Government and antitrust lawyers are not the only ones testing Bill Gates' empire these days: union organizers are circling. Microsoft's 260-acre campus is a cool place--you work in jeans, play volleyball on breaks and get good pay, benefits, stock options and job security--if you wear a blue ID badge. Those who wear orange badges (known as "A-dashes" for "Agency" because of their e-mail address prefix) get no benefits, no stock options and no talk about getting on permanent staff.
To get a Microsoft job, says Mike Blain in the Communications Workers of America newsletter, "you come into Microsoft and interview with...