Tech workers find power in numbers

Whether working as direct employees, agency contractors, or self-employed independent contractors, a growing number of IT workers are seeing the value of working together to address shared workplace, legislative and career concerns.

At Microsoft, long-term agency contractors, who came to be known as “permatemps”, banded together and organized under the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. In doing so, they were soon successful in pressuring Microsoft and the staffing agencies it works with to provide better benefits.

At IBM, software developers, engineers and other tech professionals have organized Alliance@IBM to pressure IBM to withdraw pension changes that would have adversely affected many long-time IBM workers.

At Ameritech and Qwest, unionized workers who program routers, LAN switches and hubs, have negotiated training benefits that help them to stay abreast of the latest technologies, and provide them with tuition aid that enables them to pay for continual training.

Through union contracts and training partnerships with employers, the Communications Workers of America helps ensure that individual workers are not tossed aside as technology changes and advances, but are instead given tools that help them to also keep pace and advance. Which benefits their employers as well.

Read more about IT professionals who have organized and formed unions under the "Workers' Stories" heading near the top of right-hand column of this page.