Microsoft Tries Collaborating with Unions to Avoid 'Public Disputes'

"Microsoft on Thursday announced a new strategy for dealing with organized labor..." reports the Washington Post (in a story republished on MSN.com): In a blog post shared with The Washington Post, Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote that the company will respect workers' rights to unionize and plans to work collaboratively with organized labor organizations to "make it simpler rather than more difficult" for employees to unionize if they so choose. Microsoft is in the process of completing a $69 billion acquisition of Activision, a video game company where employees of a small subsidiary voted to unionize in March. That union, the Game Workers Alliance, is a division of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which in a statement called Microsoft's announcement "encouraging and unique among the major tech companies." CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens added that "to truly give workers a legally protected voice in decisions that affect them and their families, these principles must be put into action and incorporated into Microsoft's day-to-day operations and its expectations for its contractors...." Rebecca Givan, a Rutgers University professor of labor relations, said Microsoft's announcement could mean the company is trying to smooth things over with employees interested in unionizing. "There's a lot of actual organizing or talk or desire in the video game sector, and that's a piece of what Microsoft does. That might be what they're trying to get out in front of," Givan said. The article argues that Microsoft is "attempting to set itself apart from other Big Tech firms like Google and Amazon that have clashed publicly with employees seeking union representation." And it provides specific examples where other big tech companies have "gotten into trouble" with America's National Labor Relations Board:"The labor board has repeatedly found that Amazon wrongfully terminated or retaliated against workers who were involved with union organizing.""Google, too, has had to settle charges with workers who said the company fired them in response to union organizing.""Workers at Apple told The Post in April that they were targeted by management for supporting the union and threatened with the loss of certain benefits and opportunities for promotion."The president of America's largest federation of union, the AFL-CIO, tells the Post in a statement that "Microsoft's collaborative approach to working with its employees who seek to organize is a best practice that we look forward to seeing implemented at Microsoft and other companies."

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