"Microsoft announced on Thursday a new strategy to deal with organized labor..." reports the The Washington Post:
In a Washington Post article, Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company would respect workers' union rights and plans to work with organized labor organizations to "make it easier, not harder," for employees to join a union. choose it.
Microsoft is at procedure completion of the $69 billion acquisition of Activision, a video game company where employees of a small subsidiary voted to form a union in March.
This union, the Game Workers Alliance, a branch of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which in a statement called Microsoft's announcement "encouraging and unique among major technology companies." CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens added that "to give workers a legally protected voice in decisions that affect them and their families, these principles must be implemented and integrated into the day-to-day operations of Microsoft."
Rebecca Givan, a professor of labor relations at Rutgers University, said Microsoft's announcement could mean that the company is trying to smooth things over with employees interested in joining a union.
The article claims that Microsoft "is trying to stand out from other big tech companies, such as Google and Amazon, which have clashed publicly with employees seeking union representation."
"The labor council has repeatedly found that Amazon tereyeunfairly or retaliated against workers who participated in union organizing”.
"Google also had to settle charges against employees who said their company fired them in response to the union."
"Apple employees told The Post in April that they had been targeted by management for supporting the union and that they had been threatened with losing some of their benefits and promotion opportunities."
The president of America's largest labor union, the AFL-CIO, told the Post that "Microsoft's collaborative approach to cooperation with its employees seeking to organize is a best practice that we look forward to seeing implemented in other companies.”
