Tenth anniversary of the launch of TWA for Lionbridge

 On March 14, 2014 we started collecting cards to support the creation of a union for Tier1 employees. Story told in The other Microsoft. Or the  second edition. 10 years later, I wonder how tier1 employees are treated by Microsoft's suppliers.

A great story and victory : How two best friends beat Amazon

 Congrats people :) as told in the NYTimes

Next: how to extract a contract from Amazon. Best wishes.

Our pal Josh Eidelson's take. Yep. 'Bargaining in good faith'. Hopefully the media will keep watching/reporting and other Amazon warehouses will organize. Same as Starbucks but with much larger workforces involved. Wondering how the customers could show/express/ their support, how could shareholders do the same. Any 'progressives' holding shares of Amazon? That would be a cool move :)

A first look at the main shareholders. We'll have to look elsewhere: ICCR's collection of progressive proposals for Amazon. See copy of 6,7, 8, 10, 13,  proposals below 

Transfer of the Temporary Workers of America's archives to the Labor Archives of Washington

Today I gave away the archives of our union that filled a suitcase to Conor Casey who heads the Labor Archives of Washington hosted in the special collections at the University of Washington. "The Labor Archives of Washington collects, preserves, and makes accessible the records of working people in the Pacific Northwest and serves the labor movement by helping them preserve records of enduring value."

The New York Times takes on Facebook, Accenture and the way they exploit workers 'cleaning' horrible content

 Excellent article published on August 31, 2021. Confirms all that is showed in the two French films about the way Facebook and other mega firms operate.

Very interesting article about workers organizing 'independently' and apps that help them

 It's an article published in Vice by Lauren Kaori Gurley, titled "A new app is taking labor unions out of organizing". 

Mentioned in the article: Unit ... with a team of 3 people (for now or maybe there also 'contractors"?) Lauren writes  they "launched in December 2020 with $1.4 million in funding from various venture capital firm". It would be interesting to know a bit more about hose investors and where the money is going: it's a lot of money for such a small team (at this point).

Frank, based in Chicago, raised $2 million. 5 people (3 in technical jobs and no detail bio available)

Uniteonline  provides zero info on their website. 

Tentative bargaining agreement signed in Pittsburgh

 Kim Lyons reports on July 23 in The Verge. No details yet about the paid leaves negotiated. Let us hope their story does not end like our did after the bargaining agreement was signed. The ratification vote is scheduled for July 30. I wonder how the PTO negotiated compares with Microsoft's requirements for their suppliers.

I found out just now the agreement was ratified today, July 29. See the USW press release. Here is the text of the agreement (PDF), provided by USW (Thank you). It looks like they got 15 days PTO, 12 paid holidays and 12 weeks of paid parental leave. 

All our best wishes!

Microsoft's minimal requirements for PTO and paid parental leave:

April 2015, at least 15 days of PTO 

August 2018, minimum of 12 weeks of paid parental leave 

GHOST WORKERS: the web based proletariat exposed by this second French 2019 TV program and feature film

 Initially it is a September 2019 French TV program Cash Investigation that you can see on Youtube. It lasts 2 hours and contains several interviews in English. The producers have adapted a 52 minutes feature film format available on Vimeo (I have not seen it) with the title Ghost Workers. The program focuses on the bike riders for ubereats, the content reviewers working for Facebook via Accenture, labelers working for Google via Figure Eight. The segment about the Figure Eight CEO, Lucas Biewald is amazing, as is the quest to interview the CEO of Facebook France, running away (on camera) from the journalist trying to interview him. 

I have pointed where you can look for those segments in my notes below but I have not found the time to organize them better. Sorry. But this is worth seeing. It exposes the disgusting overexploitative side of AI and the millions made on the back of the ghost workers :(

Invisibles: the click workers. A French documentary about the overexploited workers without a voice

 

Best documentary at the 2020 International Bangkok Documentaty Awards

Content workers for Facebook in Dublin sue FB. Have you heard about it?

Statement in English from the French director Henri Poulain 

The first episode (about bike ubereats riders with English subtitles) where the pressure to deliver leads to accidents, sometimes fatal. When such a tragic accident happens, ubereats refuses to provide any information about the worker! see at 6 minutes.

Apparently the film is available via Vimeo (free 30 day trial and then you have to pay). Not sure how to get access :( 

I am trying to find out how English speakers can see the whole film.

Surprise in the second episode here comes... Lionbridge! see at 1.50 minutes (sorry it's in French). The worker based in France works for Google but this has to remain a secret.

At 7 minutes, she says that in 3,5 years, she has never met in person the employer, everything is done via internet. There is very strict confidentiality clause. 

The film is originally a TV series in 4 episodes (mostly in French).

Remembering HCL, wondering what's happening now

 Wondering how Ben Gwin and his HCL co-workers are doing now? Is he still hopeful as in this interview? My concern is HCL will send the jobs to Poland or elsewhere, anyway and Google will not be impacted (nor HCL). 

Contract Worker Disparity Project

 A very interesting initiative of the Tech Equity Collaborative, the Contract Worker Disparity Project. I wish they could research/monitor how things now are for Microsoft's suppliers employees. Without such persistent monitoring, double-checking, things could easily get worse or not better (as they should).

"Post Mortem", a very interesting article on the Amazon Bessemer story

 Written by Jane McAlevey for The Nation, "Blowout in Bessemer: a post mortem on the Amazon campaign". I was also told that on the 505 ballots that were "challenged", 400 were contested by Amazon (no explanation available yet if ever).

Still not sure how many pledge cards were submitted.

Did the Bessemer's Amazon workers workers say no to a union by a wide margin?

We can read the workers at Bessemer's Amazon plant said no to a union by a wide margin. If we look at the numbers, we are told there were 5.805 workers who received ballots to be mailed back: 3215 were returned so 2590 workers did not vote: that's 44,6% of the total workforce. 

There were 1798 NO ballots counted (not including the 505 that were contested) that's 55% of the votes but only about 31% of the total workforce of 5.805 who were eligible to vote. The fact that 505 ballots were contested, supposedly mostly by Amazon, not the union, does not seem to concern many commentators, because even if they were all in favor of the union, it would not change the final result. Maybe so but why were so many ballots 'contested'? 15% of the votes contested, that's substantial. Who is going to give us a detailed explanation? Are we going to know wether they were NO or YES ballots? 

Considering all that, I dont think it's accurate to say the workers said no to a union by a wide margin: 31% of the total workforce voted no, less than the 44% that did not vote. Last but not least, for the vote to take place, the workers had to sign pledge cards: it's not clear how many such pledge cards were submitted by the union and certified by NLRB. I read 2000 or 3000. Both numbers are higher than the number of No votes. Why did those pledges not translate two months after they were signed into more votes in favor of a union? What caused such an 'erosion'? The habitual answer is the negative impact of the intense anti-union propaganda produced by the employer (linked with the threat/fear of losing the job with the plant moving somewhere else). What's next?

The election for a union at the Amazon plant in Alabama... if it was in France. (as if)

 After the lost election for a union in Alabama, I think it would be interesting to collect and compare the regulations in place in various countries where Amazon operate as far as elections for a union are concerned.

I suggested to Amazon Workers International to organize such a survey because many (most?) US citizens have no idea how things are outside of the US.

For instance, I just looked for the situation in France as far as the employer's obligations are concerned: the employer has an obligation of neutrality, ie zero propaganda by the employer is allowed for or against the union. In French:

https://www.economie.gouv.fr/entreprises/syndicalisme-entreprise-droits-regles-salaries-obligations-employeur#

This is a drastic difference with the US (understatement).

If a union gets at least 10% of the votes, it is considered 'representative' within the company.

Another drastic difference with the US. As it is, the union would be considered as representative in the plant in Alabama as they got more than 10% of the votes.

If you have contacts with people in the various countries where Amazon operates who could explain what their situation is, comparing it with what happened in Georgia, I think it would be instructive for the Americans who could read, or listen to it :).

Below the results as presented by NLRB: click on the text.

HCL/Google violate the workers rights to organize by closing down the lab in Pittsburgh

 We just learned the bad news of HCL closing down the lab in Pittsburgh to send the jobs to Poland. Exactly the same illegal run away shop strategy Lionbridge/Microsoft used against our small union. Shame on HCL. Protest on their accounts on Linkedin, Twitter, Youtube etc. 

Why they organized at HCL in Pittsburgh

Ben Gwin's story at HCL/Google as told to One Zero is so similar to what we experienced at Lionbridge/Microsoft. I am now wondering where they are with the bargaining process, almost one year after they won the union vote.

Change of name: welcome to Federation of tech Workers and United HCL Workers of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Association of Tech Professionals is now Federation of Tech Workers. Our mission remains the same: helping workers in the tech industry improve their working conditions and making their workplaces more fair and safer--now more than ever 
Follow them on Facebook. (I could not find a website). They organized in September 2019. No info (yet?) about the collective bargaining process. Also visit their twitter account United HCL Workers of Pittsburgh 

.

American Factory, a documentary on Netflix: Capital vs labor

Interesting. It's too bad a majority of workers were scared enough to vote against a union :( 
They were definitely exposed to all the same tricks, firing of pro-union workers, intense propaganda sessions (the very same stuff we were fed by Lionbridge and is fed everywhere), sudden $2 pay raise (look at what you could lose) etc... :( . At the end it's a 'classical' but not often showed in movies story of capital vs labor. 
There are many reviews if you google American Factory. I selected this article published before the film. Of course, workers would be better off with a union and the company would still make a profit (as we all know and as they already are). Hopefully it will happen asap. Later  I found this by Jon Talton for the Seattle Times.
I looked a bit more at Fuyao: they just bought a plant in Germany (that had gone bankrupt). Wondering if they have unions there. Here about labor protests in China now and in the past. 

A few films I recommend

En guerre, 2018 (At war)

Outsourced, 2006 

Willmar 8 documentary, 1981 

Norma Rae, 1979

Melinda's take on how to accelerate change

As I am working on putting out a third and updated edition of The Other Microsoft, I visited Melinda Gates, Pivotal Ventures website (here the paid leave working group, unfortunately with a broken link) and as well as the Evoke one. This extract is dedicated to gender equality but it could apply to any change, including paid leave, a topic she has said she supports. Read below the content of 'Amplify external pressure'. I'll share my comments later. Take care.

Follow them of Facebook

On Facebook and their website.