Leading me to do more lookups, and found....GNET mentioned favorably 27 July 1999......Looks like unions were wanting more busines.....and cost INSP lots of money!
[PEN-L:9643] Cybersweatshops and Unions
by Lisa & Ian Murray
27 July 1999 01:59 UTC
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Self exploitation of Gen-X continues. The situation is nowhere near as rosy
as Greenhouse portrays it.
$50,000 a year at 70 hour weeks come to a little over $14 an hour....
nytimes.com
July 26, 1999
High-Technology Sector Unmoved by Labor's Song
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
SEATTLE -- As the labor movement sets its sights on the booming
high-technology world, employees like Matt Shea, a 24-year-old software
developer, seem ripe for the picking. He often clocks 70-hour weeks, his
managers sometimes push him to work past midnight, and he never receives
overtime pay.
But ask Shea whether he wants a union at his workplace, a thriving Internet
start-up called Go2Net, and his response is a puzzled expression that says
"Does Not Compute."
Dan Lamont for The New York Times
Matthew Shea, a software designer for Go2Net in Seattle, says he likes his
job, is well compensated and sees no need for a union.
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"As far as me personally, and for everyone else here, unions have never come
up," said Shea, who said he loved his job, notwithstanding the sweatshop
hours. "Everything I want is offered to me here."
The American labor movement has belatedly recognized that if it is to
reverse the decades-long slide in the percentage of workers belonging to
unions, it must make some headway in high technology, the economy's
fastest-growing sector. To increase their numbers and their influence in
politics and at the bargaining table, unions cannot afford to be shut out of
the glamorous, powerful high-tech industry, which accounts for an
ever-larger share of the work force.
Persuading technology workers to join unions will not be easy, though,
because of all that is lavished upon people like Shea. His job gives him
valuable stock options, flexible hours, an excellent medical plan, a sense
of family and, perhaps most important, the thrill of building something.
Labor leaders acknowledge that they face an uphill battle -- only a small
fraction of the nation's 2 million computer and software developers,
programmers and engineers belongs to labor unions. But organizers are far
from packing their bags in Seattle or Silicon Valley. In fact, they are
convinced that many high-technology employees will ultimately warm to
labor's message that workers need a collective voice to stand up to
management.
In a public relations coup this spring, union organizers trumpeted one of
their first successes in high technology when 16 temporary workers at
Microsoft became the first group of software workers in a single workplace
to call for union representation. Their action reflects a little-understood
aspect of high-tech America: While most high-technology workers are
contented haves, there are also many discontented have-nots.
Most have-nots come from the sea of long-term temps who work at Microsoft
and other high-tech companies, and they often complain of being second-class
citizens who receive bare-bones benefits and have no job security or stock
options. Microsoft employs 20,500 regular workers domestically and 6,000
temps, who often call themselves permatemps because they work anywhere from
six months to three years at the company, testing software, writing manuals,
designing Web pages and developing CD-ROMs.
Industry experts estimate that at many companies -- including Compaq
Computer, Hewlett-Packard and Intel -- more than 10 percent of the workers
are temps.
"The conditions are not the same as where unions have had a lot of success,"
said Jonathan Rosenblum, organizing director for the King County Labor
Council in Seattle, "but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of substantive
issues that concern high-tech workers and make them feel they want to have a
voice in their job."
Just as high technology has had vast ripple effects on the way Americans
live, it is forcing changes in the American labor movement. Labor's
traditional focus has been getting a majority of employees at a work site --
usually full-time workers tied for years to a single employer -- to vote for
a union then negotiating a contract for them.
But unions are finding that this model may be as obsolete in high-tech
America as a 286 Intel chip, because workers jump among companies like
honeybees from flower to flower.
Some labor organizers acknowledge that they may never get a majority of
workers at start-ups or at giants like Intel to vote in a union. So they are
trying to devise new ways to represent high-technology workers.
An innovative example came in February when, seeking to improve benefits for
high-tech temps, the AFL-CIO office in Silicon Valley set up an employment
agency offering far better benefits than other agencies.
"The way we go to work has changed," said Amy Dean, director of the
AFL-CIO's Silicon Valley office. "So we, the labor movement, have to create
a response that recognizes that the world has changed, while still embracing
the values, like equity and giving workers a voice, that labor has always
stood for."
The Haves: Big Salaries and Benefits
For Shea, the 24-year-old software engineer, unions are not so much
undesirable as irrelevant.
At Go2Net, he has no out-of-pocket costs for his health or dental plan. He
is happy with his flexible hours and two weeks of vacation a year. And he
loves working at a start-up where he has a strong sense of making a
contribution.
"My goal has always been to develop software that lots of people use," he
said. "Here you can see 10,000 people using your software every day."
Nor do his 70-hour weeks make him resent management.
"As far as what gets me up in the morning or what makes me stay up so late,
that's a pride issue," said Shea, who received a bachelor's degree in
computer science from the University of California at San Diego. "Last
night, I was up till 4 a.m. testing a new home page."
The salary of a software wunderkind like Shea usually ranges from $50,000 to
$100,000 a year, often with stock options that double or triple that amount.
High-technology executives say that one overarching factor works against
labor's success: the shortage of skilled software workers. Because demand
far outstrips supply, companies often feel they must offer lavish salaries
and stock options to recruit and retain workers.
"This industry is so damn competitive in seeking the best talent that if you
don't give your employees what they want, you'll lose them in a second,"
said Ethan Caldwell, general counsel of Go2Net, which is known for its
Metacrawler search engine and a financial discussion Web site.
At many start-ups, the workplace culture is so worker-friendly that it
leaves union organizers out in the cold. High-technology start-ups emphasize
hiring entrepreneurial self-starters, the type of employee least likely to
turn to unions for help.
High-tech companies also strive to create a sense of family and fun. At many
companies, there are free sodas, basketball courts and latte bars. One
company took all its workers on a free ski trip when it met a crucial sales
goal.
And last -- but certainly not least -- are stock options, a strategy that
strengthens loyalty to management and inspires workers to want to build the
company.
"For a lot of workers, there's a little bit of a hero's journey, that I can
be part of building this thing into a $10 billion company," said Evan
Kaplan, chief executive of Aventail, a start-up in Seattle, which has 100
workers and provides security software for computer systems.
"You try to build a work environment that's fun and challenging, and you try
to deal with benefits in a way that brings them up to a level that you know
is good, which is one of the reasons you don't see a tendency toward
unionization," he added.
Another reason unions are not catching fire with high-technology workers is
that so many are in their 20s and 30s and grew up when labor's visibility
and clout were on the wane. Union anthems like "Solidarity Forever" and "Joe
Hill" are as unfamiliar to them as 14th-century madrigals.
"I never think about unions, because they were never part of my life," Shea
said.
Many high-tech workers say that if they disliked their jobs, it would make
more sense to hop to another employer than to undertake a unionization drive
that could cause a six-month war with management.
"The market is so hot now that if you have the training and job experience,
you can walk down the street to the next start-up or to Microsoft and get a
job," said Debra Joyce, the 29-year-old manager of information systems at
Aventail. "So if you're unhappy, you don't necessarily need union
protection."
But labor leaders say that the industry's workers will warm to unions when
the high-tech boom crests -- when high-tech stocks fall, stock options
tumble in value and unemployment rises in the industry, making it harder for
unhappy workers to simply jump to other companies.
The Have-Nots: For the Temps, Quest for Equity
s five Microsoft temps met with two union organizers at Azteca, a restaurant
two minutes from the Microsoft campus, the conversation ranged from mild to
militant. Over beer and tortilla chips, they talked of staging a sit-in at a
temp agency and of organizing a T-shirt day when dozens of supporters would
wear pro-union shirts to Microsoft's main cafeteria.
Mark Turner, a 39-year-old accountant turned software temp who has been at
Microsoft since August, explained before the meeting that a mountain of
grievances had pushed him and the 15 other workers to back unionization.
Unlike regular workers, the temps receive no Microsoft stock options, no pay
on sick days and an inferior health plan. Many said they were misclassified
into jobs that paid less than they deserved.
Dan Lamont for The New York Times
Mark Turner, shown with his family in Bellevue, Wash., is one of 16
temporary workers at Microsoft who have sought union representation in hopes
of bridging the compensation gap with full-time employees.
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"We like what we do, we like our Microsoft managers and we like each other,"
said Turner, who complained that he has to pay $3,300 of the nearly $60,000
he earns each year toward health insurance premiums. "If we didn't, we
wouldn't be fighting to improve a job we really like. But I believe that
without a union we have no shot. They'll just blow us off."
The 16 workers, part of an 18-person team creating a new financial software
product, want to be represented by the Washington Alliance of Technology
Workers, known as Washtech, a fledgling union with four organizers and a
$175,000 annual budget paid for by the Communications Workers of America.
Microsoft is renowned for churning out 30-year-old multimillionaires, but it
is also churning out lots of disgruntled temps, and that is fueling the
unionization push.
"It's frustrating because you're working side by side with other people who
are getting so much more for doing substantially the same thing," said David
Larsen, a $15-an-hour temp who has worked as a Microsoft software tester for
18 months. "The company softball field says you can't use it. They give
regular employees stock options and discounts on Microsoft products, and all
we get is an e-mail from our temp agency saying there's a drawing for a free
snowboard."
Microsoft executives say it makes sense to use thousands of temporary
workers because the company has so many projects -- like new software
development -- that last six months. While Microsoft's critics insist that
the company uses temps to skimp on benefits and severance payments, company
executives say using temps is fairer to the workers -- they do not come in
thinking they have permanent jobs, only to be laid off once their projects
end.
Microsoft is also quick to note that many workers prefer temping to
permanent employment because it gives them greater freedom to travel or work
on the side and because they can earn lots of overtime pay -- unlike regular
Microsoft workers, who are considered salaried professionals.
"I'm happy with being a contractor," said Emmet Skaar, a 32-year-old
software tester. "I'm happy being in charge of my own destiny, and I'm very
pleased with the compensation package. If these people aren't happy as
contractors, they should go get themselves hired as permanent employees."
Discontent among temps has resulted in one lawsuit in which a federal
appeals court has found for the plaintiffs. The court ruled that thousands
of workers hired by Microsoft through employment agencies were regular
employees rather than temps and should qualify for certain Microsoft
benefits, including its discount stock purchase plan.
The two sides are now thrashing out how many tens of millions of dollars
Microsoft owes these so-called temps. And Microsoft has adopted a new rule
requiring all temps to take a 31-day break in their work at least once a
year to ensure that they can no longer be viewed as regular workers.
"Microsoft is engaged in a pretense about people working for Microsoft not
being its employees," said Stephen Strong, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers.
"If Microsoft provided a reasonable level of benefits to all employees, if
Microsoft grew up and acted like the major employer it is and not a small
business, no one would be thinking about a union."
The Unions: Looking for Ways to Gain Members
espite the impassioned words from Microsoft's pro-union temps, they face a
decided challenge. For one thing, Microsoft insists that their real employer
is not Microsoft but their employment agencies.
"Organizing is an issue between an employee and the employer, and in this
case the employers are the contingent staffing companies," said Dan Leach, a
Microsoft spokesman.
Union organizers fear that if the 16 temps petition for a unionization
election, there will be years of litigation to determine who is the employer
and whether the appropriate bargaining unit is their 18-worker software
group, the 6,000 temps at Microsoft or a 3,000-worker employment agency.
"It's virtually impossible to organize workers in this co-employer setting,"
said Michael Blain, Washtech's co-founder. "Existing labor law is totally
inadequate to address issues of the new economy."
Seeing the difficulties in getting most workers at a high-tech company to
vote to unionize, labor leaders are looking to nontraditional ways to build
a union. Kirk Adams, the AFL-CIO's organizing director, said unions could
attract high-tech workers by providing two important benefits: affordable
training and mobility of benefits.
In an industry where it is vital to know the latest software-writing
languages to advance to higher-paying positions, many temp workers complain
about paying for-profit schools $600 for a 10-hour course. (Temps often
cannot take the free in-house courses that companies offer.) So Washtech
provides such courses for $75 to people who join the new union by agreeing
to pay one hour's wages each month; 175 have joined so far, and more than
1,000 others have asked to be on the union's electronic mailing list.
Some union leaders talk of creating a high-technology hiring hall, similar
to ones in construction, in which companies would contribute to a joint
pension and health plan so workers who hop between companies would not lose
their pension credits or health insurance.
Larry Cohen, the organizing director for Washtech's parent, the
Communications Workers of America, said labor might settle early on for the
rudimentary role of creating a collective voice for high-tech workers. Cohen
said such a union, instead of negotiating contracts, would exchange
information among members and sometimes speak for them.
"Rather than feel they're just a little boat bobbing in the water," he said,
"people could feel they're part of a larger organization that shares their
values."
But all these strategies could prove futile because so many high-tech
workers view unions as unnecessary.
"I love my job," said Paul Primrose, a customer service worker at
Amazon.com. "Some occupations do need unions, but not here. It's because
things change so rapidly that you need to change quickly, and unions could
get in the way." |
