Microsoft fired striking employees
2023.02.28 14:44
Microsoft fired striking employees
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – A union claimed in a US labor board complaint that dozens of construction workers working on a Microsoft Corp. data center were fired illegally for protesting.
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, alleging that 47 employees of Dulles Drywall Inc., a construction company, were targeted for helping build a Microsoft facility in Virginia. The complaint did not mention the software giant.
According to the Carpenters’ complaint, Dulles Drywall fired the employees because they attempted to organize with the union, staged a work stoppage, and demanded their due pay. According to the filing, the company also allegedly illegally required employees to sign agreements claiming they were independent contractors when they should have been classified as labor-protected employees.
To guarantee that Microsoft’s staffing vendors respect workers’ organizing rights, the union is urging Microsoft to adopt stricter standards. Sandra Sandoval, a fired employee, stated on Tuesday that “they should have rules to prevent this type of situation from occurring.” for every worker who contributes to their projects, regardless of whether or not they are Microsoft employees.”
The complaint will be looked at by people from the regional NLRB. They will bring the case before an agency judge if they determine that the allegations are true and cannot come to an agreement. The decisions of such a judge can be appealed to members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington and then to the federal appeals court, which could take years. The labor board has the authority to reinstate fired employees with back pay, but it does not have the authority to impose punitive damages on businesses that break the law.
The case is the most recent controversy regarding the amounts that US technology companies owe to their armies of contract workers. It occurs at a particularly sensitive time for Microsoft, which has been working to gain approval for a $69 billion acquisition of gaming company Activision Blizzard Inc. Microsoft has previously taken positions on the treatment of contract employees.
As a result, the company has been developing a reputation that is more union-friendly. The company made the announcement in 2015 that it would require major vendors to provide their employees with at least 15 paid days off per year. “We want the people who work for our suppliers to have the benefit of paid time off because they are critical to our success,” the company stated at the time.
That announcement came after a group of subcontracted Microsoft bug-testers voted to join a union. Later, they claimed that their staffing vendor retaliated against them when they lost all of their jobs due to Microsoft’s lower demand. The organizations denied bad behavior and the specialists settled the case in 2016.)
Microsoft announced a new set of unionization principles the previous year, including a commitment to “collaborative approaches that will make it simpler” for employees to exercise their rights to choose whether or not to join a union. The Communications Workers of America made the news in January that the first-ever union of direct Microsoft employees had been formed by about 300 video game testers. The organization focused on taking on a nonpartisan stand as opposed to battling against the association, CWA said.
Leaders in the labor movement argue that the business ought to demand a similar labor-friendly approach from its suppliers. The president of the AFL-CIO’s Northern Virginia chapter, Virginia Diamond, stated, “They have the power to fix the situation.” They can’t simply ignore it.”
Union leaders argue that the boom in data center construction could be a boon for tax revenue and good jobs if workers’ rights are respected. Northern Virginia has become a leading global hub for data centers, with hundreds of sites supporting internet cloud technology for companies like Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., and Visa Inc.
Diamond stated, “They are, for the most part, an excellent employment opportunity for thousands of skilled craftspeople and electricians.” The only exception is wage theft and widespread misclassification during construction of the actual structure.
