FEATURE
Time for a High-Tech Union?

When the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech) opened its doors five years ago and started talking to high-tech professionals to gauge their interest in joining a union, many treated it as a joke. Now, with offshore outsourcing taking off and repercussions from years of layoffs hitting home, no one is laughing anymore.

Although unions traditionally have been a tool of blue-collar workers, a movement toward organizing high-tech, white-collar employees is gathering steam.

Is it possible that the time has come for a high-tech union?

Birth of a Union

WashTech did not start as an organization out to change the industry. Rather, it was founded solely to take on Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT).

A group of Microsoft temps were frustrated by their long-term "permatemp" status, which defined them as contract workers and independent contractors who did not receive benefits. After the group formed WashTech to take on Microsoft, it began to address similar concerns at other companies like Boeing and Amazon.

Now, the organization has become the most visible high-tech union in the United States. Although its membership rolls are still small in comparison with other unions -- there are just 400 members -- interest in the group's actions has skyrocketed.

WashTech president Marcus Courtney told the E-Commerce Times that in the first three years of the group's existence, the number of subscribers to its e-mail newsletter held steady at about 2,000 readers. In the last year, that tally has increased to 17,000.

Poised To Grow

With some help from a larger sibling, the group may grow even more in the near future. It is now partially funded by a grant from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the country's largest communications and media union, with more than 700,000 members. The grant is designed to help WashTech boost its membership numbers and get more exposure.

For his part, Courtney predicts that today's shifting high-tech landscape and continuing employment concerns in the industry should help WashTech see a continued boom in interest. "We're visiting all parts of the country, from Silicon Valley to Boston," he said, "and we're really starting to see high-tech workers begin to organize at a national level."

Perception Problem

To succeed, however, tech unions will have to overcome a major obstacle in their recruiting drive: image.

John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told the E-Commerce Times that unions have been part of the manufacturing environment for so long that many people associate them with blue-collar workers.

"As manufacturing loses its primacy in the U.S. economy, many have wondered if unions can make the shift to a modern economy," Challenger said. "So far, there's been no indication that any union has been able to gain a foothold in the service or technology sectors."

He added that the personalities of many tech workers also could be a barrier to success. Technology workers tend to change jobs often, Challenger explained, and they like having a sense of autonomy. As a result, having a union to help fight for job security may not be as important to tech-industry workers as it would be to those in other fields.

"I'm not sure job security and long-term contracts are things that the unions could convince tech workers they really want," he said.

The Changing Tech Worker

Unions, however, tend to believe the job-hopping, independent techie is a personality type fading as fast as the memory of Pets.com.

"I think for a long time high-tech workers have been technologically savvy but socially naive; they thought their knowledge was enough to maintain good jobs," said Mitch Besser, co-founder of ORTech, a technology group that is not a union but is closely associated with the CWA.

As an example, he related the story of an Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) staffer who was putting in 14-hour days and was asked to quadruple his productivity or lose his job to someone in Malaysia.

"It used to be a badge of honor, to work long hours like that," Besser said. "But things are changing. People are starting to want more of a life outside of work."

He added that many once-youthful dot-com workers are now at an age when marriage and children have entered the picture, making long days and weekend work less of an option.

Employer Hurdles Ahead

Beyond trying to convince high-tech professionals to wear the union label, organizations geared toward union staples like collective bargaining will face a chilly reception from corporate management as well.

Courtney noted that he has seen virulent anti-union sentiment in nearly every boardroom he has visited, and he thinks the situation is not likely to change anytime soon.

"They're all the same," he said. "They all have the same playbook, and they have billions to defeat us. One of the barriers to our success is the perception on the part of employees, but another barrier is definitely that management has made them afraid of us."

He added, "Employers have waged a war against unions, but workers have a right to organize."

Besser of ORTech also has been met with hostility by employers, but there has been a level of understanding as well. "I've had some employers say they see unions as an abomination, but they add that they understand why high-tech workers would want one," he noted.

In fact, this realization that high-tech professionals are unhappy with what is happening in the industry is very much felt by some corporate managers, Besser said. "I think they see these unions as a wake-up call."