Temporary Workers of America is incorporated

Lionbridge's answer to our request for information

Find below the text of the e-mail I received from Jeanne Schreuder in answer to our request.
She included in an attachment a list of all the lab's Tier1s employees (or considered as such) with their date of hiring, classification and hourly pay rate.
For those of you who are Lionbridge Tier1s who have not contacted the union and would be interested to receive this document, send us an e-mail with your name: we'll send you the confidentiality agreement for you to approve and then email you this document.
Our e-mail is temporaryworkersofamerica at gmail.com
Have a good week-end

Information request for the purpose of collective bargaining and scheduling of first meeting

Find below the e-mail sent Tuesday October 7th to Jeanne Schreuder, Vice President Human Resources for Lionbridge.

To the attention of Jeanne Schreuder

Vice President 

Human Resources

Lionbridge Technologies

From Philippe Boucher

Temporary Workers of America

Dear Jeanne,

In order to prepare for negotiations, the union hereby requests the following information to be provided by Friday october 17.

A list of current Tier1 employees with their date of hire, job classification, languages spoken, rate of pay and evolution of this rate if applicable

The rate paid by Microsoft for those employees

The number of days and dates of unpaid time off taken by each employee year by year since their hire

The number of hours paid overtime for each employee, year by year since their hire

As for scheduling our first bargaining meeting we propose Friday October 24th from 3.30 to 5.30, Monday 27 or Wednesday29 (same hours).

We propose using a conference room of the downtown Seattle Public Library, 1000 Fourth Avenue, that can be used for a $50 fee.

Sincerely yours,

Philippe Boucher

Temporary Workers of America

Collective Bargaining Representative of the Lionbridge Technologies Tier1 employees in the WSCC Lab

Coincidence

Surfing the web this morning to find some additional information about paid parental leave I find this 2011 report by Human Rights Watch and this just published post by Secretary of Labor Tom Perez (reposted below). Can something be done at the Lionbridge/Microsoft level? I have a few ideas. What about you?

Microsoft Changes Temp Benefits (April 3d 1999)

Below is a copy of an article published in the Seattle Times on April 3d 1999. 

It seems that some agencies, contrary to Lionbridge, are still providing today benefits similar to those required in 1999. 

If you know of such agencies presently working for Microsoft, please let us know.

Microsoft Changes Temp Benefits -- Workers Will Be Able To Choose Employment Agency

By Keith Ervin

Seattle Times Eastside Business Reporter

April 3rd 1999

Responding to the complaints of temporary workers, Microsoft is changing its contracts with employment agencies to improve benefits and give workers a choice of agencies.
About 6,000 temps were informed by the agencies yesterday of changes in Microsoft's contracting policy, effective May 3. Most of those workers are in Redmond.
Instead of being told by Microsoft which payroll agency they will work for, as is the current practice, workers will be able choose among competing agencies. The agencies are expected to provide at least the following benefits:
-- Thirteen paid days off each year, including sick leave, holidays and vacations.
-- Medical and dental coverage, with the employer paying half the cost.
-- Training opportunities worth $500 a year.
-- A 401(k) or other retirement program, with the employer partly matching employee contributions.
Sharon Decker, Microsoft's contingent-staffing director, said most agencies already provide some benefits, but their benefit packages are "all over the board."
The changes respond to some, but not all, of the most frequent complaints from temporary workers. Unhappiness over temporary-employment policies has led to two lawsuits by temps against Microsoft and to creation of a labor union, the Washington Alliance of Technical Workers, or WashTech.
"It sounds like we got quite a lot. I'm thrilled," said a former temp who now works for Microsoft as a full-time technical editor. The employee, who asked not to be identified, said she credits the changes at least in part to the union's pressure.
Marcus Courtney, co-founder and organizer of WashTech, called the change "a step in the right direction," but said the union still believes temps are treated as second-class workers.

Cost Of Living Adjustments and Inflation

Today I was asked if we could have raises linked to the evolution of the cost of living. 

A good question that led me to check for such an index and/or inflation rates that I thought were very low.

It turns out (as you can see) they are not so low:

Inflation rates

2012: 2,1%

2013: 1,5%

2014: not available yet for the whole year could be 1,5  then about 5,1% for the 3 yars

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

COLAS - Cost Of Living Adjustments

2012: 3,6%

2013: 1,7%

2014: 1,5%

total: 6.8%  + 2015 to come

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/news/cola/automatic-cola.htm

The official certification document of Temporary Workers of America

See below page 2, the notice of bargaining obligation