Kickstarter Terminates Union Leaders in Retaliation for Recent Strike Victory

(New York, NY) – After Kickstarter United-OPEIU Local 153 members won a resounding strike victory, Kickstarter has retaliated and fired several key union leaders. The 42-day strike was won in November 2025, after which the union overwhelmingly voted to ratify a historic contract which included all of their demands, including a codified 4-day workweek, strong protections against AI, and an escalating salary floor tied to cost of living.  

On February 11, 2026, Kickstarter management announced that they would be terminating four union members and forcing several others out of the bargaining unit. The company failed to provide a business-need justification for these terminations. 

“The retaliation Kickstarter has taken against these employees is unconscionable,” says Zak Thompson, a shop steward. “These are people who fought tooth and nail for a good contract for our union, and we're not going down without a fight here either. We're pursuing every avenue available to us to get them reinstated.”

The union has responded by filing Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges with the NLRB, and filing several grievances regarding the company’s use of non-union contractors and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to undermine bargaining unit work. 

“We bargained for some of the strongest AI and contractor protections in the tech industry, specifically to prevent management from hollowing out our unit, and within three months of ratifying that contract, Kickstarter did exactly that,” says Jason Featheringham, one of the union members terminated by Kickstarter. “They created a brand new team to own the design system I built and maintained, handed my work over to outside contractors using AI, and called it a business decision. The NLRB will decide what to call it.”

Kickstarter United-OPEIU Local 153 will be holding a virtual rally on Friday, February 27th to demand an end to this retaliation and reinstatement of those affected. 

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ABOUT KICKSTARTER UNITED

On February 18th, 2020, Kickstarter employees voted to form a union and became the first major tech company in the United States to do so. We took this step in order to invest deeply in our collective future at the company we love, to create a workplace that is safer and more equitable for all, and to support organizing efforts across the tech industry and the many creative communities our work touches. We are proud to call ourselves members of OPEIU Local 153.