Pejotização

becoming a company with Cass Luxemburgo

Introduce yourself and where you’re located?

I like to define myself as an Ethical Technologist. I normally ask uncomfortable and realistic questions such as: “grow and expand this, for what and for whom?” This tends to unsettle a few people.

I am a Brazilian independent researcher, and I have been building software products for a decade now. My professional focus involves the development of publications, the facilitation of training programs, and the provision of support for regional and interregional initiatives. These efforts are directed towards shaping and enhancing social impact, particularly at the convergence of information, society, technology, and feminist communities in the region of Abya Yala, where I am based.

What brought you to the Collective Action School space?

What brought me was the idea of being a part of a community focused on shifting the power in tech by having labor as the main driving force. The possibility of learning from others’ experimentations, as well as to be in an intellectual and praxis driven activist space without the constraints of academia. Collective Action School felt like a space designed to exchange and learn from others who might have succeeded in organizing and apply this to my own community, work, and research.

Who did you bring in with you to the Collective Action School space?

I brought my communities and ancestors. My community reflects my background: tech workers, journalists, artists, and human and digital rights activists. As a tech worker and manager, I have focused my career on advocating for my gender and class, understanding the complexities of systemic racial issues in Brazil and the colonial dynamics that drive tech. In the last decade, I have tried to organize and unionize inside these spaces, as well as reflect on the ethical implications of designing and building tech solutions that harm our communities.

What was your project? How did it begin?

Through the process of engaging, readings and mentoring sessions the project morphed into something else, something new. But it began with my failed experience of trying to unionize inside a multinational software consultancy corporation and observing the colonial mechanics of labor that exist deeply in the relationship between tech workers from the global south working for employers and companies from the global north.

After the 2016 political coup in Brazil, there has been a systematic dismantling of labor laws and securities that were won through union efforts since 1945; creating nightmare scenarios that now look similar to the USA. Before, it was almost impossible to hire someone by the hour, that concept was outrageous. An employer would hire someone by the month, and insure that they had securities under the law. An example of this would be: a retirement fund matched by the company, thirteen salaries per year, thirty day paid vacation, four to six months paid maternity leave, six months of unemployment salary, etc.

My project aimed to understand and create a zine and a game, about one of these new working class dismantling phenomena called: Pejotização. In the context of managerial and tech workers communities, Pejotização implies that if you wanted to be hired, you would no longer be a person, but rather you had to become a company. In this sense, losing your workers rights and now having to add business worries to your mental load, such as: a dedicated accountant, fiscal complexities, retirement plans, and a forever unmatched 401k. This also occurs when companies want to circumvent the Brazilian Laws, this way being exempt from actually opening offices in Brazil, paying national taxes, and being accountable to their employees.

It is quite an isolating experience, to become this CEO-worker creature, but because salaries are higher it appears to a liberal mindset that this is attractive. And at times it’s the only option. In the long run, all the responsibilities fall on the workers’ back.

My project aims to approach this issue in an informative way: hopeful, full of humor, and considering a lot of pedagogy to convey Marxist concepts on the power of organizing to create societal change.

Were there any challenges you encountered during the project? What did it feel like to work through them?

The context becomes intricate when considering that tech workers in Brazil are majority white males, and historically do not consider themselves part of the Brazilian working class. It felt alienating to interview individuals that, even when politically aligned with the leftist viewpoint, do not engage in unionizing or political organizing for this subject. In terms of numbers, white people in the IT industry in Brazil make up around 80% and women in certain areas represent 30% of the workforce. During the layoffs in 2023, almost 70% of the people let go were women, so it felt like the urgency behind the idea of the project was much needed. It’s as if there was a deliberate systematic strategy aimed at concentrating unemployment within minority communities. Sharing these feelings and impressions with my cohort colleagues and mentors helped me a lot in this process. Where is your project now? Right now, you can check the research resources where it lives in the digital space where you can also add to it, just login and join: https:// www.are.na/cass-luxemburgo/pejotizacao-tech

The project is on hold until I can dedicate some time to finalizing and publishing the zine, connecting with a few artists with the intent of publishing. One of the channels where it will live will be TikTok. I am also finalizing a Choose-Your Own Adventure game, using Typeform. The player goes through the process of becoming a company (PJ), being treated as an employee with none of the benefits, being fired and all the joy of being a PJ in Brazil. In this game, the gamer can choose to play as white man in tech or as a minority. This changes every outcome, as one can imagine.

What’s your wildest dream for your project?

Imagining that this project could be one of many that can help spark interest in the subject, igniting a nationwide movement that would undo the laws and harms that were passed after the 2016 Brazilian coup and under President Michel Temer´s Workers Reform. Or even adding to a rise in tech worker owned cooperatives that organize in a collective first mindset and interest—something that is missing in the world and that in its lacking we can see traumatic and damaging products that most of us are building. Products that are profit-first and disconnected from our societal need for less traumatic digital experiences and more joyful ones, that also take into account tech environmental footprint reduction.

...you did mention wildest dreams :)

Anything missing from the conversation that you want to add?

I would like to continue working on this, focusing on the role of unionizing and the colonial tensions between north-south labor in the tech industry. Maybe diving into tech cooperative experiences. I am also interested in exploring how these tensions and techno-societal questions can and could shape product decisions. The outcome can vary, and I am open to new projects and paths.