  Popular accounts have characterized tech worker organizing as occupational
activism, a type of employee activism motivated by a social-mission oriented
professional identity. However, tech workers are increasingly participating in
traditional labor organizing relying on worker identity. Our article shows the
transformation from the former to the latter between 2017-2022. We find that
this shift was not the result of the recent economic downturn in the technology
industry which allowed employers to reset labor relations. Rather we suggest it
was the active and creative performance of labor organizing by workers, namely
the increase in organizing networks and expertise among tech workers.
