How Microsoft’s union agreement could shape the rest of the tech industry

June 24, 2022 | Posted by unionwear

Fast Company has an article about unionization in the tech industry, specifically regarding Microsoft.

According to the article, the Redmond-based tech giant made a joint announcement with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union that it would “take a neutral approach” toward unionization efforts in Activision Blizzard, the video game company that it is acquiring for $70 billion.

This is surprising. The tech industry has not been kind to worker organizing. Tech companies get away with violating the law and destroying unionization efforts because the penalties for violating federal labor regulations are so trivial. And while federal law grants American employees the right to unionize without retaliation, tech giants and video game studios have fought back hard; so hard, in fact, that federal labor investigators allege they have done so illegally. That helps explain why even Microsoft is calling its own decision to adopt a “neutral” stance toward a potential unionization effort “ground-breaking.”

And while labor organizers who helped negotiate the agreement celebrate what they see as a historic moment, the broader tech workers’ movement still faces a challenging road ahead. Some pro-labor tech workers are cautioning against overstating the agreement’s impact. Ben Tarnoff, author of Internet for the People and member of Collective Action in Tech, a tech worker-run group that chronicles organizing efforts, says Microsoft’s announcement gave him a mixed reaction.

“Workers take significant risks in trying to form unions, and as for whether this makes sense as a strategy, I defer to organizers on the ground. But what [Microsoft’s] commitment to neutrality means, I couldn’t tell you,” he says. “An ungenerous interpretation of it is that they promised not to commit gross violations of federal labor law”—something that should be the bare minimum, Tarnoff says.