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Agents of an American Giant

The Lives of Microsoft Workers in Puerto Rico

Figure 1.  The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is located in the Caribbean Sea and is a part of the Greater Antilles chain. 
Image obtained from <http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/caribbean/puerto-rico/map.htm>.

 

 

Figure 2. Microsoft Office XP Professional disk sets are manufactured in Humacao, Puerto Rico .
Image obtained from <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005AFI0/00252863977335212?v=glance&s=software&me=A1JW753ATTVZXE&vi=pictures&img=14#more-pictures>.

Introduction

One of the many arms of Microsoft Corporation stretches to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, just over one thousand miles southeast of the United States, where Puertorriqueños labor to produce Microsoft Office XP Professional disk sets. Since Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States , many of the continental labor laws also apply to the citizens of Puerto Rico . As a result, working conditions are subject to OSHA standards and American minimum wage laws apply (www.osha.gov). However, the culture of the workers is distinctly Puerto Rican. As an island state subject to frequent revolutions and changing governments, immigrants from all over the world have settled in Puerto Rico at different times throughout history. Each immigrating culture has been woven into the unique blend of multinational beliefs that has become the Puerto Rican culture. In this paper, I will discuss the life of a typical employee for Microsoft in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , specifically the worker's cultural background including daily life, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, ethnicity, and political affiliation.

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Context of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is located in the Caribbean Sea, and is the easternmost and smallest island in the Greater Antilles chain (Malmgren and Winter 1999: 977) (Figure 1). The island is 180 kilometers across from east to west and 60 kilometers long from north to south, comprising a total area of 9,104 square kilometers (www.cia.gov). The territory of Puerto Rico also includes the isles San Juan , Mona, Monito, Desecheo, Caja de Muerto, Vieques, and Culebra (Wagenheim 1998: 5). Approximately three-fourths of the island has mountainous terrain, while the remainder of the island is comprised of coastal plains. The climate is mild tropical, with an average temperature of 77 degrees (World Almanac 2002: 370). During the summer months, easterly waves cause the majority of the rainfall, while cold fronts in the winter months can also bring some precipitation (Malmgren and Winter 1999: 977). Otherwise, there is little seasonal variation in temperature (www.cia.gov).

The earliest known inhabitants of Puerto Rico were known as the Archaics, who may have emigrated from South America in the first century A.D. Little is known of this early society, but archaeological artifacts have shown that its members were seminomadic hunter-gatherers (Wagenheim 1998: 11). After the Archaics, at least three more societies- the Igneri, the Ostionoid, and the Taino- settled on the island prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Spaniards (Wagenheim 1998:10). Collectively, these four groups are known as the Arawaks. The Igneri, who are also believed to have originated in South America, arrived on Puerto Rico in 120 A.D. This society was slightly more advanced than the Arawaks were, and they developed a technique for making fine ceramic pottery. The civilization disappeared in the sixth century A.D., when they were either conquered or evolved into the new Ostionoid culture (Wagenheim 1998: 11). The Ostionoids were not as adept at pottery, but they made highly polished stone artifacts and developed an early ball game called areytos. The Tainos were the most culturally advanced of the Arawak societies, and reached their height in the fifteenth century in Puerto Rico . They were skilled in pottery as well as agriculture, and organized their chiefdoms into a confederation (Wagenheim 1998: 12).

Christopher Columbus arrived at Puerto Rico in 1493, during his second voyage to the New World (Wagenheim and Wagenheim 2002: 1). The island was left unoccupied by the Spaniards for fifteen years after Columbus ' discovery, until Juan Ponce de Leon founded the first settlement in 1508 (Wagenheim and Wagenheim 2002: 15-16). Shortly after Spanish civilization was formed on Puerto Rico, African slaves first were brought to Puerto Rico in 1518. The slave trade continued until 1873, when slavery was abolished on Puerto Rico (www.experience-puertorico.com). Unlike the abolition of slavery in British, French, Dutch, and Danish colonies in the Caribbean , which was initiated by the colonial government, the Puerto Rican abolition was championed by the Puerto Rican colonists. The Puerto Rican colonists felt that the labor of free whites was less expensive than that of black slaves, so Puerto Rican slavery was abolished on economic grounds (Wagenheim and Wagenheim 2002: 68).

Throughout the 1800s, Spanish colonial rule began to be challenged by the Puerto Rican colonists. In 1895, Cuba declared war on Spain , and Puerto Ricans began planning their own military uprising. In order to quell the Puerto Ricans from action, Spain declared Puerto Rico an autonomous government on November 25, 1897 (Wagenheim 1998: 187-188). The new government was never fully enacted, as the United States invaded Puerto Rico on July 25, 1898, during the Spanish-Cuban-American War. Within several months, the U.S. had completely taken control of the island (Wagenheim 1998: 195). Puerto Ricans were first granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, and Puerto Ricans voted to become a commonwealth of the United States in 1952 (Duany 2002: 1).

 

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Brand: Microsoft Office XP Software

Microsoft Corporation was founded in 1975, and considers itself, “the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.” The company introduced its 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0 for IBM personal computers on August 12, 1981. On August 1, 1989, Microsoft introduced its first version of Microsoft Office, a suite of productivity applications for personal computers. The latest version, Office XP, was released on May 31, 2001. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2004, Microsoft had a net revenue of 36.84 billion dollars with a net income of 8.17 billion dollars (www.microsoft.com).   

Microsoft Corporation is based in Redmond , Washington , and has subsidiaries in 94 other countries— Algeria to Zimbabwe . It employs 57,086 people worldwide, including 37,440 in the United States alone (28,007 of these employees are based at the main campus in Washington state). Microsoft owns 430 sites worldwide, comprising 18,408,902 square feet of space. Outside of the main campus in Redmond , Washington , Microsoft has four major operations centers. Licensing, operations, and logistics operations centers are located in Reno , Nevada ; Dublin , Ireland ; and Singapore . Manufacturing of the computer software is completed in a 45,000 square-foot facility in Humacao, Puerto Rico (www.microsoft.com). The Humacao manufacturing plant employs approximately 51-100 people, and produces magnetic and optical recording media (i.e. computer software disks), including Microsoft Office XP Professional software, for Microsoft Corporation (www.pridco.com) (Figure 2).

 

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People

Through research on the culture of Puerto Rico, I have created Marcelo Trujillo, a fictitious employee of Microsoft's manufacturing plant in Humacao, Puerto Rico . Marcelo is a 31-year-old white male who is of Spanish descent, but considers himself Puerto Rican (www.microsoft.com). The official name of Marcelo's workplace is Microsoft de Puerto Rico, Inc, which is located in the heart of Humacao (www.microsoft.com). Humacao comprises an area of 117 square kilometers in a natural valley along the eastern coast of Puerto Rico , and had a population of 59,035 people in the 2000 census. Marcelo is proud of his home city, so-named from the Taino Chief Jumacao, who was the first Taino Chief to learn to read and write (www.linktopr.com).

  Marcelo's job at Microsoft de Puerto Rico, Inc. is to produce the disk sets for Microsoft software applications, including Microsoft Office XP. Marcelo makes a modest income for his work, and is happy that the minimum wage laws and OSHA workplace standards of the United States also apply to his homeland (www.osha.gov). When he first started working at Microsoft, shortly after completing secondary school at Ana Roque Senior High School (https://www1.albert.nyu.edu:4901/schools/secondary/ US_PR-0.html), he was only earning minimum wage. Having worked for Microsoft for almost 13 years, Marcelo's hourly wage has increased to 8.79 dollars. This equates to an annual salary of 18,281 dollars (www.census.gov). Though this pay may seem very low to a mainland American, it is useful to note that the mean annual income for all Puerto Ricans is 21,470 dollars. However, this figure is somewhat skewed due to some very wealthy individuals as the median hourly wage is only 7.77 dollars, a whole dollar per hour less than Marcelo's hourly wage (www.bls.gov). Marcelo has voted twice for Puerto Rico to remain a commonwealth of the United States instead of attaining statehood because he likes that the United States cannot collect federal income tax from him as long as Puerto Rico remains a commonwealth (World Almanac 2002: 372). In addition, his future at Microsoft looks brighter now that new legislation has passed allowing him and his fellow employees to form unions to bargain collectively for future contracts (Suarez 2001: 70). Marcelo does not have much free money to spend, but he is satisfied with owning a modest home in Humacao.

  Marcelo is happily married to a 31-year-old woman named Carmen, and together they have one son and one daughter. Carmen is of mixed Spanish and African descent, partially related to the Africans brought over to Puerto Rico as slaves centuries before. Carmen is not currently employed, but she is considering joining the workforce to help the family live more comfortably and to help pay for her children's college tuition at the Universidad de Puerto Rico en Humacao. The entire family is bilingual, having been raised with both English and Spanish as the official languages of Puerto Rico . Both Marcelo's and Carmen's parents are alive, as they are well under the life expectancy of 77.49 years (www.cia.gov). Marcelo's mother worked in the garment industry into the 1980s, where she still made only 120 dollars per week (Safa 1995: 69). This money was combined with Marcelo's father, who also earned a very modest wage working at a sugarcane farm just outside the city. Marcelo and his family consider themselves very religious, and like 85 percent of Puerto Ricans, they practice the Roman Catholic religion (www.cia.gov). They frequently attend Humacao's Catholic church, Dulce Nombre De Jesus (www.linktopr.com).

  Marcelo's daughter, Isabella, just celebrated her fifteenth birthday. The party was called a quinceanera, and it is a rite of passage for Puerto Rican and other Latin American girl's transition to womanhood. The party was elaborate, almost resembling a wedding with its gowns, limousines, dinners, and dance parties (www2.hsp.org). Isabella enjoys living in Humacao, and frequently visits its two large shopping malls. She also enjoys eating granitos, a greasy snack food consisting of a fried shell filled with hot cheese and rice, for which Humacao is famous. Isabella's other favorite pastime is to visit with her friends on the miles of unspoiled beaches near to Humacao (www.answers.com).

 

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Process

I began my research in what I considered the most logical place to find information on Microsoft Corporation, which was at www.microsoft.com. As one might imagine, Microsoft's website is very large because it was made for a large, multinational computer software manufacturer. This made finding any relevant information challenging, and after searching through the website for several hours, I was unable to find the location of the Office XP manufacturing plant. I then began to search online and after a great deal of difficult found a website that mentioned the town of Humacao being related to Microsoft. Once I had the name of the town, I was able to search Microsoft's website and found a good deal of information about the plants demographics. In this case, the information was always there, but the challenge was knowing where to look to find it.

  Once I had the name and location of the manufacturing plant for Office XP, I then began my attempt to learn about the culture of an employee. Although everything I have read suggests that Microsoft is a fair employer that should not have anything to hide, the company seemed reluctant to divulge any more information about the manufacturing plant than I was able to find on their website. I first attempted to contact Microsoft's media relations agency, Waggener Edstrom in hopes that they would have the information I needed since the only other contact information Microsoft offered was for paid customer assistance on technical issues. Unfortunately, Waggener Edstrom would not provide me with any information because I was not a member of the media. They did provide me a number for Microsoft's main campus in Washington state, so I then called that number. They would not provide me with any contact information for the Humacao plant unless I knew an employee's name, which I of course did not. I then searched online again to try to find a number directly to the Humacao plant. Luckily, I found a website in Spanish that listed a number for the plant. When I called the number, I reached an operator who spoke English only marginally. After some language barrier difficulty, I was told that he could only connect me to an employee if I had a name similar to the response from the main campus. I then asked for an email address to the plant or someone at the plant, and was told that he could not share that information either. It seems that the only way to get information out of this plant is to already know someone in the plant.

  Although I could not speak directly to an informant, I was able to find information in various journals, books, and websites describing lifestyle of typical workers in an electronics manufacturing plant like Microsoft's. However, I do not believe that a company such as Microsoft should be able to hide this information from consumers as easily as they have. I believe that consumers have a right to know exactly what the working conditions and wages at all plants are like for U.S. corporations. It is only fair that the consumer can find out this information so they can choose whether to support those corporations who do not provide adequate wages and working conditions for their employees. Although I do not believe Microsoft had anything to hide from me, they still seemed very suspicious of a student wanting information about their manufacturing plant. The seemed to be relatively open about their working environment from my initial impressions, but once I began to ask for more detailed information, they became less helpful in response to my requests.

 

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Conclusion

Microsoft Corporation manufactures its Office XP computer software on the tropical island of Puerto Rico . Although Microsoft is reluctant to share specific information about its employees in Humacao, it can be extrapolated that their lifestyle is surprisingly good. The salary may seem quite modest, but it is very near to the national average in Puerto Rico . This suggests that the employees at the manufacturing plant can still live comfortably, even with the seemingly low salaries compared to those in the U.S. Since Microsoft employees work in the shadows of the United States for such a large corporation that is very American, it is only through a strong sense of Puerto Rican pride that they can retain their unique identities.


 

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Internet References Cited

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Peer-Reviewed References Cited

    Duany, Jorge

    2002    The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States . The University of North Carolina Press. Chapel Hill .

     

    Malmgren, Bjorn A. and Amos Winter

    1999   Climate Zonation in Puerto Rico Based on Principal Components Analysis and an Artificial Neural Network. Journal of Climate 12(4):977-985.

     

    “ Puerto Rico .” 1997 Census of Outlying Areas: Manufacturing . U.S. Census Bureau. Mar. 2000. 25 Feb. 2005 <http://www.census.gov/prod/ec97/oa97e-4a.pdf>.

     

    “ Puerto Rico .” November 2003 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates . U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics. 24 Nov. 2004. 3 Mar. 2005 <http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_pr.htm>.

     

    Safa, Helen I.

    1995    The Myth of the Male Breadwinner: Women and Industrialization in the Caribbean . Westview Press. Boulder .

     

    Suarez, Sandra

    2001   Political and Economic Motivations for Labor Control: A Comparison of Ireland , Puerto Rico, and Singapore . Studies in Comparative International Development 36(2):54-81.

     

    Wagenheim, Kal and Olga Jimenez de Wagenheim

    2002    The Puerto Ricans: A Documentary History . Markus Wiener Publishers. Princeton

     

    Wagenheim, Olga Jiminez de

    1998    Puerto Rico : An Interpretive History from Pre-Columbian Times to 1900 . Markus Wiener Publishers. Princeton .

     

    World Almanac & Book of Facts

    2002    Outlying U.S. Areas: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico . Pp. 370-371.

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