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Win the Lottery Or Organize: Traditional and Non-Traditional Labor Organizing in Silicon Valley

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Win the Lottery Or Organize: Traditional and Non-Traditional Labor Organizing in Silicon Valley Peer Reviewed Title: Win the Lottery or Organize: Traditional and Non-Traditional Labor Organizing in Silicon Valley Journal Issue: Berkeley Planning Journal, 12(1) Author: Benner, Chris Publication Date: 1998 Publication Info: Berkeley Planning Journal, Department of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley Permalink: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6z2697vb Local Identifier: ucb_crp_bpj_13043 Abstract: The growth and change in high -tech industries in Silicon Valley over the last 20 years has produced a highly bifurcated society, with little social mobility between low and high stratums of the society. The highly unequal occupational structure of high-tech industries, combined with the rise in out-sourcing of rela ted service occupa tions, h a s contributed t o the growing inequality in the region. In this environment, traditional models of labor organizing in the electronics sectors have been ineffective in improving wages and working conditions for low-wage workers. Other, more inn o va tive organizing efforts, ho we ver, have had more success. These newer efforts link organizing in the community with organizing in the workplace, build links between en vironmental justice concerns and work place safety and health issues, help break down divisions between the public and private sphere, and bring greater public o versight of private sector employment practices. While these efforts have yet to have a major impact in improving emplo yment prospects for low-wage workers in high-tech industries, they do provide some important insights into potential new forms of labor organizing. Copyright Information: eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide. WIN THE LOTTERY OR ORGANIZE Traditional and Non-Traditional Labor Organizing in Silicon Valley Chris Benner The growth and change in high-tech industries in Silicon Valley over the last 20 years has produced a highly bifurcated society, with little social mobility between low and high stratums of the society. The highly unequal occupational structure of high-tech industries, combined with the rise in out-sourcing of rela ted service occupations, has contributed to the gro wing in equality in the region. In this environment, traditional models of labor organizing in the electronics sectors have been in effective in imp roving wages and working conditions for low-wage workers. Other, more in novative organizing efforts, ho wever, have had more success. These newer efforts link organizing in the community with organizing in the workplace, build links between environmental justice concerns and work­ place safety and health issues, help break down divisions between the public and private sphere, and bring greater public oversight of private sector emplo yment practices. While these efforts have yet to have a major impact in imp roving emplo yment prospects for low-wage workers in high -tech industries, they do pro vide some important insights in to potential new forms of labor organizing. Introduction When I think about it, we don't really dream of fortunes or kingdoms or things like that very often ...We dream that when we work hard, we'll be able to clothe our children decently, and still have a little time and money left for ourselves. And we dream that when we do as good a job as other people, we get treated the same, and that nobody puts us down because we're not like them. We dream that our jobs are safe, and secure, and when we're really on a roll - we even imagine that they're interesting and enjoyable! ...Then we ask ourselves, "How could we make these things come true?" And so far we've come up with only two possible answers: win the lottery, or organize. What can I say, except I have never been lucky with numbers. So tell them this ...: Berkeley Planning Joumal 12 ( 19981: 50-7 1 Labor Organizing in Silicon Valley, Benner tell them it may take time that people don't think they have, but they have to organize! It doesn't have to be through a union, because God knows unions have problems. So you can do it anywhere, but organize! Because the only way to get a little measure of power over your own life is to do it collectively, with the support of other people who share your needs. These words are from Irma, a Filipina immigrant production worker in a high-tech assembly plant in Santa Clara County. 1 Her impassioned plea contains a disturbing contradiction. On the one hand is a clear sense of the need for marginalized workers to act collectively if they are ever to gain a measure of power and control over their own lives. On the other hand, it reflects an absence of clear models of effective forms for that collective mobilization to take. Historically, workers have primarily focused on union organizing as the dominant form for collective organization. But union membership in the United States has declined to its lowest post war level, with only 10.4 percent of the private sector work force unionized in 1996 (Hirsch and Macpherson 19961. Economic restructuring, increasing globalization of production, diffusion of information technology, and new forms of work organization have all contributed to a weakening of labor's power vis-a-vis capital, and traditional forms of union organization have been ineffective in confronting this reality. Yet the urgency of Irma's words remains, raising an important question. Marginalized workers need effective collective mobilization, and if not traditional unions, then what? This article attempts to address this question through an examination of labor mobilization in the electronics industry in Santa Clara County, known as Silicon Valley because of the concentration of high-technology industries in the area. I will argue that while traditional labor organizing in the electronics sector has been ineffective, other forms of labor organizing have taken place in the Valley that provide promising rays of hope for marginalized workers in the new economic structure . These forms of labor organizing build on four important arenas: 1. struggles that link community and workplace organizing, thus breaking down divisions between production and reproduction activities and providing links between workplace and identity (e.g. gender, ethnicity) based organizing; 51 Berkeley Planning Journal 2. organizing efforts that break down divisions between the private and public sphere by developing media campaigns to solicit support of sympathetic public officials and public agencies for worker's conditions; 3. campaigns that link workplace safety and health issues with broader environmental concerns, providing a link with the growing environmental justice movement; and 4. strategies that target secondary emplo yers to take responsibility for working conditions at subcontractors, which addresses problems of labor in the new •flexibleR work organization. The first section of the article provides background on Santa Clara County, highlighting the growing structural inequality and the links between class, race, and gender divisions of labor. The following section provides a brief review of traditional labor organizing strategies that have occurred in the high-technology industries of Silicon Valley. This is followed by an examination of more creative forms of labor organizing in the region. The final section discusses the significance of these efforts and the problems and prospects for effective labor mobilization they highlight. Economic Growth and Inequality in Santa Clara County Santa Clara County is the heart of Silicon Valley, the diversified core of innovation in the global electronics industry. The dynamic growth and development of the region has made it one of the wealthiest counties in the country, and made it a model for economic development policies around the world. Yet the industrial structure of Silicon Valley has also produced striking inequalities, a strongly bifurcated workforce, and blatant ethnic and gender discrimination. Corporate down-sizing, streamlining and subcontracting in the 1980s and 1990s have reinforced the trends of structural inequality established from the origins of the county's growth. Two Sides of the Same Coin The growth of Santa Clara County since World War II has been dramatic. The County has served as an economic growth engine for the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Employment in Santa Clara Country grew at a 4 percent annual rate, from 251 ,000 in 1964 to 884,000 in 1996. Seventeen of the 44 52 Labor Organizing in Silicon Valley, Benner California-based firms on the Fortune 500 are headquartered in Silicon Valley. Ten of the top 30 information technology companies in North America are based in the Valley. Some 1,500 of the nation's 2,500 largest electronics businesses are located here (Siegel 1994). The San Jose metropolitan area is now the single largest exporting region of the United States, having surpassed New York and Detroit (U.S. Census Bureau, Exporter Location Series, 1997). The growth of the Valley has resulted in rapid income growth for large sectors of the population. Personal and family incomes grew rapidly in the 1970s and 80s, surpassing both state and national averages. Median family income grew in real terms from $42,086 in 1969 to $53,670 in 1989 (in constant 1989 dollars). In 1989, Santa Clara County had the 7th highest median family income of any county in the country (Walker 1990; California Employment Development Department 1992). The bright side of Silicon Valley's development, however, also has a dark side which is revealed far less often. This dark side is intimately tied with the highly unequal structure of employment in high-technology industries (Siegel and Markoff 1985; Hayes 1989). On the one side, the industry is top-heavy, with engineers, programmers, technicians and professional staff, reflecting the scientific and knowledge intensive nature of production and the high level of research and development in the field.
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