Cooperation with IG Metall: FairTube Figure 1 Post from YouTube’s account ›Creator Insider‹ in September 2018 below a YTU video(Sprave 2018c). provided by the company itself. Usually, ties between YTU members were loose and fluid, and most of them did not know each other. While different channel genres were present in the YTU, its active membership was relatively homogeneous, consisting largely of male and white content creators from the United States or Europe, whose channels usually provided entertainment content. This homogeneity is not solely explained by YouTube’s own racial and gender biases. It is also influenced by the prominence of white and male-dominated communities within the YTU, most importantly channels featuring weapons or firearms-related content. Accordingly, the YTU’s campaign rhetoric played with martial themes addressed especially to men:»Crea­tors, Users... To Arms! Join the YouTubers Union«(Sprave 2018a). This circumstance has likely contributed to this specific, homogeneous membership. Overall, the development of the YTU can be broken down into two phases: a grassroots, self-organising phase in its first year(March 2018 to July 2019), and a second phase that was marked by cooperation with the German trade un­ion IG Metall(beginning in July 2019). The first phase began with the initial formation of the group, after around 15,000 members had joined together in the Facebook group. The group sent introductory letters to YouTube headquarters, conducted internal membership surveys and launched a collective ›warning strike‹. 7 The first serious engagement from YouTube’s side began in September 2018, after JS had published a video in the name of the YTU(»Debunked: YouTube caught lying!(YouTubers Union Video)«), which exposed the company’s misleading communication on its monetisation guidelines(Sprave 2018c). While the company had stated that videos classified as ›unsuitable for adver­tisement‹ would not receive decreased visibility through the recommendation system, JS and other members provided channel statistics to show that both developments indeed correlated. 8 This argument was posted to an official YouTube channel(›Creator Insider‹), supported by YTU members, triggering debates among a wider audience on YouTube. Eventually, some members of the management responded 7 The idea behind the warning strike was to refrain from publishing content for several weeks in order to pressure YouTube into making concessions. 8 The conflict for creators lies in the apparent correlation of the mone­tisation status of videos and their likelihood of being recommended. While YouTube has denied that it treats ad-sponsored videos differ­ent than videos without advertisements, creators that had their vid­eos demonetised disagreed with this statement(comp. Kumar 2019). to the pressure and invited JS to a personal meeting(see Figure 1). This invitation led to a number of personal meetings be­tween JS and YouTube, held in Zurich(Switzerland) and at the company’s headquarters in San Bruno(United States). While representatives did discuss some issues brought for­ward by the group, they did not elevate the talks to the status of negotiations with the group. The meetings made it possible to establish an informal feedback process between YTU members and YouTube. This brought about a couple of smaller changes on YouTube: some rules within the strike system were changed, and several members that had been demonetised were ›bailed out‹ through personal contact to YouTube. However, no lasting changes or institutionalised agreements could be achieved through this process. While YouTube proved open to talking with some large creators individually, the company refused to communicate with the group and rejected any institutionalised form of review and feedback. COOPERATION WITH IG METALL: FAIRTUBE After talks with YouTube proved unable to produce lasting agreements, the YTU entered into a cooperative venture with the German trade union IG Metall. IG Metall is the largest trade union in Europe and has a tradition in the met­alworking and electrical industry(IG Metall 2019c). While online labour would appear to be unfamiliar terrain for such a union at first glance, IG Metall had already initiated some attempts in the past to organise workers in the platform sec­tor, most notably through their initiative ›Fair Crowdwork‹, started in 2015, and the adoption of the ›Frankfurt Declara­tion of Platform Work‹ in 2016(N/N 2017). Representatives of IG Metall met the group founder JS in September 2018 at a trade union conference in Berlin, Germany. A major argument in favour of working together for JS was the legal expertise and financial resources of IG Metall, which offered the prospect of taking YouTube to court(comp. Interview 6). Between November 2018 and July 2019, the group met regularly to prepare their collaboration, which eventually resulted in the joint FairTube campaign. The FairTube campaign was initiated in July 2019, after JS and IG Metall announced their intention to work together in a joint press release: 5