A letter to Intel from the Tech Workers Coalition

Intel — congratulations on recently surpassing a major diversity goal you set for yourself and ensuring that over 40% of incoming hires are women or people of color. You stand apart from your tech giant peers in that you’ve made progress instead of just saying “we could do better”. Thank you for your commitment and for achieving change.

You’ve said that you strive for a more diverse workforce not just because it is better for the bottom line but also because “it’s the right thing to do”. As you value diversity, have you reflected on the diversity of the rest of the workers daily arriving to the Intel campus to keep your employees fed, your toilets clean, your premises secure?

While Intel’s direct employees are 75% male and majority white, the cafeteria workers for example are majority female and majority minority. (Source: 2014 American Community Survey PUMS, accessed via DataFERRETT. Geography is Place of Work PUMAs = Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties.)

Have you listened to cafeteria workers like Lezly Paez as they garner support for a fair process to organize a union?

Though Silicon Valley’s tech economy is booming, my co-workers and I are being left behind. Just like thousands of other cafeteria workers here in the Valley, we work for a subcontractor. So, even though the food we provide is a vital part of Intel’s workplace, we’re treated differently than other tech workers. My husband, three children, and I all live together in one bedroom to afford our bills. We’re struggling to survive in Silicon Valley’s increasingly unaffordable housing market.

Source: UNITE HERE Local 2850 http://www.unitehere2850.org/

The average weekly wage for food service contractors in Silicon Valley was $602 in 2014. In contrast, the average weekly wage of software developers who work alongside cafeteria staff like Lezly was $3,975. (Source: Analysis of Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Source: Silicon Valley Rising http://wpusa.org/Publication/Tech_Diversity_Report_2014.pdf

In Silicon Valley many take it for granted that the top jobs are tech jobs and that the market is the all-powerful assignor of value. We know that well-off entrepreneurs inventing apps that primarily meet the needs of other well-off entrepreneurs are not really more valuable than the lower-paid teachers who educate our children; and we also know that our landscapers, our janitors, our security guards have the right to earn enough to care for and support their families.

Intel you’ve paved the way as a role model by releasing your diversity numbers for years longer than your peers, and by actually tying executive bonuses to their success at diversifying their talent base. Now we look to you to continue to be an example for true Silicon Valley progress and to support the Guckenheimer contractors’ request for a fair process to form a union and get their well-earned seat at the table.

Signed,

The Tech Workers Coalition