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On Thursday afternoon, Microsoft President and Vice President Brad Smith wrote a blog post outlining 4 “principles” the company would adopt as a reaction to the recent wave of union efforts in the United States. Certainly, it is unexpected that a company of this length in the technology industry, in word or deed, strives to achieve more than just the total destruction of any organizational endeavor. But Smith’s message has little valuable substance.
Let’s start with the ambitious line right after the preamble: “Our employees will never want to organize to interact with Microsoft executives. “of discussion that a company “prefers a direct relationship” with its employees. The explanation is, of course, that without the presence of an observer or a representative of weingarten, a boss or a member of the human resources staff is loose to intimidate an employee or bury a complaint. Even in less sinister scenarios, while a one-on-one meeting may seem fair at first glance, this is not the case: a boss has the strength of corporate him; an employee does not have one and depends on the same company for his subsistence. The only purpose of filing a complaint as a group, legally identified as a union or not, is to restrict this wonderful disparity of power.
This same line of idea is reaffirmed in Smith’s first principle:
We are in the importance of listening to the considerations of our workers. Our leaders have an open-door policy and we invest in listening systems and HR teams that always help us better understand what’s working and what we want to improve. But we recognize that there may be times when some workers in certain countries may wish to form or join a union.
Again, the implication is strongly oriented towards a preference for the individual remedy of painters. And the linguistic twist that those who wish to join or form a union are only “a few employees” in “some countries” reads as an attempt to undermine those efforts like the paintings of a vocal minority.
We recognize that workers have the legal right to decide whether to form or join a union. We respect this right and do not want our workers or other corporate stakeholders to benefit from resisting workers’ legal efforts to engage in protected activities. add education or union membership.
The first part of precept two, reproduced above, can be reformulated without problems as “we undertake to respect the law”. Never mind that Microsoft “acknowledges” NLRA lifestyles, nor does it “acknowledge” that it can’t write whatever it needs about its security disclosures. That’s the way it is. Of course, understanding that staff have the right to organize hasn’t stopped other tech corporations (especially Amazon) from participating in anti-union movements that have been deemed anti-NLRA.
Where things become attractive is the moment part of this principle, which looks a lot like a promise of non-interference. It is true that members of the technical press interpreted it that way. But saying that Microsoft does not “benefit” from resistance to a cross-union and making it clear that it will not oppose such a crusade is not the same. This specific wording also does not claim that an anti-union crusade would be actively harmful, meaning that shareholders would probably have no recourse to sue corporations if they decided to take this technique to the end of the line.
We contacted Microsoft to ask if it would agree not to hold meetings with a captive public or hire anti-union law firms to file moves on their behalf; we also asked him if he would agree to voluntarily acknowledge the union dynamics in his ranks. A corporate spokesperson told Engadget that “Unfortunately, Microsoft has nothing else to upload right now beyond what’s included in Brad’s blog. “
We are committed to taking artistic and collaborative approaches with unions when painters need to give up their rights and Microsoft receives an express proposal for unionization. processes that allow painters to exercise their rights through a personal agreement. We are committed to collaborative approaches that will make it easier, rather than harder, for our painters to make informed decisions and exercise their legal right to decide on the form or register for a union.
If it’s not a de facto attack on the union process, I don’t know what it is. Instead of settling for a “specific union proposal,” Microsoft says, very clearly, that it prefers to do anything other than settle for that proposal. – and in the form of a “private agreement” to begin with. (Collective agreements, which govern appointments between an employer and its unionized employees, are public. ) he would rather have everything while representing his own interests as a company.
Based on our global professional experience, we are committed to maintaining a close relationship and a shared partnership with all our employees, adding those represented through a union. For several decades, Microsoft has worked intensively with works councils across Europe, as well as with various unions around the world. We recognize that Microsoft’s continued leadership and good fortune will require us to continue to be informed and adapt to a conversion environment for appointments for years to come.
The fourth precept is almost completely fluffy. It doesn’t understand particular promises about how Microsoft will behave differently. Presumably, a business cannot help maintain a “close relationship” with the other people that make up that business. But it’s also reminiscent of one of the rare cases where a Microsoft-related company has successfully fixed itself. In 2014, bug testers under contract to an outside company, Lionsbridge, attempted to form a union; interns for a few years, all 38 were fired. Staff filed a complaint with the NLRB over the mass redundancies, and Microsoft reportedly spent four years investigating to block the proceeding and convince the company that it should not be considered a joint employer. While Microsoft’s Phil Spencer recently voiced for the newly organized QA testing organization at Activision Blizzard (which Microsoft is in the process of acquiring), this can be safely interpreted as an attempt to twist the arm of the FTC. – Get over this $69 billion antitrust nightmare and we probably won’t be trying to overwhelm the first North American AAA game studio in-house syndicate.
While some studies have implied that unionizations can lead to a temporarily more chilling reaction from Wall Street and a slight relief in overall profits, other studies imply that a unionized is just as productive, happier, and produces less turnover, possibly the kind of qualities. a mature company like Microsoft would like to favor. Microsoft can help set an industry-wide precedent by committing to meaningful, well-defined policies: not principles, goals, or business philosophy, but real policies that leaders can uphold. guilty for not following. If and when this time comes, it will be cause for celebration, but it is not today.