Microsoft has caught the sharp end of yet another US judge’s tongue, this time over the way it treats its temporary employees. In a session convened – unusually – at Judge John Coughenour’s own request, he admonished Microsoft, calling it outrageously arrogant, for denying healthcare insurance, additional pay or stock benefits of any kind to its contract workers – even if a court or a government agency has determined that the contract workers should have the same rights as permanent staff. The case stretches back to 1992 when workers filed a class action suit against Redmond claiming that the company treated them as full-time workers in every sense except compensation. In 1997 the court of appeals ruled that Microsoft should have allowed them to participate in a stock purchase scheme that gave employees the opportunity to buy stock at a 15% discount. The case was sent back to a US district court in Seattle, where the judge ruled that the case should be limited to those that worked at Microsoft between 1987 and 1990. The workers’ lawyers appealed that and meanwhile filed another class action suit to cover all the workers who were not covered by that three-year period. The fact the Judge Coughenour called the hearing rather than either side’s lawyers indicates that he feels fairly strongly that Microsoft is in the wrong on this one.
