MMTC Asks Labor To Cough Up New Tech Company Employment Stats

With broadband dominating the media conversation these days, the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council (MMTC) wants the government to give up employment data for top Silicon Valley companies including Google, Yahoo! and Apple.

In a letter to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis dated Sept. 17, MMTC asked the department to reverse its denial of a FOIA request by the San Jose Mercury News for access to information on the employment composition of the above three, plus Oracle and Applied Materials. Those companies argued that race and gender information was a trade secret, according to reporter Mike Swift, and that it would casue "commercial harm" for Labor to release it. Labor denied the FOIA request. The data for companies for which Swift did get info showed that while staffing had gone up, the percentage of African Americans and women employees and managers had decreased.