AUT: (fwd) Organizing Tech Temps

[pmargin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Steve Wright)]

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>Date:         Fri, 16 Jul 1999 13:02:16 -0400
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>From: Charles Brown <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject:      Organizing Tech Temps
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>Labor Group Wants to Organize Tech Temp Workers
>It seeks benefits, security for Microsoft `permatemps'
>
>Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer
>Friday, July 16, 1999
>
>Mark Turner is a lifelong Republican who used to have nothing but contempt
>for labor unions, including the teachers union and machinists union that
>counted his parents as members.
>``I have browbeat my parents my whole life because I thought unions were a
>thing of the past,'' he said.
>Now Turner, 39, is the most unlikely of union supporters. The $31-per-hour
>computer programmer signed a petition last month asking Microsoft Corp. to
>bargain collectively with his 20-person work group. ``Now I'm unable to go
>to my parents' house,'' Turner joked.
>Turner and his colleagues at Microsoft -- long-term temporary workers who
>have become known as ``permatemps'' -- are on the cutting edge of a new
>effort by organized labor to penetrate the world of high tech.
>Seattle tech workers have formed a group called WashTech that has
>affiliated with the Communication Workers of America and is trying to
>organize skilled computer professionals like Turner.
>They clearly have got an uphill battle. High-tech employees not only are
>independent minded, but they also often are well paid. Traditional union
>elections and contracts can't be applied easily to temporary employees, who
>make up a growing share of the tech workforce. And the entrepreneurial
>culture of the tech industry means that many workers see stock options
>rather than union cards as the ticket to financial security.
>But there are some growing murmurs of discontent within the ranks of tech
>workers that could create opportunities for unions.
>Programmers and engineers in their 40s and 50s commonly voice complaints
>about age discrimination. And as companies rely increasingly on contractors
>and temporary workers, some high-tech temps are starting to rebel against
>what they see as second-class status.
>``You read about everyone being a millionaire and ready to cash in big,''
>said Marcus Courtney, a former temp at Microsoft who helped found WashTech.
>``But my own experience after four years in the industry was that I had no
>health benefits, no retirement plan, no job security. Every day, I worried
>about whether it would be my last day on the job.''
>WashTech so far is focusing on contingent workers -- people employed on a
>temporary or contract basis.
>The number of such workers has grown dramatically both inside and outside
>the computer industry.
>The portion of the U.S. workforce employed by temporary agencies rose from
>0.5 percent in 1982 to 2.2 percent in 1997, according to the Bureau of
>Labor Statistics. Together with independent contractors and employees of
>contracting firms, temps now account for one of every 10 workers -- more
>than 13 million people.
>And nowhere has this growth gotten more attention than at Microsoft, which
>for several years has been fighting a class-action lawsuit by temps seeking
>access to the same benefits as regular employees.
>Microsoft counts 5,500 to 6,500 temporary employees in its workforce of
>30,000, or about 1 of every 5 staffers on its Redmond campus.
>Many have long-term assignments: 63 percent of the Microsoft temps surveyed
>by WashTech have been at the company for more than a year.
>Some Microsoft work groups are made up entirely of orange-badged temps,
>with only the team's manager wearing the blue badge that marks permanent
>employees.
>Microsoft says it uses temps for reasons similar to other high-tech firms
>-- to keep up with rapid product cycles and dramatic swings in customer
>demands.
>For instance, Microsoft might need hundreds of tech-support people when it
>unveils a new version of Windows, but that need quickly would die down as
>customers get used to the new product.
>And many of Microsoft's longtime temps are, in fact, satisfied with their
>status. They note that temps typically receive a higher hourly pay rate
>than permanent employees.
>Mark Dixon, 46, has worked as a multimedia producer at Microsoft on
>threedifferent temporary assignments for a total of 5 1/2 years.
>``I like the flexibility and extra pay of being a contractor, and the
>change of people and products,'' he said.
>But other longtime Microsoft temps feel exploited. They say they're being
>unfairly deprived of benefits ranging from discounts on Microsoft software
>to sick leave, lucrative stock options and fully paid health care.
>In 1991, some disgruntled Microsoft contractors filed a class-action
>lawsuit seeking benefits that continues wending its way through the courts.
>And in early 1998, a new generation of frustrated temps decided to form
>WashTech and affiliate with the CWA.
>They face some daunting organizational challenges.
>The traditional kind of union election and bargaining process doesn't work
>well for temps. One problem is that contested union elections can take
>years to resolve -- by which time temps may have moved on to entirely new
>assignments.
>Another problem is that the National Labor Relations Board has said you
>can't negotiate a contract for a group of temps unless all the staffing
>agencies that employ them have agreed to take part in the bargaining.
>``You might have to bargain with five different agencies, and if one
>refused to give its consent, none of the other agencies would be required
>to bargain,'' Courtney said.
>So instead of a traditional focus on collective bargaining, WashTech is
>instead trying what it calls ``collective action'' -- lobbying, letter
>writing, public pressure and employee- protest actions.
>So far, WashTech has a dues-paying membership of 175 and an e- mail mailing
>list of about 1,200 high-tech employees.
>It's made a name for itself promoting the rights of high-tech temps in
>Washington's state Legislature and in the news media. But its biggest
>actual organizing battle so far has involved a relatively small group of 20
>temporary programmers that included Turner.
>Turner's unit is made up of financial professionals -- CPAs and business
>school graduates -- who are writing code for a new financial software progr=
am.
>They decided to organize last month after Microsoft announced that it was
>requiring all of its temporary staffing firms to offer at least a minimal
>level of benefits to their workers -- things like 13 paid holidays or
>vacation days each year, health insurance with premiums that are 50 percent
>paid by the agency, and a retirement plan with an employer contribution.
>Members of the financial software group said they were told that they were
>ineligible for the improved benefits because of the way their jobs were
>classified by Microsoft.
>In fact, parts of their benefit package were far below the new standard put
>out by Microsoft. For instance, their retirement plan didn't have any
>employer contribution. Their health plan capped the amount of benefits they
>could receive at $7,000 per year.
>``If you broke a leg, you were done. And if you got cancer or a heart
>attack -- forget it,'' said Nancy Martin, 38, a CPA who has worked as a
>temporary programmer at Microsoft since November.
>Eighteen out of the 20 financial software temps signed a petition asking
>Microsoft to negotiate with them as a group over their wages and benefits.
>Nearly all of them also signed up as dues-paying members of WashTech.
>Microsoft refused to negotiate, saying it wasn't the programmers' employer.
>``Issues of collective bargaining are issues between employees and their
>employer,'' said Microsoft spokesman Dan Leach. ``In this case, the
>employers are the staffing companies.''
>The four staffing agencies that employed the group also refused to bargain.
>But then the agencies told the workers that they would in fact upgrade the
>group's benefits to the Microsoft standard.
>Temp agency officials said they had planned the benefit improvements long
>before the petition was drafted.
>``We were treating them fairly and working on some of these matters long
>before (the petition),'' said Norma Kraus, vice president of Volt Services
>Group, which employs about 14 of the 20 financial software people.
>But employees felt they had won an unofficial victory. ``Basically, they
>are not recognizing us as a bargaining unit, but we are winning our
>points,'' said Martin.
>The group still has several unmet demands. For instance, they want an end
>to broad pay disparities within their group that have led to people earning
>anywhere from $18 to $35 per hour for similar work.
>They also want the freedom to switch to a different temporary agency while
>staying in their current assignments -- something prohibited in their
>contracts.
>They're optimistic about their prospects for success.
>``Microsoft managers sooner or later will get real tired of hearing about
>us in the press,'' Turner predicted. ``They'll contact Volt and say, `Let
>my people go.' ''
>On a broader level, WashTech hopes to parlay dozens of small skirmishes
>like this one into better conditions for high-tech temps as a whole.
>``This was a significant step, since it was the first time that high-tech
>workers tried to gain collective bargaining rights at their job site,''
>Courtney said.
>Will WashTech succeed? Other labor unions and high-tech companies are
>watching closely to find out.
>``I'm skeptical because of how independent most contractors are,'' said
>Jerry Erickson, publisher of Contract Employment Weekly magazine. ``Most
>contractors have been pretty happy with what they're doing.
>``On the other hand, so many people have entered the contracting industry
>recently who don't really want to be there,'' Erickson continued. ``We've
>seen an influx of people who aren't doing it because they want to, but
>because they've been downsized or can't find a permanent opportunity.''
>
>TECH TEMP UNIONS SPREAD TO SILICON VALLEY
>Seattle isn't the only area where labor unions are trying to organize
>high-tech temporary workers.
>Silicon Valley unions are trying to improve the lot of high- tech temps in
>a novel way: They've set up a labor-run temporary staffing firm.
>The South Bay Labor Council of the AFL-CIO launched a nonprofit staffing
>firm last winter called Solutions at Work that aims to provide temporary
>clerical workers to small businesses.
>Solutions at Work so far has placed about 75 workers at 60 firms.
>The staffing firm is part of the Labor Council's efforts to respond to the
>rise of contingent workers -- temporary, contract or part-time workers who
>often have little job security and few benefits.
>``In our judgment, the expansion of temporary employment is not a passing
>phase, but a long- term part of the new economy,'' said Bob Brownstein,
>policy director of Working Partnerships USA, a research group affiliated
>with the South Bay Labor Council that is overseeing the temp initiative.
>``It doesn't do any good to try and make it go away. So we need to be as
>creative as possible in developing policies that will . . . meet the needs
>of working families.''
>The Labor Council -- which hopes eventually to expand Solutions at Work to
>include light-industrial and technical workers -- hopes the firm will be a
>model for how to treat temporary employees. No worker is paid less than $10
>an hour; workers will have access to health insurance, sick leave and
>holidays; and they will be given advance notice if assignments are
>shortened or changed.
>At the same time, the council is launching an advocacy group that will
>pressure large Silicon Valley employers to impose an industrywide ``code of
>conduct'' on the temp agencies they use.
>San Jose business leaders said the Labor Council's efforts hadn't yet
>produced any noticeable changes in the area's staffing industry. One major
>local temp firm hadn't even heard of the Labor Council's initiative.
>``From an employer's perspective, this is just another agency they can go
>to for temporary help,'' said Jim Tucker, spokesman for the San Jose
>Chamber of Commerce.
>But Tucker added that it still is too early to see how the effort will pan
>out.
>``It's a bit unusual for a union- based organization to get into the
>staffing business,'' Tucker said. ``But we've discovered that Working
>Partnerships is an innovative kind of group. They sometimes think out of
>the box. We'll have to see how it works out.''
>
>        =A91999 San Francisco Chronicle Page B1
>
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