By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: Labor leaders admit unions are a hard sell in Texas, where certain rules make organizing here tougher than in other states. But Joseph Valley, a former Texas Instruments test engineer who was fired in August, says unions add job security. He believes a union could have saved his job, and those of others laid off from local high technology companies. He recently helped organize a small number of them outside the Dallas Hyatt hotel, where some computer outsourcing business leaders were meeting.
Joseph Valley, unemployed Texas Instruments test engineer: This is an anti-outsourcing protest. We want to discourage companies from outsourcing jobs outside of the United States, and our focus is to encourage companies to hire local people - U.S. workers.
Zeeble: Valley says there are now thousands of unemployed, highly qualified computer-related workers in North Texas who want to work. But he says those jobs are either going offshore, or to foreign workers with specialized visas. Robin Touch says she knows what he's talking about. Though she never worked for T.I., she'd been in the computer industry seventeen years - until a few weeks ago - and joined Valley at the protest.
Robin Touch, laid-off computer services worker: I had to train two gentlemen from India how to do my job. Then I was laid off. I had the highest appraisal rating; I said, "I'll take a pay cut." They said there's no negotiation. They're just tossing us out. There were 400 of us; now there are 60 of us American workers.
Zeeble: Joe Valley says high tech companies like T.I. are bringing foreign workers in on H-1B visas, designed for skilled employees who cannot be found here. He doesn't buy it.
Valley: They're using these visas to implement age and race discrimination against American workers.
Kim Quirk, spokesperson, Texas Instruments: That's completely without merit.
Zeeble: Kim Quirk, a spokesperson at Texas Instruments, says these allegations come from a disgruntled employee fired for divulging private, company information to the public. As for Valley's claim that T.I. favors foreign workers over natives, she says those charges are false, and only one half of 1% of last year's hires were on H-1B visas. As for the union effort, she says T.I. doesn't need one.
Quirk: We don't think we need a third party that would make it tough to work together. The company is built on a foundation of fairness and teamwork and respect; open communication and winning attitude.
Zeeble: Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, now a professor at Brandeis University, says there's another reason companies dislike unions.
Robert Reich, ex-U.S. Labor Secretary: They don't want to share more of their profits with employees. Unions give employees more bargaining power and companies would rather not pay more to employees.
Zeeble: Reich backs the point made by Texas Instruments that H-1B visas are so few in number that they don't threaten U.S. high tech workers. T.I.'s Kim Quirk says T.I. plant workers have also shown no interest in any union. Even Bobby Reed, with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who would love to unionize T.I., admits it's a long shot.
Bobby Reed, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers: That's a monumental task, but we're going to continue to go forward with the effort to organize the group.
Zeeble: The effort could take months, he says, or a year or longer, if it's going to happen at all. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
Email Bill Zeeble about this story.