ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the narratives used for collective action on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic by two Indian tech unions such as the Forum for IT Employees and the Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees' Union. The narratives shared by two Indian tech unions through the pandemic demonstrate three aspects of high-skilled white-collar workers’ movements, in which individual, institutional and structural aspects of labour remain imbricated. First, political and ideological alignment determines the selection and presentation of narratives. Second, the unions demonstrate discursive variation. This suggests that similar groups of workers mobilising on the same social media platform may have various organising methods and diverse approaches to structural precarity. Finally, narratives on social media are powerful instruments of mobilisation. Hashtags in social media activism are also useful instruments for collectivity. With the proliferation of tech unions’ narratives on social media, that invisibility has begun to dissolve.
