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Unions try to make inroads at technology concerns Minneapolis Star-Trubune -To be published Monday, December 18, 2000 Boston Globe 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 last week, Rummonds and about two dozen customer service employees -- in what labor specialists are calling the first union petition by dot-com workers -- were set to ask the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to honor their request for a union election at etown.com, a subsidiary of Collaborative Media Inc. It is unclear how quickly the NLRB will rule on the request. What is clear is that the etown case has garnered widespread attention because 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 University of Massachusetts at 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. Founded in 1995, etown.com has offices in New York and San Francisco. It produces content and research information for the consumer electronics industry and employs a total of 99 people between the two locations. Rummonds said the move to unionize at etown grew out of workers' anger over the $12 to $13 hourly pay and the mandatory overtime, which rose as consumer demand for the company's services increased with the approach of the holiday season. "It's insane," he said. "A lot of people at etown were living at home with their parents. They made so little they couldn't move out." The etown organizing effort grew from the in-house meetings Rummonds and his co-workers began holding this fall into an outright campaign by the Northern California Media Workers Union, a division of the Communications Workers of America. Earlier this month the situation at etown underwent a new twist: the company laid off 28 workers, including 13 in its customer service department. The layoff reduced the staff in San Francisco from 32 to 20. In a separate action filed with the NLRB, the 13 etown customer service workers who were laid off allege the company unfairly retaliated against them for staging a sickout in October and for collecting signed union cards from approximately 26 of 34 customer service employees in the firm's West Coast office and petitioning the labor board. Rummonds, 31, is among those who no longer work at the company. He said he was fired in October after staging a sickout. He has remained active in the organizing effort. Steve Ramirez, vice president of marketing at etown, said Rummonds and another supervisor were seeking steep raises and got angry when the company turned down their requests. He maintained that the company raised pay rates by 15 to 40 percent but workers protested anyway. "We could not give them what they wanted, so they left and became the instigators of a union effort," Ramirez said. "The union is trying to make an example of someone, so it chose etown. Last week, we instituted a companywide cost-cutting program to get to a quicker path to profitability and meet investors' demands. People in many different departments were laid off, not just customer service." Although Rummonds acknowledged that his pay was increased from $31,500 to $34,000, he said the raise was still too low given his job title and level of responsibility. Even with the raise, he said, he struggled to support himself. He currently lives in an $850-a-month rent-controlled apartment. Prior to joining the etown.com staff, Rummonds owned a salvage company and earned $40,000 per year. In Seattle, a workers alliance called the Washington Alliance of Technical Workers, or 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 Organizing 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 spokeswoman 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 employees 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 desires for a union through the company, which employs 140,000 in the United States. But like the campaign at Amazon, which employs about 7,500 workers nationwide, the IBM workers' effort has not yet resulted in a successful union card campaign or a petition to the NLRB. |