Re: What Happens When Temps Organize

["Jeanne A. E. DeVoto" <jaed -at- jaedworks -dot- com>]

At 12:58 PM -0700 7/1/2000, Dan Emory wrote:
>The new policy is that all all temp workers will be terminated after 12
>months of continuous employment, and a mandatory 100-day break is required
>before they can be re-employed.

This may be new to Microsoft, but it's hardly new to the industry; many
(most?) large companies have had similar policies for years. Apple, for
example, since the late 80s has had a policy that contractors cannot work
more than 18 months, and are ineligible to contract at Apple for 6 months
afterward.

I doubt one company going to this common policy is going to have "lasting
implications" for everyone who works on contract. Microsoft is big, but not
that big.

>If the frothing idiots who brought this suit didn't belong to the NWU, they
>should have, because they have produced exactly the same kind of results
>one could expect from that organization of orangutans.

The frothing idiots in question were caught between a rock and a hard
place. IRS rulings that decided they were "really" employees made them
ineligible to work as independent contractors - they were required to
become W2 employees of an agency - and so they figured if they had to be W2
serfs, with all the disadvantages of that status (lower rate, loss of
freedom, loss of tax advantages), they might as well be W2 serfs of
Microsoft and get the benefits thereof [pun intended]. I'm not happy about
the fallout from that decision either, it's very anti-worker, but the
plaintiffs didn't create the initial problem.

--
jeanne a. e. devoto ~ jaed -at- jaedworks -dot- com
http://www.jaedworks.com