise. The rank and file are now coming from precarious new “gig jobs” and drawing strength from a class of worker who does what computers still cannot. Previously thought to be “unorganizable,” these workers are part of a North American movement that is reaffirming faith in collective revolutionary action through new methods of organizing, new ways of association, and a new synthesis of traditional labor activities with original research.
To capture this growing class consciousness, the Capacitor Collective has conducted ten illuminating interviews with platform workers and organizers whose efforts align traditional motives with new tactics in a text that shakes up the worker inquiry tradition and imagines new ways to produce knowledge with and for the movement.
Reviews:
“An invaluable collaboration between academic and digital workers certain to propel the struggle forward.” —Robert Ovetz, editor, Workers’ Inquiry and Global Class Struggle
“Drawing on the intellectual and political legacy of Italian operaismo, Notes Toward a Digital Workers’ Inquiry offers an exemplary demonstration of how inquiry can function simultaneously as a mode of collective action and a form of critical theory. Combining theoretical rigor with political depth, it renews the tradition of workers’ inquiry by anchoring research in collaboration, situated knowledge, and processes of mutual learning. The interviews gathered in this volume trace a compelling cartography of workers’ struggles along the global digital value chain, amplifying diverse voices from within contemporary labor movements. This important book makes a significant contribution to current debates on labor, technology, and knowledge production, providing essential insights for scholars and practitioners alike.” —Leopoldina Fortunati, author of The Arcana of Reproduction
“This essential book articulates and embodies ethical knowledge production amidst the rising tide of tech authoritarianism. It centers tech worker struggle and revives workers’ inquiry as the site of knowledge production and resistance. It is an inspiring and critical corrective to the proliferation of apolitical research on Big Tech.” —Veena Dubal, Professor of Law, UC Irvine | General Counsel, American Association of University Professors
About the Author:
The Capacitor Collective is a research collective dedicated to digital worker inquiry rooted in labor organizing within and against digital capitalism. The collective includes: Enda Brophy, Julie Chen, Alessandro Delfanti, Brian Dolber, Lilly Irani, and Tamara Kneese.