By Mike Hall
Seattle is known for three things: rain, coffee bars and its booming high-tech industry, led by computer giant Microsoft. The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech) is looking to make the region known as the birthplace of a new union organizing strategy in the fight to bring rights to part-time, temporary and contract workers.
In 1998, about 40 Microsoft "perma-temps," fed up with their treatment by the computer giant, launched WashTech. As a statewide voice for high-tech workers, WashTech aims to educate workers about their rights to organize and negotiate the same basic benefits as full-time workers. Ultimately, the alliance seeks to counter the efforts of high-tech firms and temporary agencies to squeeze profits by creating a new class of permanent temporary workers.
A few months after it was formed, the group affiliated with the Communications Workers, finding CWA "uniquely poised to help provide information workers with a strong and effective voice," says WashTech co-founder Marcus Courtney. In a 1999 WashTech survey of Microsoft contractors, 54 percent of respondents said they see a need to organize, but 40 percent are reluctant to participate for fear of losing their jobs. The survey found wide support for unions among the state's young, high-tech workforce, with only 26 percent saying they oppose unions.
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| | | A capitol event: WashTech and the Washington State Labor Council helped set up a state hearing this year where WashTech members (from left) Anne Newman, Lisa Lewis and Heather McRae-Woolf testified. |
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Mirroring national trends in the high-tech industry, Microsoft utilizes a huge cadre of nonstandard workers—6,000 temporary or independent contractors compared with the company's 19,000 full-time employees. In the Seattle area, about 10,000 workers are employed as temporary or independent contract workers. Working side by side with permanent company employees, these "perma-temps" receive few if any of the benefits—health insurance, pension, vacations, stock options—that companies provide their full-time employees.
Courtney says his four years as a high-tech perma-temp—including two at Microsoft, where he was a test engineer developing Windows 98—made him realize the changing nature of today's high-tech workforce.
"This isn't a temporary thing at all. It's a permanent shift about how people work. Nobody was really looking at what was happening in high-tech," Courtney says.
While the industry promotes the image that "independent contractors" enjoy more freedom, flexibility and better wages than most temporary employees, Courtney says, "I think the majority of workers are dissatisfied, even if they chose their jobs." In fact, the WashTech survey shows that 60 percent would prefer full-time, permanent jobs, and a majority say they did not choose to work as contractors but were forced to by Microsoft.
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From America@work, May 1999. |
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Although most job seekers in Washington's high-tech industry are interviewed by, tested by and offered their jobs directly through a company, corporations tell new hires they have to work through a temporary agency. WashTech's survey found almost two-thirds do not believe their agencies represent their best interests.
"In the last two years, I have worked in the same group, with the same agency, on a contract that is renewed every three months. When Microsoft hired me, they said I have to 'join' an agency," Lisa Lewis, a long-term Microsoft perma-temp told a Washington State Senate committee hearing earlier this year. WashTech and the Washington State Labor Council were instrumental in setting up the hearing, where Lewis and two other WashTech members testified on legislation to create a task force to study contingent worker issues.
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| | | | In 1998, Microsoft earned almost $14.5 billion and turned a $4.4 billion profit, according to the company's annual report. As of early April, Bill Gates was worth more than $106 billion in Microsoft stocks alone, according to the Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock.That doesn't include his personal assets like cars, homes, planes and trinkets. You might say he's perma-rich. | |
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It's a great deal for the agency and the employer. The agency pockets a hefty fee from the employer, while the company avoids the costs and obligations it would incur under a conventional worker-employer relationship.
At the urging of the software industry last year, the state eliminated overtime for some software professionals—despite a vigorous fight by WashTech, the Washington State AFL-CIO and others. As a result, workers flocked to WashTech, which now has more than 1,000 subscribers to its e-mail newsletter.
Through organizing, WashTech members believe they can make a difference. Says Courtney, "Workers have enormous power and, by organizing, they will be able to determine how the workplace operates and their relationship with the company."
