101 Interview analysis

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Chavoshi, 1 Zahra Chavoshi Professor Rivera-Salgado Labor Studies 101 8 December 2022 Interview analysis What is the experience of marginalized people in a white male-dominated, white-collar job? What are the barriers to obtaining and retaining these positions in these spaces for marginalized groups, and how can unionizing help diminish these effects? In our reading, “Inequality Regimes Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations” Joan Acker explains how inequalities occur in many different ways in the workplace. Acker defines these inequalities as “systematic disparities between participants in power and control over goals, resources, and outcomes” The experience of marginalized people in the workplace, or their lack thereof due to barriers, is based on our society's politics, history, and culture. We can see how unions can help through the reading “Why Unions Matter”, in which Michael Yates describes in detail the power and function of a union. It may be believed that unions are not only unnecessary but could undermine the needed employee-employer relationship hierarchy in white-collar work, however, it is these exact hierarchies reinforcing social inequalities in the workplace. White collar workers have fed into anti-union propaganda their entire working lives so they do not see the benefits but unions do work beyond hourly wage increases. Some important work a union can do is minimalize management’s control, and give individual workers protections so they are no longer at the will of management. In order to understand the inequalities marginalized workers face, and the effects this has on their job

Chavoshi, 2 retainment in these non-unionized white-collar spaces we must delve deeper into the personal experience of individual workers, as I have through my interview with Parisa Shams. I interviewed Parisa Shams, a software developer in New York City. She attempted to have a career in her passion for educating but did not end up being able to continue due to the bad working standards, and wages, compared to time and investment. She found her path to the tech industry many years post-graduation and after multiple years of a career as a high school teacher. This transition was made due to hearing about the money and job opportunities within tech. However, the work culture of software engineers is not inclusive to people like Parisa, a first generation, woman of color, and this greatly affected her experiences which we spoke about in detail in her interview over zoom. Having known Parisa on a personal level this interview felt like a natural back and forth and allowed her to speak on some difficult topics in comfort. Knowing, very minimally, the difficulties she's faced during her work experience as a software engineer, I went in knowing the topic of questions I wanted to focus on which included, gender inclusivity, as well as her general experience with, and perspective of, management. We began with general information about entering into the industry. Due to her path, as I learned, being through a boot camp rather than formal education, we spoke about how this affected her initial feeling of capability. As planned we then spoke on one of the focal points of the interview, which was concerning the gender skew of the industry as a whole, the effects this has on the workplace culture, and efforts being made to diversify. In association with diversifying efforts, other forms of discrimination were discussed including a lack of racial diversity and ageism. This allowed us to flow into our next focal topic, that being her experiences with management regarding issues of respect, accommodation, performance measurements, and HR. We lastly spoke about some of the more

Chavoshi, 3 technical, negative aspects of her job, and the lack of unions in the industry or even opportunity for unionizing. My interviewee, Parisa, had a bit of a rocky start to her career in tech due to entering through a coding boot camp. These boot camps as Parisa explained, provide very narrow training that causes missing needed background knowledge. Rather than the management of her first tech job seeing this and providing a bit of more formal training, they instead identified her as just a lacking woman, and continuously gave nitpicking feedback. The initial technical lackings Parisa began her first job with continued to affect the rest of her work experience even after she self- trained and began producing good work. Parisa describes how the performance measurement process is open to biases, stating: Because of this kind of intrinsic difficulty of measuring engineering performance… if your boss feels just, no matter how rational or irrational…if he feels your work is not to performance then that's now your problem because there are not any numbers you can pull up… it is very subjective, and so… leaves a lot of room, for management biases to show up. (17:50) Her employer's unconscious biases caused forgone conclusions to be made about her as an employee, that was not based on her work, and in fact overshadowed the work being produced, creating a very adverse and unwelcoming work environment for Parisa from the start. This illustrates the daily biases women, but also racial minorities, in tech must work against, considering if we compare Parisa’s experience to a story she disclosed about a white- male coworker, we can see the wide gap in accommodations given. Parisa stated: He was hired, as the principal engineer, which there are very few people higher ranking than that in the company… As a coder just the worst code... The worst interpersonal

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Chavoshi, 4 manners…So this man should have gone fired, or at least put on performance evaluation or something, instead, my boss is like, you know what he's very abrasive, and no one can work with him, so we're going to move him to his own team. (13:29) Female workers are unconsciously seen as of less value in these spaces, therefore causing much less willingness to work with them to help fix any issues, or identify together what is obstructing their work to truly represent their ability. Additionally, this displays how coding boot camps, as they currently function, while they are supposed to open access to the tech industry to those that may not have had the privilege otherwise, act as a barrier to true success for attendees in their future careers. There's a very well-known lack of diversity in tech which not only causes more frequent management biases to come up but also creates a work culture that negatively impacts marginalized workers. Parisa described both of her workplaces as dominantly young, white, and male employed. As a woman in a male-dominated workforce, Parisa felt she could not stand as an individual employee alongside her male colleagues, but rather stood as a representative of women. The men that are seen as separate individuals hold much more power as they are allowed to take up space. Being a minority in an office space can be very isolating as well due to the work culture encasing the tendencies of the majority, causing a separation between those that do not fit into these bounds. Parisa explains, “(5:42) Having very few women, just makes it so it's a very bro-y culture. I think that in itself is very off-putting and very intimidating to recruiting more female engineers.” This ‘bro-y’ culture as Parisa explains, unfortunately, opens the door to disrespect and harassment of female coworkers, whether acknowledged as such or not. Parisa herself left her first tech job in the midst of a sexual harassment lawsuit she filed. This is not an uncommon

Chavoshi, 5 experience for women in male-dominated fields, and because there are not adequate protections placed, often the only option is a lawsuit, however, many do not want to take it to this level for fear of repercussions. In Parisa’s experience HR was not only unhelpful but hostile, and working completely and only in the company’s best interest. This is the experience for many employees in these working environments attempting to address discrimination. Toxic work cultures are created due to the lack of diversity, coming alongside a lack of proper protections against said discrimination or harassment, which leads marginalized people to be pushed out. Often, for this reason, workplaces are very hesitant to hire outside of their majority, so as to not cause any defiance or pushback against the already existing culture. Additionally, the culture in tech is very oriented towards those without any obligations outside of work, who in our society are men, as work often needs to be taken home and is expected to be finished regardless of time limitations. However, it’s not just a problem of recruiters not hiring marginalized individuals but as Parisa helps us understand, it is also a deep-rooted structural problem, in which minority groups are not given the opportunity to even enter the tech pipeline. While coding boot camps now exist, they are extremely difficult to complete and basically expect you to come in with a college or above ability for learning retention. Even those that finish often struggle to find jobs, as there are not nearly enough junior engineer positions in tech companies. Hiring more junior-level engineers would allow those without formal coding education or traditional experience, who are often minority groups, to have much higher rates of employment in tech. Many of these issues could be addressed or improved by having a unionized workplace, however, unionizing in tech at the moment is virtually nonexistent. This is in large part due to the career's high wages, tech workers have found it easier to take those high salaries and find a

Chavoshi, 6 new job if something is not working for them, rather than collectivize, and change the company they are in. Unions could change alot for marginalized workers in this industry, one union function that would help make this change is individual security provisions. The individual security provisions include the grievance procedure, which insures workers are no longer under the whims of management. Under a union contract employees would be allowed to file grievances for an array of problems including discipline without just cause, and discrimination. This provision would help protect marginalized workers from being directly affected by their employer's blind spots in the performance measurement process. A union can also help limit management's control and give employees a voice. As Parisa described, “(38:03) Even though we are very highly skilled white-collar workers, I feel like the work is very disempowered in some way where it's like, you don't get to push back against projects you're asked to do. … So I think just more say in what we do and what we make [is needed].” These more equal grounds between management and employees would help marginalized workers feel more necessary and respected in their workplace. Unionizing would also help create a less split and isolating work environment for marginalized workers as unionizing creates a new sense of collectivity and unity. In order for unionizing to occur, there must be a fostered understanding of themselves as workers, rather than those that hold the majority in the workplace being on the side of management, as it currently is, and leaving their marginalized coworkers behind. This interview process really shed a light on how while software engineers may be highly paid the work culture is very toxic and detrimental for women as well as racial minorities, and other marginalized people. No part of these work environments is set up in a way to avoid discrimination, from the performance measurement process being subjective, to an often

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Chavoshi, 7 complete lack of effective procedures for responding to employee complaints. Marginalized workers in tech have to work against an idea of them that’s already been created rather than being seen for the merit of the work they are producing. On top of their work not being seen at its true value, women in tech are often forced to prove themselves and represent women for their whole workplace. The lack of diversity in tech creates an unwelcoming work culture and pushes people out or away from even considering a career in the industry. The many issues in the industry and lack of access continue to reinforce a workforce of white men, taking up the majority of this very high-salary industry. A worker's consciousness must be fostered in these white-collar tech workers in order to see the value of unionizing, and help improve working conditions for everyone.

Chavoshi, 8 Works Cited Shams, Parisa. Interview. Conducted by Zahra Chavoshi. 2 December 2022. Acker, J. (2006). Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations. Gender & Society, 20(4), 441–464. Yates, Michael. Why Unions Matter / Michael D. Yates. Monthly Review Press, 1998.

101 Interview analysis

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