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5-year Microsoft worker left out in cold
Friday, June 25, 1999
By LISA STIFFLER
Christopher Miller's life was on track.
For more than a year, he made the daily commute from his home in Ballard to the Microsoft campus in Redmond. There, he helped to create the company's hardware department, where prototypes of equipment including the Microsoft mouse, keyboard and joysticks are made.
Miller loved his job, made good money and enjoyed raising his two teenage kids.
Then life took a U-turn.
Although he was paid directly by Microsoft, he was classified as one of a few hundred "independent contractors" not eligible for health care benefits. Another 6,000 employees working at Microsoft are employed by temporary agencies, and also are not eligible for Microsoft benefits.
Two class-action lawsuits charge that the corporation misclassified thousands of employees, and they seek retroactive health insurance, retirement plans and stock purchase programs for eligible former and current employees.
Attorneys for the workers say the Miller case illustrates why the Microsoft employee classification system doesn't work. They argue that Microsoft is ignoring its responsibility to provide benefits for a segment of its employees, shifting the cost to individuals and the public.
"If Microsoft would grow up and act like the major employer it is, then Chris Miller could be one of the last Microsoft employees to face a life-threatening illness without health insurance," said David West, spokesman for the workers' attorneys and director of the Center for a Changing Workforce, a non-profit organization advocating for temp workers' rights.
In May, a panel of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges ruled that temporary workers and independent contractors can participate in Microsoft's stock purchase program, which lets them buy the company's stock at a discount.
Microsoft sought a rehearing of that ruling by the full court but was turned down yesterday. A Microsoft spokesman said the company hasn't yet decided what it will do next.
Other aspects of the lawsuits are unresolved, including entitlement to medical benefits.
Miller began working for Microsoft in his modest Ballard house in 1993. In 1996, he started working at the corporation's Eastside headquarters, charged with establishing a hardware department at the company. For 14 months he held a managerial role, and was instrumental in hiring other employees.
"I was treated no differently than anyone else," he said. "Many people . . . didn't understand why I wasn't a regular employee."
Microsoft declined comment on Miller's prolonged status as an independent contractor.
"My sympathy goes out to him," said spokesman Dan Leach.
Today, Miller once again spends his days at home. But the drills and saws and soldering tools sit idly in his basement shop. He moves cautiously, his speech is slurred, and he can be confused.
Symptoms of the tumor came on suddenly. For six months Miller had been taking Valium for panic attacks that he thought were caused by stress. Then, over the course of a week, his speech became slurred and he would at times forget the names of the children he has raised alone since his 1984 divorce.
A brain scan and tissue biopsy revealed an inoperable tumor that doctors believe had been growing for as long as 15 years.
Miller was told he had at most six months to live.
Only days after his diagnosis, Miller's sister, Leslie Brockman, wrote a letter to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates recounting her brother's devotion to the corporation. She asked for help with his medical expenses and with the costs of raising his family during the illness.
A month later Brockman, an elementary school teacher and administrator in Laguna Beach, Calif., received a response from the director of Microsoft's contingent staffing. The letter offered sympathy, but explained that benefits are not offered to employees of Miller's classification.
When he fell ill, Miller and his children went to California to be with his sister and mother. There he underwent radiation treatments that were surprisingly successful, shrinking his tumor and temporarily restoring his normal behavior and speech. Brockman raised $8,000 from her church to pay for the treatment.
Miller returned to Seattle in October and began a course of chemotherapy, having already received the maximum dose of radiation allowed for patients. The chemotherapy appears to be slowing the tumor's growth, and Miller has already lived four months longer than doctors thought he would.
Mounting bills have forced Miller to sell many of his possessions. He gets by on Medicaid, Social Security and support from the state. The University of Washington has donated his monthly chemotherapy and bimonthly brain scans.
Despite the hardships Miller and his family have endured, he doesn't hold a grudge against his former employer. In fact, he wants desperately to return to his old job. Miller said he has been promised a position if, and when, he is well.
"I am uniquely qualified and it's as simple as that," he said of the job offer.
Miller said he was well compensated by Microsoft, but did not buy health insurance.
"I never thought anything about it. I never expected to use anything like that," he said.
Miller had never been sick, followed a strict vegetarian diet and said he naively thought health insurance unnecessary.
Attorney Steve Strong is working for the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit. He said Miller's situation is not unusual.
"Most people who don't have health insurance with their employer don't get it," Strong said.
Individual insurance plans can be expensive and difficult to get. Individual plan premiums range from $320 to $592 a month for a family of four with a $250 deductible, according to the state Insurance Commissioner's Office. In 15 Eastern Washington counties new individual insurance plans are not offered, though coverage can be obtained through the state's Basic Health Plan.
Strong warns that as Microsoft's youthful workforce begins aging, the potential for situations like Miller's will increase.
"As people get older, there will be more people with major ailments," Strong said.
In early April, Microsoft decreed that to continue doing business with the company, temporary agencies would be expected to provide medical and dental insurance to temporary workers, paying at least half its cost.
Microsoft also reduced, to 15 from 100, the number of agencies it contracts with directly, with a view to more easily ensuring that the agencies comply with the new benefits requirements.
Mark Turner works as a temp at Microsoft, but is employed by the Volt agency. Health insurance for his wife and two children cost Turner $300 a month through the insurance plan offered by Volt.
Turner's position is classified as temporary, though the project he has been working on since August 1998 is expected to last through 2002.
"I like the job, I like the people I work with," he said, adding that he is resigned to the circumstances and wants to stay at Microsoft despite his classification.
"Life isn't always fair," he said.
Microsoft and other high tech companies say they must use temporary employees because they have fluctuating labor needs. The computer companies need cyclical help creating and testing new products and for tech support when a new item is released.
Jim Emerson, a plaintiff in the second lawsuit, said the need for his skills as an editor of a Microsoft film guide did not fluctuate with annual cycles. He worked a "day-in, day-out, week-in, week-out job" for 3 1/2 years until the project was finished.
"If a job is so obviously a permanent job, why do you cut corners and make it a temporary job?" he said. "Everybody knows that the whole thing is a big scam."
Emerson said he doesn't object to the use of temporary employees, so long as the classification is not abused.
Brockman said her brother has redirected the passion, intensity and focus that he had for his projects at Microsoft to fight his illness.
"To Chris, (the illness) is just another project to get through," she said. "But this is a project that I don't know if he can finish."
P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or lisastiffler@seattle-pi.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor last August, the 45-year-old Miller has undergone medical treatment costing more than $30,000. Each month he takes medications costing hundreds of dollars.
Christopher Miller at his Ballard home. His Microsoft job gave him no health insurance to pay to treat a brain tumor. Rick Giase/P-I
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