$50,000 a year at 70 hour weeks come to a little over $14 an hour....
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/07/biztech/articles/26labo.html
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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
"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
or 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
"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."