"In recent years, a number of important social movements have emerged and grown rapidly through social media. Against that backdrop, this essay considers the promise and limitations of social media as a tool for worker organizing under US law. On the one hand, social media is both a powerful tool of self-organization, and a powerful means of building public support for workers' campaigns. US law also prohibits employers from retaliating against workers for such self-organization or public speech, which should encourage workers to organize via social media. On the other hand, that prohibition is often more formal than real, and US law makes it extremely difficult for workers to organize a union and begin collective bargaining. In other words, US law encourages workers' initial, nascent steps towards collective organization, and encourages them to build public support for their efforts, but discourages the actual formation of unions. Therefore, social media's enormous potential as a worker-organizing tool will likely remain underdeveloped without reforms to strengthen and modernize our labour laws. "

Support: Digital