National Labor Relations Board.



A San Francisco-based software company reached a $775,000 agreement to settle a National Labor Relations Board charge that claimed the firm fired a group of engineers attempting to organize, the union announced Monday.

Lanetix Inc., a cloud services software company, was accused of pushing its coding engineers to stop discussing complaints about workplace conditions in person, on the chat app Slack, or via other electronic communication. According to the NLRB complaint, the company ultimately fired the group who filed a petition to form a union with a local branch of the Communication Workers of America, The Washington-Baltimore News Guild Local 32035.

Zwerdling, Paul, Kahn & Wolly represented the union. Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart represented the company. Ogletree attorney John Ferrer did not respond to a request for comment.

The union announced the settlement Monday in a press release. It said the company agreed to pay the $775,000 to the 15 programmers, in addition to removing the terminations from its records, outlining the terms of the agreement and posting a statement at every location detailing workers’ right to organize.

“This is a landmark win for tech workers,” former Lanetix developer Sahil Talwar said in a statement. “We have shown what can be accomplished by standing together and standing strong.”

The NLRB issued a complaint in August against Lanetix, alleging numerous violations of federal labor law, including the decision to fire its programmers in retaliation for the workers’ decision to form a union.

The union said the issues between the engineers and the company began when a female software engineer spoke out and was fired after seeking more paid time off. Her colleagues then said the dismissal was unfair and brought the concerns to management, and they say they were encouraged to stop discussing "workplace conditions as a group,” Talwar said.

“In response, we wrote a letter asking management to do two things: Do right by the fired engineer, and recognize our right to organize,” he said. He added, “Rather than back down, we decided to fight for our co-worker and we made the decision to unionize.”

He said 10 days later, Lanetix fired the other 14 employees. According to the union, the settlement payment “restores the pay the workers lost and compensates them for their unjust treatment, illegal firing, and financial hardship.”