The place of feelings. Empathetic discourse as a strategy for trade union organising

This article describes the semiotic resources deployed during the creation, in 2021, of the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU): the trade union that represents the workforce of the tech giant Alphabet Inc. The focus is on how the union shapes and develops its identity as one of "empathetic workers who believe in social justice" (Alphabet Workers Union 2021). The analysis of the homepage of AWU's website through the prism of the textual metafunction in the visual mode (Kress and Van Leeuwen 2001; Kress and Van Leeuwen 2006), together with the analyisis of the interpersonal metafunction in the verbal mode according to the 'appraisal' paradigm (Martin and White 2005), shows how the union assigns a central position to positive feelings of togetherness.