Intel engineer, running for Congress, mounts union drive at Oregon chip factory

An Intel engineer says he desires to unionize a whole bunch of his colleagues working in Intel’s Hillsboro semiconductor factories, hoping to deal with lengthy hours, pay disparities and job safety.

This week’s launch of the union drive coincides with Matt West’s marketing campaign for the Democratic nomination for Oregon’s new sixth Congressional District. West, who has labored for Intel since 2015, mentioned his effort started greater than a 12 months in the past and can proceed regardless of how he fares in subsequent week’s main election.

“If you may get a union right here, I believe the hope is we’ll see unions on all Intel campuses,” mentioned West, who’s on skilled go away throughout his marketing campaign. He’s planning a rally in Hillsboro on Wednesday afternoon with at the very least two of his Intel co-workers and representatives from different Oregon unions.

Intel is Oregon’s largest company employer, with 22,000 folks assigned to its factories and company places of work in Washington County. West’s effort is concentrated on lithography engineers in Intel’s Hillsboro factories, who quantity between 350 and 400. Lithography makes use of mild to imprint patterns onto silicon wafers, patterns that in the end kind the tiny circuitry inside microchips.

Intel declined to touch upon West’s union drive. The chipmaker’s monetary filings point out none of its 120,000 workers worldwide are union members, although unionized contractors work on its campuses in Oregon and elsewhere.

Organized labor is resurgent in america amid a broad labor scarcity, which has given staff extra leverage to demand improved pay and dealing situations.

Employees at an Amazon warehouse in New York voted to unionize final month – a primary at that firm. And workers at a number of Starbucks coffeeshops have voted to affix unions, together with employees at a Starbucks in Eugene.

It’s exceedingly uncommon, although, for comparatively well-paid paid technical workers to unionize. Employees in Oregon’s chip trade earn a mean of greater than $150,000 yearly, in line with state wage knowledge.

Extremely compensated Intel executives skew that determine upwards, however even newly employed manufacturing unit technicians with a two-year diploma usually early $60,000 a 12 months.

The issue for Intel’s manufacturing unit engineers, West mentioned, is that pay is extremely variable, hours are lengthy and job safety is unreliable. He mentioned addressing these three points high the preliminary calls for.

Unionization is especially necessary for Intel engineers from different nations, West mentioned, as a result of they work on non permanent visas and worry they might lose their jobs and face deportation in the event that they converse up.

Organizers say they may ask Intel to voluntarily acknowledge their union. If the corporate doesn’t, West mentioned he’ll collect signatures in hopes of qualifying for a vote.

His initiative comes as Intel pushes to spice up home chip manufacturing and seeks federal help to assist finance the trouble. West mentioned he helps Intel’s goals and needs to see the corporate “lead American manufacturing by instance,” with higher therapy for its manufacturing unit staff.

“We predict it is crucial for Intel to reside as much as its said values,” West mentioned.

— Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | Twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699