Small,
Foreign, and Female
By Heidi Schmidt
Wired Magazine, 1.04 (9/10,
1993)
Silicon Valley is filled with
secrets, and Karen
Hossfeld plans to reveal one
of its dirtiest. A San
Francisco State University
sociologist,
Hossfeld has focused her attention
on the forgotten workforce
that turns high-tech dreams
into palpable
realities - a group described
by the title of her upcoming
book: Small, Foreign, and Female.
That title was inspired by an
interview with a
manager of a small contract
assembly firm who
explained why so many assembly
workers are
either Asian or Latina women.
"There are just three
things I look for in entry-level
hiring," Hossfeld
recalls the manager saying.
"Small, foreign, and
female. You just do that right
and everything else
takes care of itself."
Over the course of more than
a decade, Hossfeld
interviewed 200 immigrants
working in entry-level
manufacturing jobs in Silicon
Valley. She heard
countless stories of sexual
harassment, poor
working conditions, and threats
of deportation,
even to those here legally.
Most of the women
keep quiet for fear of losing
their jobs. And the
employers like it that way,
Hossfeld says. "There's
a definite racial/gender pecking
order in hiring.
There's an assumption that
immigrant women,
especially Asian women, will
be submissive
employees."
Another covert way to control
this workforce is
to bar the organizing of unions.
"Many employers hire
big union-busting firms when
there's a spark of interest
in forming a
union," Hossfeld says.
But the dirtiest secret Hossfeld
uncovered
could have deadly consequences.
According to Hossfeld, many
of these women are
unaware they are being
exposed to toxic chemicals
on the job. "New
chemicals are thrown into the
manufacturing process without
adequate
testing," Hossfeld says.
Rumors of toxic chemical use
became so
widespread that IBM commissioned
its own study designed to quell
them. That
study, completed this June,
found the opposite to be true:
Women who worked
with a substance called
ethylene glycol ether experienced
an unusually
high rate of miscarriage. IBM
will eliminate use of the substance
by the end
of 1994.
Hossfeld hopes her book (due
next year from the
University of California Press)
will bring overdue attention to those
who labor in Silicon Valley's
trenches. "You know, Silicon Valley is famed
for its boy-wonder millionaires,
but for every one of those people there are a
couple dozen others making
minimum wage and working in
pitiful conditions."
JOE
HILL IN HIGH TECH: A Special Report: Unions Need Not Apply
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The New York Times, July 26,
1999
As the labor movement sets its
sights on the booming
high-technology world, employees
like Matt Shea, a 24-year-old software
developer, seem ripe for the
picking. He often clocks 70-hour
weeks, his managers sometimes
push him to work past midnight, and he
never receives overtime pay.
But ask Mr. Shea whether he
wants a union at his workplace, a
thriving Internet start-up
called Go2Net, and his response is a puzzled
expression that says ''Does
Not Compute.''
''As far as me personally, and
for everyone else here, unions
have never come up,'' said
Mr. Shea, who said he loved his job,
notwithstanding the sweatshop
hours. ''Everything I want is
offered to me here.''
The American labor movement
has belatedly recognized that if
it is to reverse the decades-long
slide in the percentage of workers
belonging to unions, it must
make some headway in high
technology, the economy's fastest-growing
sector. To increase their numbers
and their influence in politics
and at the bargaining table,
unions cannot afford to be
shut out of the glamorous, powerful
high-technology
industry, which accounts for
an ever-larger share of the work
force.
Persuading technology workers
to join unions will not be
easy, though, because of all
that is lavished upon people like Mr. Shea.
His job gives him valuable
stock options, flexible hours, an
excellent medical plan, a sense
of family and, perhaps most important, the
thrill of building something.
Labor leaders acknowledge that
they face an uphill battle --
only a small fraction of the
nation's two million computer and software
developers, programmers and
engineers belongs to labor unions.
But organizers are far from
packing their bags in Seattle or
Silicon Valley, convinced that
many high-technology employees will
ultimately warm to labor's
message that workers need a
collective voice to stand up
to management.
In a public relations coup this
spring, union organizers
trumpeted one of their first
successes in high technology when 16 temporary
workers at Microsoft became
the first group of software
workers in a single workplace
to call for union representation. Their action
reflects a little-understood
aspect of high-technology
America: while most high-technology
workers are contented haves, there are
also many discontented have-nots.
Most have-nots come from the
sea of long-term temps who work
at Microsoft and other high-technology
companies, and they often
complain of being second-class
citizens who receive
bare-bones benefits and have
no job security or stock options. Microsoft
employs 20,500 regular workers
domestically and 6,000 temps, who
often call themselves permatemps
because they work anywhere from six
months to three years at the
company, testing software,
writing manuals, designing
Web pages and developing CD-ROM's.
Industry experts estimate that
at many companies -- including
Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard
and Intel -- more than 10 percent of
the workers are temps.
''The conditions are not the
same as where unions have had a
lot of success,'' said Jonathan
Rosenblum, organizing director for the King
County Labor Council in Seattle,
''but that doesn't mean
there aren't a lot of substantive
issues that concern high-tech workers and
make them feel they want to
have a voice in their job.''
Just as high technology has
had vast ripple effects on the
way Americans live, it is forcing
changes in the American labor movement.
Labor's traditional focus has
been getting a majority of
employees at a work site --
usually full-time workers tied for years to a
single employer -- to vote
for a union then negotiating a contract
for them.
But unions are finding that
this model may be as obsolete in
high-technology America as
a 286 Intel chip because workers jump among
companies like honeybees from
flower to flower.
Some labor organizers acknowledge
that they may never get a
majority of workers at start-ups
or at giants like Intel to vote in a
union. So they are trying to
devise new ways to represent
high-technology workers.
An innovative example came in
February when, seeking to
improve benefits for high-technology
temps, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s office in
Silicon Valley set up an employment
agency offering far
better benefits than other
agencies.
''The way we go to work has
changed,'' said Amy Dean,
director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s
Silicon Valley office. ''So we, the labor
movement, have to create a
response that recognizes that the
world has changed, while still
embracing the values, like equity and giving
workers a voice, that labor
has always stood for.''
The Haves: Big Salaries And Benefits
For Mr. Shea, the 24-year-old
software engineer, unions are
not so much undesirable as
irrelevant.
At Go2Net, he has no out-of-pocket
costs for his health or
dental plan. He is happy with
his flexible hours and two weeks of vacation a
year. And he loves working
at a start-up where he has a
strong sense of making a contribution.
''My goal has always been to
develop software that lots of
people use,'' he said. ''Here
you can see 10,000 people using your software
every day.''
Nor do his 70-hour weeks make him resent management.
''As far as what gets me up
in the morning or what makes me
stay up so late, that's a pride
issue,'' said Mr. Shea, who received a
bachelor's degree in computer
science from the University of
California at San Diego. ''Last
night I was up till 4 A.M. testing a new
home page.''
The salary of a software Wunderkind
like Mr. Shea usually
ranges from $50,000 to $100,000
a year, often with stock options that
double or triple that amount.
High-technology executives say
that one overarching factor
works against labor's success:
the shortage of skilled software workers.
Because demand far outstrips
supply, companies often feel
they must offer lavish generous
salaries and stock options to recruit and
retain workers.
''This industry is so damn competitive
in seeking the best
talent that if you don't give
your employees what they want, you'll lose
them in a second,'' said Ethan
Caldwell, general counsel of Go2Net,
which is known for its Metacrawler
search engine and a financial discussion
Web site.
At many start-ups, the workplace
culture is so
worker-friendly that it leaves
union organizers out in the cold.
High-technology start-ups
emphasize hiring entrepreneurial
self-starters, the type of
employee least likely to turn
to unions for help.
High-technology companies also
strive to create a sense of
family and fun. At many companies,
there are free sodas, basketball courts
and latte bars. One company
took all its workers on a free
ski trip when it met a crucial
sales goal.
And last -- but certainly not
least -- are stock options, a
compensation strategy that
strengthens loyalty to management and inspires
workers to want to build the
company.
''For a lot of workers, there's
a little bit of a hero's
journey, that I can be part
of building this thing into a $10 billion
company,'' said
Evan Kaplan, chief executive
of Aventail, a start-up in
Seattle with 100 workers that
provides security software for computer
systems.
''You try to build a work environment
that's fun and
challenging and you try to
deal with benefits in a way that brings them up
to a level that you know is
good, which is one of the reasons you don't
see a tendency toward unionization,''
he added.
Another reason unions are not
catching fire with
high-technology workers is
that so many are in their 20's and 30's and grew
up when labor's visibility
and clout were on the wane. Union anthems
like ''Solidarity Forever''
and ''Joe Hill'' are as unfamiliar to them as
14th-century madrigals.
''I never think about unions
because they were never part of
my life,'' Mr. Shea said.
Many high-technology workers
say that if they disliked their
job, it would make more sense
to hop to another employer than to undertake
a unionization drive that could
cause a six-month war with
management.
''The market is so hot now that
if you have the training and
job experience, you can walk
down the street to the next start-up or to
Microsoft and get a job,''
said Debra Joyce, the 29-year-old
manager of information systems
at Aventail. ''So if you're unhappy, you
don't necessarily need union
protection.''
Despite such a cold shoulder,
labor leaders say that the
industry's workers will warm
to unions when the high-technology boom crests
--when high-technology stocks
fall, stock options tumble in
value and unemployment rises
in the industry, making it harder for unhappy
workers to simply jump to other
companies.
The Have-Nots: For the Temps, Quest for Equity
As five Microsoft temps met
with two union organizers at
Azteca, a restaurant two minutes
from the Microsoft campus, the conversation
ranged from mild to militant.
Over beer and tortilla chips,
they talked of staging a sit-in
at a temp agency and of organizing a
T-shirt day when dozens of
supporters would wear pro-union shirts to
Microsoft's main cafeteria.
Mark Turner, a 39-year-old accountant
turned software temp
who has been at Microsoft since
August, explained before the meeting that a
mountain of grievances had
pushed him and the 15 other
workers to back unionization.
Unlike regular workers, the temps receive no
Microsoft stock options, no
pay on sick days and an inferior
health plan. Many said they
were misclassified into jobs that paid less than
they deserved.
''We like what we do, we like
our Microsoft managers and we
like each other,'' said Mr.
Turner, who complained that he has to pay
$3,300 of the nearly $60,000
he earns each year toward health
insurance premiums. ''If we
didn't, we wouldn't be fighting to improve a
job we really like. But I believe
that without a union we
have no shot. They'll just
blow us off.''
The 16 workers, part of an 18-person
team creating a new
financial software product,
want to be represented by the Washington
Alliance of Technology Workers,
known as Washtech, a fledgling union
with four organizers and a
$175,000 annual budget paid for by the
Communications Workers of America.
Microsoft is renowned for churning
out 30-year-old
multimillionaires, but it is
also churning out lots of disgruntled temps,
and that is fueling the unionization
push.
''It's frustrating because
you're working side by side with
other people who are getting
so much more for doing substantially the same
thing,'' said David Larsen,
a $15-an-hour temp who has worked
as a Microsoft software tester
for 18 months. ''The company softball
field says you can't use it.
They give regular employees
stock options and discounts
on Microsoft products and all we get is an
E-mail from our temp agency
saying there's a drawing for a free snow
board.''
Microsoft executives say it
makes sense to use thousands of
temporary workers because the
company has so many projects -- like new
software development -- that
last six months. While
Microsoft's critics insist
that the company uses temps to skimp on benefits
and severance payments, company
executives say using temps is
fairer to the workers -- they
do not come in thinking they have permanent
jobs, only to be laid off once
their project ends.
Microsoft is also quick to note
that many workers prefer
temping to permanent employment
because it gives them greater freedom to
travel or work on the side
and because they can earn lots of
overtime pay -- unlike regular
Microsoft workers, who are considered
salaried professionals.
''I'm happy with being a contractor,''
said Emmet Skaar, a
32-year-old software tester.
''I'm happy being in charge of my own destiny,
and I'm very pleased with the
compensation package. If these
people aren't happy as contractors,
they should go get themselves hired as
permanent employees.''
Discontent among temps has resulted
in one lawsuit in which a
Federal appeals court has found
for the plaintiffs. The court ruled that
thousands of workers hired
by Microsoft through employment
agencies were regular employees
rather than temps and should qualify for
certain Microsoft benefits,
including its discount stock
purchase plan.
The two sides are now thrashing
out how many tens of millions
of dollars Microsoft owes these
so-called temps. And Microsoft has
adopted a new rule requiring
all temps to a 31-day break in
their work at least once a
year to insure that they can no longer be viewed
as regular workers.
''Microsoft is engaged in a
pretense about people working for
Microsoft not being its employees,''
said Stephen K. Strong, one of the
plaintiffs' lawyers. ''If Microsoft
provided a reasonable
level of benefits to all employees,
if Microsoft grew up and acted like the
major employer it is and not
a small business, no one would be
thinking about a union.''
The Unions: Looking for Ways To Gain Members
Despite the impassioned words
from Microsoft's pro-union
temps, they face a decided
challenge. For one thing, Microsoft insists that
their real employer is not
Microsoft but their employment
agencies.
''Organizing is an issue between
an employee and the
employer, and in this case
the employers are the contingent staffing
companies,'' said Dan Leach,
a Microsoft spokesman.
Union organizers fear that if
the 16 temps petition for a
unionization election, there
will be years of litigation to determine who
is the employer and whether
the appropriate bargaining unit is their
18-worker software group, the
6,000 temps at Microsoft or a 3,000-worker
employment agency.
''It's virtually impossible
to organize workers in this
co-employer setting,'' said
Michael Blain, Washtech's co-founder.
''Existing labor law is totally
inadequate to address issues of the new
economy.''
Seeing the difficulties
in getting most workers at a
high-technology company to
vote to unionize, labor leaders are looking to
nontraditional ways to build
a union. Kirk Adams, the
A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s organizing
director, said unions could attract
high-technology workers by
providing two important benefits: affordable
training and mobility of benefits.
In an industry where it is vital
to know the latest
software-writing languages
to advance to higher-paying positions, many temp
workers complain about paying
for-profit schools $600 for a 10-hour
course. (Temps often cannot
take the free in-house courses that companies
offer.) So Washtech provides
such courses for $75 to people
who join the new union by agreeing
to pay one hour's wages each month;
175 have joined so far and
more than 1,000 others have asked
to be on the union's electronic
mailing list.
Some union leaders talk of creating
a high-technology hiring
hall, similar to ones in construction,
in which companies would contribute
to a joint pension and health
plan so workers who hop between
companies would not lose their
pension credits or health insurance.
Larry Cohen, the organizing
director for Washtech's parent,
the Communications Workers
of America, said labor might settle early on
for the rudimentary role of
creating a collective voice for
high-technology workers. Mr.
Cohen said such a union, instead of negotiating
contracts, would exchange information
among members and
sometimes speak for them.
''Rather than feel they're just
a little boat bobbing in the
water,'' he said, ''people
could feel they're part of a larger organization
that shares their values.''
But all these strategies could
prove futile because so many
high-technology workers view
unions as unnecessary.
''I love my job,'' said Paul
Primrose, a customer service
worker at Amazon.com. ''Some
occupations do need unions, but not here. It's
because things change so rapidly
that you need to change
quickly, and unions could get
in the way.''
Copyright 1999 The New York
Times Company.
May not be reproduced or transmitted
without permission.
The
Most Innovative Figure in Silicon Valley? Maybe This Labor Organizer
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The New York Times
With a Prada bag and the air
of an entrepreneur, Amy Dean is
an unlikely labor trailblazer.
But as head of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s
Silicon Valley office, Ms.
Dean, at just 37 years of age,
has become the labor movement's chief
navigator, its Christopher
Columbus in the roiling and
uncharted seas of the new economy.
Working in a flourishing, free-wheeling
valley that has
hardly welcomed the often stodgy
labor movement, she spends her days
thinking up ways for unions
to be relevant to workers in booming
high-tech companies, and labor
leaders nationwide are tripping over
themselves to copy her ideas.
To help the valley's horde of
temporary workers who have no
health insurance, she has taken
the unorthodox step of creating a nonprofit
temp agency that, unlike most
profit-making agencies, offers
health coverage that temporary
workers can afford.
She has established a research
institute that has reshaped
California's economic debate
by churning out weighty studies, including one
on the growing gulf between
the haves and have-nots in a valley
often thought to have mostly
millionaire haves.
Through a full-court political
press, she and her army of
union members have pressured
San Jose to enact the country's highest
living-wage law, requiring
city contractors to pay workers at least $9.50
an hour, nearly double the
minimum wage many were earning.
And she has proposed using a
hiring-hall concept to provide
uninterrupted health and pension
benefits to high-tech workers, who often
jump from job to job.
''She's a new breed of labor
leader,'' said Harley Shaiken, a
professor of industrial relations
at the University of California at
Berkeley. ''She's put a number
of issues about Silicon Valley on the
public agenda -- inequality,
temporary workers and the lack of affordable
housing. She's hit nerves in
a way that resonates.''
Her goal, Ms. Dean acknowledges,
is nothing short of turning
the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s Silicon
Valley operation into a model for the rebirth of
the labor movement, just as
the valley's entrepreneurs have
brought about a rebirth of
American industry.
So far Ms. Dean's efforts have
made a difference in the lives
of many of the valley's have-nots.
But all her strategizing has failed to
strike a chord with the valley's
haves, like software designers, who,
happy with their stock options,
often think unions are as useful as manual
typewriters. Her biggest challenge
is figuring out a way for
unions to connect to these
high-tech workers.
Her exploits, especially the
living-wage law, are already
irking many business executives,
fueling worries that labor's growing power
is signaling that a valley
renowned as a fertile ground for
entrepreneurs is turning unfriendly
to business.
Ms. Dean put on such a bravura
performance in pushing through
the living-wage ordinance that
business executives speak of her with equal
parts awe and anxiety, fearing
what her next battleground
will be.
When the San Jose City Council
was debating the wage
ordinance Ms. Dean, all 5-feet-3
of her, came on like a petite field
marshal. She packed the chamber
with allies, lined up clergymen and
community leaders to testify,
and, in a sure-voiced speech, nearly brought
down the house.
''There's part of me that envies
her because she's so good at
making an emotional, passionate
pitch,'' said Steve Tedesco, president of
the San Jose Silicon Valley
Chamber of Commerce, who fought the
living-wage proposal, saying
it would hurt San Jose's business image.
''She's tenacious. She
doesn't tilt at windmills.''
Instead, she tilts at what she
views as economic injustice,
and she does so by mobilizing
the valley's union movement to back her
crusades. Five years ago, Ms.
Dean took the helm of the South Bay
Central Labor Council, becoming
the youngest person to head one of the
A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s 600 local councils.
While many of her fellow Generation
X'ers see unions as
irrelevant and outmoded, Ms.
Dean says she is devoting her life to labor
because she is convinced it
is the only movement that can lift
America's have-nots and stop
the nation's rightward tilt.
''Why do I spend so much time
in the heart of this new
economy working with unions
to build a voice for working people?'' she
said. ''It has everything to
do with whether we can revitalize an
institution that so many people
in this country depend on. It's the only
vehicle in this country that
can balance the political landscape.''
Ms. Dean is a rara avis in labor,
a movement not exactly
known for promoting women,
the young or those who spout new ideas. In a
movement in which entrepreneurship
is usually considered the
enemy, she is an entrepreneur
par excellence. And in a movement where blue
jeans are favored, she wears
pumps and gold bracelets,
although her Ann Taylor look
has not stopped her from earning the nickname
the Mother Jones of Silicon
Valley.
Convinced that the labor movement
should be a social
movement, Ms. Dean has refocused
the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s operation here so it
helps not just unionized workers,
but all workers, especially
those, like janitors and temps,
on the bottom rungs.
When Ms. Dean took labor's helm
here, many high-flying
high-tech companies were using
cleaning contractors that paid their
janitors the minimum wage and
scant benefits. So, working with the Service
Employees International Union,
she led a Justice for Janitors campaign to
pressure and embarrass giants
like Apple Computer so they
would force their cleaning
contractors to pay janitors higher wages and
grant union recognition.
''The labor movement was strongest
when we were the moral
voice in the community,'' Ms.
Dean said. ''That's when people were
attracted to us, wanted to
be part of us, wanted to be
mobilized into action with
us. That's when we just weren't seen as a
special members club for a
few people. Our job has to be helping folks who
don't have a voice.''
Ms. Dean's central labor council
represents 110,000 unionized
workers: carpenters, nurses,
teachers, but precious few high-tech workers.
She acknowledges that labor's
traditional
contracts-are-everything model
is largely irrelevant to high-tech workers
because it is based on a 1930's
notion of people working at industrial behemoths, not
agile start-ups, and of workers
spending decades at one corporation, not
jumping like grasshoppers between
companies.
Recognizing this, Ms. Dean has
become the foremost exponent
of a provocative theory: that
labor should return to its craft guild and
hiring hall roots as a way
to keep up with the fast-changing
high-tech world.
For high-tech workers, who often
hold 10 jobs over a career,
constantly losing and regaining
health and pension coverage, Mr. Dean says
unions should be a source of
stability and protection. No
other institution, she says,
is as well-equipped to provide such workers
with the two things they say
they need most: portable benefits and
continual upgrading of their
skills.
Like the craft guilds of old,
she says, unions could provide
high-tech workers with classes
in the latest skills, like writing new
software languages, and could
provide certification that workers have
attained specific skill levels.
Then, like construction unions,
which have hiring halls,
unions could become the place
high-tech employers turn to for trained
workers. Also like construction
unions, high-tech unions could provide
uninterrupted health and pension
coverage for workers who jump from job to
job.
''Is the current model that
unions are offering relevant to
the knowledge workers of today?
No.'' Ms. Dean said. ''Are the principles
and benefits that unions offer
relevant? Yes.''
Hers is a compelling vision
for high-tech unions, but if she
builds it, there is little
guarantee that high-tech workers will come.
Ms. Dean has come a long way
from the mid-1980's, when,
having just graduated from
the University of Illinois, she was planning to
pursue a Ph.D. in public policy
at the University of Chicago.
But inspired by a grandmother
who organized apparel
factories, she left academia
for a job as an organizer for the
International Ladies Garment
Workers Union in her native Chicago.
In 1989, she moved to San Francisco
for that union, partly to
follow the man, now an Internet
entrepreneur, who would become her
husband. Soon she was climbing
the ladder at labor's Silicon
Valley office, where she made
such a mark that John J. Sweeney, the
A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president,
tapped her to head a national
committee charged with recommending
ways to rev up the nation's local labor
councils.
Her most innovative work has
come in seeking to help the
thousands of temporary workers
who flood in and out of high-tech companies
-- secretaries, clerks, bookkeepers,
software testers.
Aided by foundation grants,
she has set up a nonprofit agency
that is placing temporary workers,
for the most part secretaries, who start
at $10 an hour, compared with
the $8.50 paid by many agencies.
Unlike most for-profit agencies,
her agency offers low-cost health coverage,
paid sick leave and paid holidays
and works with a community
college to furnish subsidized
courses to upgrade the workers' skills.
Ms. Dean has also set up an
association, in essence a
fledgling union, where temporary
workers can compare notes, air grievances
and map strategies to win better
working conditions. The latest idea
is to pressure agencies to
adhere to a code of conduct requiring health
insurance and a respectable
wage.
Eileen Wodula, a secretary tired
of bouncing between jobs,
said, ''This is like a dream
come true because it's giving a voice to
temporary workers.''
Copyright 1999 The New York
Times Company.
May not be reproduced or transmitted
without permission.
Fast
times in Silicon Valley create labor woes
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, November
6, 2000
Software salesman Ted Horwitz
said
promises of big paychecks and
stock options lured him from a home and job
in Boston to the SiliconValley
high-tech industry.
A few weeks later, he said,
he was
fired because his immediate
boss at Evoke Software Corp. did not like him,
decided that he could not handle
the
new territory, and persuaded
the chief
executive officer to let him
go.
Horwitz, 38, was out $150,000
a year
in salary and commissions,
as well as options on 10,000 shares of stock
potentially worth hundreds
of
thousands more.
Evoke has denied any wrongdoing,
and
the company's chief executive
apologized to Horwitz for dismissing him.
Horwitz lost a legal challenge
against Evoke in San Francisco
Superior Court, a case that
has been appealed.
But lawyers say there are many
other
men and women like Horwitz
in Northern California.
People are drawn to the high-flying
Internet, telecommunications
and biotechnology companies by dreams of
riches, only to face a volatile
job
market that lawyers say shows
little
regard for fairness or the
law.
These disappointed job seekers
are the
new "Okies," employment specialists
say, likening them to 1930s Dust Bowl
emigrants whose dreams of a
better future induced them
to go West.
Today, fired executive-level
workers
such as Horwitz often find
work soon after because jobs are aplenty. But
lawyers say the issues behind
a
surge in legal claims arising
from
workplace disputes pose problems
that must be solved if legal conflict is
not to become a hallmark of
the
high-tech sector.
A big bone of contention:
"Compensation rights," which
are promises of commissions and stock options
contingent upon employees'
fulfillment
of performance and length-of-service
requirements. Fired workers
often claim terminations are made only to
deprive them of sizable benefits.
"The stakes are so high," said
Jeffrey
Wohl, a San Francisco employment
law expert, that "it becomes very hard for
either side to compromise.
Both come out slugging."
William Quackenbush, a lawyer
in San
Mateo, Calif., said, "There
is vast competition out there for good people.
You figure, 'If I promise them
the
moon, they'll come here and
I'll deal
later with the fact that I
haven't been fully honest.'
"Plenty of outfits are run by
executives who don't care about
integrity or honesty. That's how I keep
busy. It's not limited to SiliconValley.
It's
part of our society," Quackenbush
said.
It's also true, other lawyers
said,
that because California courts
have been fertile ground for unhappy workers
for a long time, the state
was likely to
be among the first to see legal
disputes arising from today's
economy, regardless of their merit.
The basis for employers' actions
is
the statutory at-will doctrine,
which has been legal gospel in California
and many other states for more
than a
century.
Stated simply, the doctrine
says that
in the absence of explicit
contractual provisions to the contrary, an
employer largely is free to
fire a worker
without notice or reason.
"The doctrine is outdated, oppressive
and inconsistent with the reality
of the present workplace," said San
Francisco labor lawyer Cliff
Palevsky.
For their part, corporate lawyers
said
that at-will employment relationships
allow companies to compete
efficiently.
Ronald Arnold, 47, became America
Online Incorporated's European
information systems director in 1997. The
Santa Clara, Calif., resident
later
was promoted to vice president
and
director of the company's field
offices. Arnold was earning a six-figure
salary and nearing the vesting
date for
stock options worth an estimated
$4
million.
But on Nov. 10, 1999, -- seven
months
after his last promotion and
four months away from his options date --
Arnold was fired. The reason
given
by AOL, according to court
documents,
was that one of his subordinates
had made false claims for pay and that
Arnold knew or should have
known and stopped the employee.
According to the lawsuit recently
filed by Arnold's lawyer, Therese
Lawless of San Francisco, all this was
false -- a pretext for termination
in order
to deprive him of a big payday.
Arnold, she said in the lawsuit,
had been "intentionally" set up.
An AOL spokesman said the lawsuit
was
"totally without merit."
In a case against Oracle Corp.,
Randy
Baker, 56, of Atherton, Calif.,
is contending in San Francisco Superior
Court that he was fired from
his
$450,000-a-year job as an executive
vice president after informing
his bosses in November 1999 that he intended
to retire in August 2000 to
care
for a sick child -- and collect
a
lump-sum payment.
Soon afterward, he said, he
was
replaced by a man who was 16
years younger. Then, on Feb. 7, he was fired
without warning and ordered
to leave
Oracle, according to his lawsuit.
That
same day, the suit said, his
health insurance was canceled and he was given
a scaled-down compensation
package.
Baker said he was owed at least
$16
million in stock options. Robert
Vantress, the San Jose, Calif., attorney
representing Baker, said he
intends to
prove his client was fired
to avoid
vesting. An Oracle spokeswoman
said the company denied Baker's claim and
intended to mount a "vigorous
defense."
Lawyers say the Arnold and Baker
cases
illustrate the typical sequence
of events in high-tech workplace conflicts:
a sudden break in the employment
relationship just as a
"compensation event" appears
on the horizon.
Both sides generally agree that
the
main underlying reasons for
the disputes are the speed with which the
industry has grown and the
power
acquired by unseasoned owners
and
managers.
"These companies' policies and
experiences do not match their
financial wherewithal. They are not mature,
in a sense," said Richard Levine,
a San
Francisco labor lawyer. "They
are not
lawyered as carefully on the
front end in terms of employee relations,
contractual relations and the
generation of human-resources
policies."
Wohl said, "In the SiliconValley,
there's an ethic that business
has to turn on a dime, so you let people go
on a moment's notice. They
don't think
about progressive discipline."