Solidarity Forever

Tweet

Along with the crocuses and daffodils come tentative signs this spring of renewed labor union activity in the high-tech industry:

* Led by organizer Ed Jones, a former defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers, the Glaziers, Architectural Metal, and Glass Workers Union (AFL-CIO) has been active among production workers at various Atari Inc. sites in Silicon Valley in California. In January, the union announced that it had been able to gather enough signed cards to call an election at anytime.

* The independent United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America has targeted two other Silicon Valley companies -- National Semiconductor Co., with 8,000 workers, and Signetics Corp., with 4,000 workers -- for major organizing drives.

* An association of engineers and technicians at various Western Electric plants voted last fall to affiliate with the Communications Workers of America (AFL-CIO), which has long been the representative for the company's production workers. The association plans to seek collective bargaining rights and will apparently push for a representation election some time this year.

* In Massachusetts, a High Tech Workers Network has been formed to promote communication between workers in different high-tech companies. While the network is not formally associated with any union, its newsletter reports on organizing activities and compares conditions from company to company.

All of this activity is occurring when the fortunes of organized labor appear to be ebbing in the high-technology sector. According to the American Electronics Association (AEA), a Palo Alto-based management organization, only 90 of its 1,900-member companies report that they are currently operating with union contracts. Moreover, a recent AEA survey turned up only 7 union victories in 37 National Labor Relations Board elections held at electronics companies from 1977 to 1982 (about 19%). In a previous AEA survey, covering 1971 to 1977, unions tallied 14 victories in 56 elections (25%).

Labor officials concede that they have not had much success in high tech. One reason for this may simply be that the industry is still relatively young. "Many of these high-tech companies are quite new," notes Dennis Chamot, assistant director of the AFL-CIO's Department for professional Employees. "There hasn't been time to develop [organizing] opportunities. . . . I would not have expected wall-to-wall unionization at this stage anyway."

In addition, the industry has been highly competitive, creating what one personnel director terms a "candy store" effect. "There's been so much growth and opportunity [in Silicon Valley] that a mistreated employee. . . didn't have to call a union," says George Tansill, director of personnel and administration at Fortune Systems Corp., a microcomputer company in Belmont, Calif. "He could just say, 'Screw you, Charlie,' and go across the street for another job."

Tansill also believes that many high-tech managers have undercut organizing efforts by running their companies "as if they already had a union. They will set up things like 'problem solving,' which is another word for grievance procedures. They look into the past and ask, 'Why do people go to unions?' Then they put in policies and procedures that do the things that unions do. . . . They leave unions with nothing to sink their teeth into."

Such practices are not universal, however, and union activists question whether they will last even at the companies that do have them. "There's an irony here," says Steve Early, a national organizer for the Communications Workers. "Many high-tech firms in the Merrimack Valley [of Massachusetts] have moved into the shells of old textile mills. Well, if you go back, you'll find that the textile industry was also considered to have very progressive labor policies in its early days. Today a lot of these high-tech firms offer their workers a very sophisticated, union-free environment. The question is, Will these benefits remain as the economy changes?"

Indeed, the recession has opened up some cracks in the high-tech sector -- layoffs, wage freezes and cuts, increased work loads. So far, unions have been unable to exploit these problems, but then -- contrary to popular belief -- unions generally do not prosper in hard times. "People are scared in a recession," says Gary Hattal, director of training and communication at the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (AFL-CIO). "It's much harder to sign up new units. What's more, we can't increase our staff. We have to survive in this economy, too. . . . Unionizing efforts are much more likely during a recovery."

On the other hand, Hattal notes that he has seen a change in recent months.

We're getting a lot more calls from individuals wanting our help," he says. "We used to have to call them. Now they're coming to us."

So the next round of organizing may already have begun. Whether or not it succeeds remains to be seen. The Communications Workers' Early, for one, believes that unions must develop new techniques for organizing high-tech workers, especially white-collar workers. He favors building "issue-oriented" networks as a way of laying the groundwork for future union drives. "The issues might be health and safety, sex discrimination, whatever. The point is that unions need a strategic organizing approach to counter the management strategy of providing workers with elements of a union contract. It may not produce immediate results, but then again it's not very productive to keep holding elections and getting creamed."

Meanwhile, Early and other organizers are keeping an eye on the new union drives in Silicon Valley. "Atari's going to be tough," Early commented recently. "They've got multiple plants, and they're capable of moving overseas at any time."

A week after Early made his comments, Atari announced that it was laying off 1,700 workers and moving most of its manufacturing operations to Hong Kong and Taiwan.