London Met Research Assistant Alison MacKinnon joins the committee to talk about layoffs at the university. Grok gets cancelled, UTAW wins big, and we decide whether speaking Bri'ish is a protected characteristic.

• Times Higher Education - “Union brands London Met cuts an ‘act of institutional vandalism’”: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/union-brands-london-met-cuts-act-institutional-vandalism or "archived" link: https://archive.is/hikiu
• People Make Games - "Rockstar vs. Union: We Went to Court and Saw the Evidence": https://youtu.be/dnuipPQDd_w?si=BqdEG2JF3SFMAjTq
• CWU.ie - Covalen: https://www.cwu.ie/2026/01/14/cwu-press-release-covalen/ 
• My Co-Worker Pretended to be British for 3 Years: https://www.reddit.com/r/coworkerstories/comments/1l3idhy/my_coworker_pretended_to_be_british_for_3_years/
• What you need to know about lying on your CV: https://bsquarelaw.co.uk/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-complexities-of-lying-on-your-cv/
• Geordie stroke victim now 'speaks like Jamaican': https://youtu.be/JF56cDpB0r0?si=L7w-agNGRJqIxS5E, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/04/health.healthandwellbeing
• Follow UCU London Met and UCU London: https://x.com/ucu_londonmet, https://x.com/uculondon, https://uculondonregion.wordpress.com/, https://www.facebook.com/share/195yYeYbqb/?mibextid=wwXIfr,
• Follow Alison MacKinnon https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-mackinnon-317a63236?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
  
  Submit your motions to the committee to [email protected], or on Instagram @utaw_uk.

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

The holiday spirit brings about a giving of thanks, a summary of slop, and a prophecy of trash. The ghosts of unions past, present and future, Shireen Asaw, Eleanor Payne and Edwin Dorley return for a Workers of the World Wide Web holiday special.

This episode is brought to you by The People’s Prop Department patreon.com/protestprops and the UTAW Scarf https://utaw.shop/products/scarf/

Further Reading:

• Slade in Flame (1975) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slade_in_Flame
• Expresso Bongo (1959) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOsPd2NmV0w
• Employment Rights Bill - Deadlock Broken https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/deadlock-broken-employment-rights-bill-passes
• Andrea Egan is Unison’s new GS https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/12/unison-isnt-new-labours-playground-anymore
• Resident Doctors Strike https://novaramedia.com/2025/12/19/doctor-strangled-by-police-officer-until-she-passed-out-at-hunger-strike-protest/
• TikTok signs deal to avoid US ban https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgexp1q8wn1o
• OpenAI Hires George Osborne https://www.ft.com/content/a6a8c7aa-9677-4208-a28e-a3ca51cb7aa3
• Microsoft Scales Back AI because no one is using it https://www.extremetech.com/computing/microsoft-scales-back-ai-goals-because-almost-nobody-is-using-copilot
• Let’s unpack our toxic fixation with ‘the TikToker who fell in love with her psychiatrist’ https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2025-08-15/tiktok-woman-loves-psychiatrist-why-were-obsessed
• Steam Deck https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck
• Stray https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332010/Stray/
• Headphones to sleep in https://www.soundcore.com/uk/products/sleep-a20-sleeping-earbuds
• Flow Neuroscience https://www.flowneuroscience.com/shop/
• Rats Playing Doom https://ratsplaydoom.com/

WWWW003, recorded 19 December 2025, in high definition digital stereo audio.

Workers of the World Wide Web is a production of United Tech & Allied Workers, the UK’s first (and best) trade union for tech workers.

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

Data centres in the shed, using AI to talk to the other side, a messy bill, some bad eggs, and a lil bit of self-crit. Shireen Asaw, Eleanor Payne and Edwin Dorley are your committee du jour.

The motion: "should managers join trade unions?" (submit your motions to this committee at [email protected])

Further Reading:

• Cory Doctorow's For The Win & Enshitification.
• Data centres in the shed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rpy7envr5o
• AI avatars of dead relatives: https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/black-mirror-becomes-reality-new-app-lets-users-talk-to-ai-avatars-of-deceased-loved-ones-3283056/
• What’s really going on with AI and jobs?: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-ai
• The Employment Rights Bill: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3737
• Sir Keir Starmer involved in road collision with cyclist: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54701336

Look the audio quality sucks, we’re going to get some microphones once we’ve done a couple of episodes to see if this has any staying power, relax.

Unused titles for this episode:

• “Parasocial relationship with my AI Grandma”
• “AI Early Man”
• “Streeting is Seeded”
• “If you can’t spot the centrist in the room, it’s you”

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.

Welcome to Workers of the World Wide Web, a brand new podcast about tech workers and the tech they work on, from United Tech & Allied Workers, the UK’s first trade union for tech.

On the agenda this week, Shireen Asaw, Eleanor Payne, Vanessa Heron-Hua and Edwin Dorley establish some ground rules, talk about Rockstar committing Grand Theft Union-Busting and catch up on the latest AI cons. 

The motion this week: "should trade unions disaffiliate from labour?"

Submit your motions to be voted on by this committee in their next meeting, to [email protected].

• IWGB: Staff at Rockstar fired en masse
• IWGB Game workers
• Futurism: Founder Admits His “AI Transcription” Startup Was Just Him Joining People’s Meetings and Taking Notes by Hand
• The LinkedIn post
• Microsoft: Measuring the Applicability of Generative AI to Occupations
• Blood in the Machine: AI Killed My Job: Translators
• UTAW.tech/join

Join our union UTAW.tech. Buy our merch UTAW.shop.