Alex Webb, Columnist

Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

An effort from Europe’s largest trade union to recruit YouTubers could provide a roadmap for how to organize labor on digital platforms.

August 14, 2019 at 6:00 AM UTC

By Alex Webb

Alex Webb is a correspondent for Bloomberg Quicktake. He previously covered the technology, telecoms and media industries in London, San Francisco and Munich.

Germany’s IG Metall union is helping YouTubers organize.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

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Why exactly is a German metalworkers union teaming up with YouTubers to take on Google?

The answer has as much to do with concerns over how to organize labor in the era of digital disintermediation as it does with teenagers uploading clips of themselves playing Minecraft.