`New economy' meets old labor issue

When Chase Rummonds became a $31,000-a-year customer service manager at etown.com in San Francisco, the last thing on his mind was union organizing: He just wanted to learn more about online retailing and consumer electronics.

But this week, Rummonds and some two dozen customer service employees -- in what labor specialists are calling the first union petition by dot-com workers -- were to ask the National Labor Relations Board to honor their request for a union election at etown.com, a subsidiary of Collaborative Media.

It is unclear how quickly the NLRB will rule on the request. What is clear is that the etown case has garnered widespread attention and for good reason: it marks the first time that dot-com workers have secured the required card signatures to petition the NLRB for a union election.

Labor specialists say a union at etown would mark a significant change in an industry whose employees have shied away from unionization and collective bargaining in the past.

"What we are seeing is that market forces are beginning to affect dot-coms," said Thomas Juravich, director of the labor center at UMass Amherst. "And workers, particularly those who are on the front lines, such as customer service employees who answer the phones and take orders, are feeling that they are getting the short end of the stick."

Juravich and others believe more cases will pop up at dot-coms in the future as the economy slows down and the front-line service workers who support the "new economy" seek to counteract the financial uncertainty with a push for unions and job security.

This is not the first time unions have sought to organize dot- coms or high-tech giants such as Microsoft or IBM.

In Seattle, WASHTEC has been trying to recruit customer service employees at Amazon.com. At the same time, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and a nonprofit called the Prewitt Organzing Fund are meeting with Amazon's warehouse workers. Both unions are hoping concerns about potential disruptions during the holiday season will force the big e-commerce company to recognize a union.

Thus far, 50 of Amazon's 400 customer service employees in Seattle have been pressing for a union, but to petition for a collective bargaining unit, two thirds of the workers must sign union cards.

"People want job security," said Jeremy Puma, a 25-year-old customer service worker who joined Amazon 18 months ago. "There has been a lot of attrition lately. When people call, they talk to people on the front line. But people are making $10 to $13 per hour and they feel they are not being compensated for the amount of work they are doing or the high level of stress. They're also being asked to put in a lot of overtime."

Amazon spokesoman Patty Smith said this is the third time the workers have tried to organize a union.

"We do not believe it would be in the best interest of employee or customers to have a union," she said. "Once you introduce a third party into the environment, it may not share the same concerns about service. Having a union won't make the issue of overtime disappear."

At IBM, a similar effort continues as operating engineers in upstate New York attempt to spread their desire for a union through the ranks of the company, which employs 140,000 in the United States. But like the campaign at Amazon, which employs approximately 7,500 workers nationwide, the IBM workers' effort has not yet resulted in a successful union card campaign or a petition to the NLRB.

2000Copyright
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.