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Microsoft Tries Collaborating with Unions to Avoid 'Public Disputes' (msn.com) 40

Posted by EditorDavid from the embracing-change dept.
"Microsoft on Thursday announced a new strategy for dealing with organized labor..." reports the Washington Post (in a story republished on MSN.com): In a blog post shared with The Washington Post, Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote that the company will respect workers' rights to unionize and plans to work collaboratively with organized labor organizations to "make it simpler rather than more difficult" for employees to unionize if they so choose.

Microsoft is in the process of completing a $69 billion acquisition of Activision, a video game company where employees of a small subsidiary voted to unionize in March. That union, the Game Workers Alliance, is a division of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which in a statement called Microsoft's announcement "encouraging and unique among the major tech companies." CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens added that "to truly give workers a legally protected voice in decisions that affect them and their families, these principles must be put into action and incorporated into Microsoft's day-to-day operations and its expectations for its contractors...."

Rebecca Givan, a Rutgers University professor of labor relations, said Microsoft's announcement could mean the company is trying to smooth things over with employees interested in unionizing. "There's a lot of actual organizing or talk or desire in the video game sector, and that's a piece of what Microsoft does. That might be what they're trying to get out in front of," Givan said.
The article argues that Microsoft is "attempting to set itself apart from other Big Tech firms like Google and Amazon that have clashed publicly with employees seeking union representation." And it provides specific examples where other big tech companies have "gotten into trouble" with America's National Labor Relations Board:
  • "The labor board has repeatedly found that Amazon wrongfully terminated or retaliated against workers who were involved with union organizing."
  • "Google, too, has had to settle charges with workers who said the company fired them in response to union organizing."
  • "Workers at Apple told The Post in April that they were targeted by management for supporting the union and threatened with the loss of certain benefits and opportunities for promotion."

The president of America's largest federation of union, the AFL-CIO, tells the Post in a statement that "Microsoft's collaborative approach to working with its employees who seek to organize is a best practice that we look forward to seeing implemented at Microsoft and other companies."


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Microsoft Tries Collaborating with Unions to Avoid 'Public Disputes' More

Microsoft Tries Collaborating with Unions to Avoid 'Public Disputes'

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  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    (Oh c'mon, you know someone was gonna post it.)

    • The unions will never let this stand. Public shaming and confrontation is only of their two leverages. The other is political contributions to get laws passed that allow them to leverage the gun of government coercion. A union will either shame MS at some point (because it is not about reasonableness to a union, it is about extracting more than the employer thinks is fair, otherwise the union is not needed), or work behind the scenes to get employees something by law they can not get through negotiation. Th

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mbkennel ( 97636 )

        Or maybe negotiating a union agreement was the point of the union after all

        • A union agreement costs members money. Was the point to charge them for money? Where are the ancillary benefits to justify the costs? If the company and the union are in agreement over what you get for your labor, the union is just taking a bite out of you paycheck for...?
          • How about not getting fired because the immediate supervisor needs a 6 week kick in reported profits?
            Happens EVERY day in Capitalism.
      • The corporate has no conception of "Fair" only "Every penny the market will tolerate".
        Even Adam Smith understood the tension. He said permit unions but DO NOT ENCOURAGE them, since Capital will flee for more inviting homes...like China.

  • I know it's just better PR, and possibly better for the bottom line, but at least they're doing ONE thing right.

    They're talking a good game. We'll see how it works out in practice.

  • Microsoft eventually learned to embrace open-source projects, and now they're one of the biggest contributors to Linux. Looks like they're trying out taking something other than an adversarial approach to workers unionizing. Good for them.

    • Microsoft eventually learned to embrace open-source projects, and now they're one of the biggest contributors to Linux. Looks like they're trying out taking something other than an adversarial approach to workers unionizing. Good for them

      Nadella does seem to be one of the less evil CEOs out there. Its not a completely wholesome gig though. They still have an OS filled with surveilance malware and are tightening their grip on desktop platforms with shitty security TPU requirements

  • Unions are a good thing generally. Although... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @11:47PM (#62596224)
    Technology is not something that benefits from people feeling like their position is secured. It would be a good idea to have some sort of line where, on one side of it, we say "This is an established industry, and as such the benefits should mostly go to the workers." On the other side of the line, we say, "This is a frontier, and the highest priority is making sure the crazy bastards who are pioneering it get to fully explore its potential."

    We can do both. We can have our stable, rewarding, honorable jobs...and we can reward crazy bastards.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Unions are shit. 100% shit. They encourage "lowest common denominator" performance. If you know that no matter how hard you work, your performance will be judged based on seniority instead of performance, why would you try to excel?

      Doesn't matter the industry; unions encourage "lowest common denominator" thinking.

      • You have apparently drank the employers cool aid.

        I work in an environment which is largely unionized. I have NEVER seen any claim from the employers that this causes less productivity. On the contrary. Instead of worrying about how to afford food on the table, being able to get healtcare and if some manager fire you because "they can", the workers can concentrate on doing their job to the best of their ability. And they actually do.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

        Unions are shit. 100% shit.

        That's nonsense. Workers' rights are generally unprotected if workers do not belong to a union. States generally don't fund enforcement of their own laws on serious issues like wage theft — even though wage theft exceeds all other theft, we spend the vast majority of our resources on other kinds of theft... because wage theft is carried out by the moneyed class, which can afford lawyers and bribes/contributions, while the other kinds are carried out by the poor, who cannot.

        They encourage "lowest common denominator" performance.

        Yes, unions can and do enshr

        • 30% Interesting
              30% Overrated
              20% Troll

          In fact I'm 0% trolling, though I may be 100% overrated in the eyes of some.

          But I love it when people try to bury my opinions, because they know they have no cogent argument against them — and I know it, too.

      • Says the person who probably enjoys a 40 hour work week, paid time off, benefits and a host of other things that exist because of unions.

    • There is no contradiciton between the two. If it is seen as such, it is because most Americans do not seem to understand that unions need not be ablueprint of what you think it is. Unions make agreements with the employers on behalf of its members. It is between the employer and the union what the agreement covers.
      Although for most unions, it looks prety much the same, there is no mandatory blueprint. As an example, the union I am mamber of encourage individual compensation. That is because the union organ
      • Not a contradiction, but there is a tension. A labor union seeks to improve the stability, security, and compensation of the employee position. Improving technology often involves making jobs redundant, or require fewer hours, or be less consistently required (i.e., the exact opposite of what the union seeks). Finding a sustainable overlap between these two is not the simplest of things, and we must admit that where the latter is an absolute paramount value, the former will have to give ground.
        • I have watched unionlized companies go through the changes you mention time after time. If the business has established a mutually respectfull cooperation with the union, then it may be a problem, but nothing that cannot be achieved. In most cases it is about being honest, and fair.

  • It's better to have collaboration with your staff in your company than conflict? Who'd have thought it?

    German companies work like this, and they are pretty successful too.

    • Not only German, but many other European countries too. Some even have union members on the board.

      • Indeed. Supervisory boards, with representation from shareholders and also workers, happen in the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.

        The worker representation doesn't have to be a union - it can be a representative from the Works Council elected by employees. In places with a whole-company union representation, the union usually provides the supervisory board member as well.

  • The EULA bans laughing at MS?

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