Labor unions face hard road in Silicon Valley
Despite their high demand and good salaries, some engineers in Silicon Vally are showing interest in unionizing. A dozen employees at a startup called Lanetix were fired earlier this year. The company says that they needed to let people go for economic reasons, although on an employee, Bjorn Westergard, says the layoffs happened just a few days after they filed an application for an election to join the Communications Workers of America. High turnover rates among Silicon Valley engineers weakens the potential for worker solidarity. Westergard, however, says many of his colleagues in the industry are increasingly showing an interest in staying in their jobs and trying to fix problems with the company rather than leaving for another well-paid position. An organization called the Tech Workers Coalition, say that the push for unionization at Lanetix is a positive sign that interest in organizing has been gaining traction in the tech industry. Tech companies are notoriously libertarian and strongly anti-union, and as the spat between organizers and Lanetix illustrates, it will not be an easy path toward organizing tech workers.
See "Labor unions face hard road in Silicon Valley", Julie Charpentrat, Phys.org, April 27, 2018