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Dot-Coms Say 'Unions Not Welcome!'
subbiecho writes: "Automotive related e-biz software company, The Cobalt Group, has spoken out against unions forming within their ranks, in this article. Cobalt Group CEO, John Holt sent an un-prompted e-mail to workers, alluding to Amazon.Com and other companies undergoing organizing drives, saying he preferred a "direct dialogue" with employees. This adds more fuel to the fire of pro-union supporters in their attempt to build a cohesive technology workers union."
I have a friend who works at a California university. There is some kind of union present on campus. He has a tech job, and is not a union member, yet is forced to pay several hundred clams per month in union dues. The reason is that it "isn't fair for him to receive the benefits of union representation without paying."
He has constant disputes with the pointy-haired management, has a hostile workplace and a pack of other problems. Naturally the union does nothing for him, but he can't say, "don't represent me, I want nothing from you, and I don't want to give you any money."
It should be illegal to extort money from non-union members in this way.
It's unfortunate that so many of the people who are responding to this issue are completely ignorant of any history prior to the times of their own lives. The mere fact that we have weekends, vacations, child labor laws, minimum wages, basic safety standards in the workplace etc, etc all stem from the labor movement over the last century.
The notion that a skilled person can always go out and get a different job or create one not usually true. Before the "Great Depression" most skilled craftmen, which is what software engineers are today, were treated very poorly. So were academics.
It's stange to read postings by mostly technically trained people who are so attached simple minded notions like free markets and corporatism! I wonder how many such folks are born again Christians or how many could distinguish between the Vietnam War and the Peloponnesian War.
The pleasant conditions the most software engineers enjoy today are not necessarily going to last forever. The quality of software is generally poor even though we are well paid and engineers have little control over either the quality or purpose of the software they create. I suggest something like a Union of Concerned Programmers, at least for a start.
Many good points mentioned above. But my history with unions is awful.. case in point.
I got a job at a medical manufacturing plant from a buddy of my dad. They put me on a machine that was producing 720 units per shift and i was told that's all it could do from the foreman. So what did I do, I spent that night reading the instruction book for that machine. The next day I had the sucker producing 2700 units in half of my shift time. The foreman patted me on the back and my car window was smashed. My dad's friend told me to slow it down. So what did I do, I got the sucker down to 900 units per shift, got yeld at by the foreman, got my locker broken into ( lost one hell of great book), and had a wiper blade broken. All in 3 days.
So the end of that week I deciede to take my revenge on the entire union. I got the manuels for most of the plants presses and machinery ( plant was closed on sundays ) and wrote a 27 page memo to the president of the company. Come tuesday, I hit my machine and have it running at full speed, the next machine at full speed and 3 other machines running at almost there top speed. Total production I was told was about 13 days worth of output. I was smart enough to leave 1 hour before the shift change. All the while the president, and plant manager watched me behide a glass window.
I was told that most of the employees of the union were required to retrain and they would have to hit my production within 1 month. There were some layoffs from that plant within 2 weeks.
My fathers buddy never spoke to me again and we moved out of the area.
I think unions are good if the union understands that they have to produce at the maximum levels of skills they have and that they also have a good employer that will offer consistant training to improve the knowledge of the union. Better educated workers bring better productions with less stress and long term benifits to the firm.
above email is spam bait so look at my bio.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
> Although I am clearly biased on this point, I just dont see any other need for a tech-union, perhaps someone else can enlighten me on
> this issue.
Simple. Consider for a moment that having ``elite" status means that you are one of the top 5% or 10% in your work bracket. Employers fall all over themselves to give you want you want.
But what if you just don't make that bracket. You're in the 10% bracket right below yours. Or you look funny. Or you decide you want to only work 40 hours a week.
Or say you lose out on a raise because your PHB decides to give it instead to one of those slackers who just happens to offer something on the side that the PHB likes. (And it's not always nookie.)
Sure, if that happened to you right now, you could walk off the job & get a better-paying one tomorrow. But recessions happen, & all of the clued bosses who would hire you in a heartbeat have hiring freezes. Or you get into a car accident, sure it's the other guy's fault but he's a deadbeat & your insurance doesn't cover it, AND you are out for six months. Can't code, can't work, can't do anything but count the holes in the ceiling thru a medication haze. And you find your employer laid you off while you were out, & no one wants to hire you.
Don't say this couldn't happen to you. For generations people have been giving loyalty & their strong backs to employers, then something happens & you discover how your boss repays all that loyalty. All it takes is one PHB, one bad break, & your career can get toasted.
And that's why unions get started. Because you can't always trust your boss.
And be glad that there's an interest in unionizing high tech. You'll never see a union at a place like McDonald's or 7-11 (which need unions worse than the high tech industry) because you need some kind of stable workforce that'll be around for at least a couple months at the job. You need jobs that are worth fighting for, that are worth having.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
What I've noticed about the union where I work, and I'd imagine its similar elsewhere, is that the aim of the union is to "protect" the "average" employee. This is good for the mediocre employee as they are pretty safe from getting fired for doing mediocre work as long as they meet the minimum acceptable standards. Even if they're below those standards, the union will cry a river for them in their defense and they'll be able to hold onto their job for that much longer.
The bad news is, in their bargaining for better money for the lowest common denominator, they eliminated the possibility for anyone to get a raise based on any factor other than senority. It doesn't matter that one employee works twice as hard as another. He will get paid the exact same amount as the other employee. The raises are also fixed. Its gonna be 50 cents per year. Thats it. No more until the contract is renewed, and even then its not likely to get any better.
Of course, the employees aren't hopeless, but its ironic that the only way they can be truely appreciated for their performance is to move up into management, and therefore OUT of the "protection" of the union.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Considering my wages were below the lowest tax bracket, this was a ton.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
because unions do prevent those people
from squeezing the most of their workforce...
You're right, why should a company expect to get the most out of their employees? Naw, the more lazy and surly, the better.
What you are saying is that because you have voluntarily made certain life choices, everyone must change to accomodate you.
That is pretty far from what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is that a 40-hour work week isn't too much to ask of an employer. I'd be happy with a 50-hour week, but that's out of the question as well.
Here's a wacky concept: maybe you shouldn't buy a house or cars if you can't afford them, and maybe you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford to raise them.
I can afford them quite well, actually, but I don't see the need to work 12 hour days 7 days a week to pay for them. I don't drive an expensive car, I don't live in a mansion, and I spend very little money, putting over 40% of my income in the bank. I don't live paycheck to paycheck, and I haven't since I was in college, which I will also be paying for for the next 30 years.
But buying a house is expensive, ongoing bills are expensive, and really, none of this has anything to do with what is reasonable to expect from your employees.
Write back to us when you have kids.
It amazes me that all anyone got out of my post was the economic aspect. In all honesty, it's the least important, and has the most bearing on your married\single status.
I haven't had a chance to sit down to a meal with my wife for weeks now. My cats look at me like I'm the most evil person on the planet. I haven't spoken to my brother, my mother, my sister, or anyone outside of the office and my wife when I wake up in the morning in weeks.
Time is far more important than money. Money is fluid, it can always be found. Time isn't, and it goes by WAY too fast.
I think that employers should have reasonable expectations toward how much of their employees' time they can require. I don't think that this is too much to ask.
I am single, and too work in the tech industry, but understand a very simple principle that most don't ever think of. Look for a new job, get offer, accept offer, and then quit. Not so complicated now is it?
Let's see... I don't have time to spend at home, or to call my family, or to talk to my wife, but somehow I have time to job hunt, interview, second interview, etc.
Gee, management of a company doesn't think they need a union? Gosh, that's suprising!
*End Sarcasm Mode*
It seems a lot of the posts have been critical of unions, but please remember that they have been absolutely critical in the development of many nations. There may yet come a day when the number of programmers/admins/technicians in the job market outweighs the number of available jobs. If that day ever comes, unions are going to start looking a lot more attractive to a lot of us.
What's that? Your highly trained, and have a unique skill set? That's what IronWorker Dan thought at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Then one day he looked around, and all his friends were trained as iron workers as well. Now, maybe Dan's company recognizes his true skill and value, or maybe they just see 100 other guys who will do Dan's job for half the price.
The phrase, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it" seems relevant right about now...
so dot-com companies don't like unions.
Name me the five companies in "traditional" companies that said "unions? gee, we love unions. you don't even have to vote! Just come in and have a chair, we'll talk".
Why is it news that these companies don't want unions around? Basically, NO company wants unions around. this is news?
Chuq Von Rospach, Internet Gnome = When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell
The mere fact that we have weekends, vacations, child labor laws, minimum wages, basic safety standards in the workplace etc, etc all stem from the labor movement over the last century.
:)
Damn - now I go an do this contracting/consulting thing and find that weekends are for working, vacations are a figment of my deranged imagination, my pre-school child is helping me code (and doing a better job of it - little bugger!) not to mention the fact that my desk doesn't sit right and I'm sure the lighting is out of whack.
Still, the $500k per year I'm pulling in more than pays my medical, loss of income protection and other such things.
I figure that when I retire in a couple of years, I might just buy me one of them union things...
*cough cough*
Most of the above is a joke - I'll leave it to you guys to figure which bits are jokes and for what reason(s)
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
OK, so back in the past, unions did a lot of good stuff and fought for the right of the worker to not be stomped by nasty employers. Given the situation 100 years ago, I can agree that was a good thing.
:)
:)
:)
:( The classic example mentioned here was the car manufacturers "colluding" on payrates and preventing skilled staff job-hopping.
:)
:)
However, times change and I'm not going to rely on the situation of 100 years ago to justify what I see around me in unions today. Afterall, I'm driving a shit-hot car with great features and flying ace aircraft now - 100 years ago, we didn't have all that. Should I accept shoddy driving/flying environments because a group fought to get them 100 years ago?
Here are some notes from my experience many years ago:
1. Working as a casual hours shop assistant in a KMart (working for pocketmoney while at school) - I was *forced* to take a 15 minute break in the middle of my four hour shift because the union demanded it. They never asked me if I liked having to sit for 15 minutes in the smokey staff area wondering how long it would take to get back into the swing of my work when I returned to the floor.
2. Despite Australia's "voluntary union" status, I was forced to pay union dues (deal between unions & mega-store chain to reduce disruptions).
3. The union supported government parties/delegates that I did not.
4. Votes were conducted as a "show of hands," not a secret ballot. Guess what kind of experience you would have if you voted against the desires of the union/delegate....
Now some current experience from a union that is a client of mine (I do IT/management consulting for them)
1. Fewer people joining the union has resulted in less income which is placing a strain on their out-dated management concepts (little empires, massive duplication of effort, obsolete equipment, etc).
2. Senior union management are realising that they may have to downsize and undergo process review/re-engineering to survive (all the things they complained about when fighting employers
3. One union here is in the middle of a strike with its own admin staff - they are part of a different union and are striking over work conditions at the union's offices. Poetic justice?
Unions once were great, have gone through a period where they got "too big for their boots" and are now being dragged back to reality. Where I see a union excelling is:
1. Where people cannot job-hop to other employers for better conditions, etc (hotshot tech/management staff can get away with it - call centre staff often cannot
2. Where "free" legal advice/service is not available - either contract reviews or fighting for rights - such as the firebrigade staff who were terminated for speaking out. Unions can offer a centralised service to members for free/cheap due to economies of scale.
Reviewing the above two points, isn't this what groups like the IEEE and Australian Computer Society attempt to offer?
One person has noted previously in this discussion that they wouldn't join the IEEE due to their political machinations. Perhaps if sufficient people were to note their disagreement with this direction, the IEEE could:
a) stop their machinations
b) have an "opt-in" political contribution as part of membership - those who agree pay, those who don't do not (nifty way of checking if they really do represent the desires of their members
Organisations such as unions have their benefits, provided they create and maintain a system which is agreed to by their members. One problem here is in the method by which member agreement is obtained. Another problem is getting a large group of people to agree on anything
There is a need for some sort of representation for those in IT who do not have cutting edge skills (eg: those who haven't reinvented themselves every couple of years). Whether a union is the answer or not will be decided by the industry itself over the coming years.
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
Okay. Whoever moderated this down is an idiot. You don't moderate a posting up or down based on whether or not you agree with the point made: you moderate based on the quality of the facts and method in which they're presented.
Yes, read your moderator guidelines.
Regardless, I still have more karma than you do.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Wow, a comment worth reply. :)
.1 * c, the law of supply and demand stops working well when we move away from ideal free market conditions. Good and bad results that the free market system couldn't predict happen. Somehow, unionized industries are able to have real wage increases without massive layoffs. Somehow, Microsoft has been able to retain control of entire markets with substandard products in the face of substantial competition. Examples of results opposite what supply and demand would predict abound.
I guess if you take my argument to its logical extreme it is Functionalism (which is distinct from Marxism, but now I'm using that philosophy minor to split hairs). But it's really more of a free-market Functionalism - techies are the critical irreplaceable segment of an IT company. They're skills are unique and a finite number of people can do their job at all, therefore, like executives, they should be generously compensated (obviously less so than senior managment - but the point is that both groups are critical). Support departments tend to be a different story. However, techies, like blue-collar folk, tend to be isolated from management and most likely to be subjected to unfair treatment (I don't know any Marketdroids who worked 70 hrs/wk for two weeks to meet a deadline only to get laid off the next morning when the project got done on time). This is where some form of representation comes in.
This sounds racist to me.
There's plenty of documented cases of employers abusing the H1-B system. It has no checks and balances - these people often get fucked. You can read other comments here or the original stories for examples. (I wish to plead laziness for not supplying links.) There was absolutely no attempt by tech workers to lobby Congress on these issues, so suprise, we got shitty, one-sided legistlation. Until we live in a world with absolute free trade with a truly global market (never) restrictions on outsourcing employment are justified.
If they screw you, you leave.
That gets hard if everyone is colluding to screw you. It's true that some software isn't made by a couple oligopolies like cars are - yet. Despite this fact, anti-consumer initiatives like SDMI, CSS, etc. have managed to get universal support. It may only be a matter of time before everybody's management gets their act together to suppress developer wages. I'm not saying they would be wrong in trying to do so - that's their job, minimize expenses. The purpose of a union is to provide a counterbalancing institution - at least in theory. Someone needs to be looking out for your interests.
I'm not gonna play long-term predictor, but the dotcom shakeout indicates we might be seeing a world with relatively few software/networking/whatever companies. Most industries tend to consolidate as they mature, and there's no reason software would be an exception. If and when all software is made by Apple-Microsoft-Intel-NBC or IBM-Redhat-Sun-AOL-TimeWarner and three other companies, leverage would shift substantially away from the workforce to the employers. If you think this is absurd, bear in mind we once had dozens of automakers in America, we now have exactly two (Chrysler doesn't count). Troll-preempt: This an exagerrated example, please don't tell me Apple belongs in the second megacorp or something like that. (Somewhat OT, while I'm not a Marxist, he did predict consolidation decades before it happened. Rest assured, I hate communism as much as you, just should give credit where it's due.)
Three of the five groups you mentioned have recently pulled or are pulling strikes about bullshit issues and making ridiculous demands.
It cuts both ways. Counterexample: Pepsi workers where I live had shitty wages, pension plans, disability pay, etc. The union came up with a proposal that would have compensated Pepsi workers slightly less than local Coke workers with equivalent jobs. The company made a ridiculously low offer and then refused to negotiate "on principle." Who's the idiot here? All a strike indicates is an inability to reach an agreement - it isn't automatically the union's fault.
I may be going out on a limb by suggesting that we trust a system with a rather shady history. But we may have the solution to the problem of advocates who don't advocate well - the Internet. Rank and file union members have set up websites criticizing bad union leadership and company management alike. The NWA flight attendant contract (big issue when you have one airline like we do in Minneapolis) was scuttled by an independent website which claimed it didn't really benefit members.
In the olden days, all organizations had to be hierarchial - you had to have literal "bosses" even in unions. Today, you can set up a discussion site where anyone with a stake in the issues can voice their opinion. If flight attendants can use the net to prevent abuses of the union system tech workers should have no difficulty. It's awfully difficul to bullshit a large group of people who have the ability to communicate on a discussion system. I just can't see a traditional crooked union popping up when all the members can post comments.
It's a basic truth of economics that increased prices will result in decreased demand.
It is also a basic truth of physics that bodies move in accordance with Newton's laws and relations derived from these laws. Any so-called "basic truth" or "law" is valid only under a finite set of circumstances. Just as the laws of classical mechanics only accurately describes the world at relatively low speeds, the law of supply and demand only accurately describes the world in markets where all information is available to all actors, the number of actors is large, all actors meet the formal defition of efficiency, and the barriers to entry and exit approach zero.
Just as Newton's laws stop working well as we approach
These so-called "laws" become become less useful in describing behavior as we move away from the hard sciences to the soft ones, like economics and political science - even the Iron Law of Political Science has two exceptions (1930 and 1998) and social scientists still call it the "Iron Law" because relative to their other laws it's done an awfully good job.
I was at my local library recently and I browsed the computer section for entertainment. It had a 1990 book entitled "The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer" and it claimed that by 2000 all the programmers in America would be unemployed, having been replaced by harder-working Indians. American programmers were supposedly 1)lazy, 2)overpaid, 3)inefficient, 4)overeducated, 5)stupid.
Strangely, US programmers are doing quite well, even though their salaries have been jacked through the roof (albeit not by unions). It appears #4 turned out to be a real benefit - US folk have shown a better ability to adapt to new technology. It looks like the sky has been falling for a while.
First off, my knowledge and expertise on labor unions themselves is very much limited and I do not claim to be an expert or even to know what I'm talking about. But since this is an open forum, I'd like to add my perspective.
I think it can be agreed that unions exist for the protection of the workers against their employers. I do believe (but am not certain) that unions as we know them today started with the auto industry. Henry Ford, while being the innovator he was, pretty gave not a flying shit about his employees. Working conditions were pretty bad and so the workers fought back and went on strike. A union was created somewhere along the lines and workplace quality went up.
But the coin can be flipped. A union can become strong enough that suddenly the employer is the one in the stranglehold. This is when people starts saying that unions are evil, etc.
Right now, I'd say that the IT industry needs no unions. AFAIK, the good programmers are practically babied and so are some of the bad ones. In general, I would guess that IT workers have it made. Until we start approaching a world something like that in Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_, an IT union is a bad idea. We don't want our employers to hate us this early in the game.
Hear hear. Tech workers are not like skilled workers doing manual work ... you can only weld so fast, or lay so many bricks/hour, or fix an engine so fast etc.
/.ers are heartless technocrats, but we just don't want our highly specialized and arcane jobs lumped in with someone who inserts Windows-2K CD's in a drive all day and clicks Ok. (no offense to the humble MSCE :) )
OTOH, a tech worker with the right skills can sometimes do a job 1000%-10000% faster/better than someone lacking those skills. And you can't expect training and a bumper sticker to magically teach someone to be the kind of creative problem solver that is valuable in the tech biz.
Maybe the majority of
Actually, my skill in the workplace is what lets me ask for a raise and not get fired.
I don't need somebody else to ask for me. Thanks anyway.
Hay thar.
...and I have 6 more to go.
There's only been one day that was less than 12 hours, and I fought like mad to get that one day.
Everywhere you go, you hear "that's how tech is."
Tech burnout, IT madness, whatever you want to call it, it's pervasive and for some unknown reason we're expected to be available 24/7 7 days a week. Beepers, cell phones, etc. totally invade our privacy.
It's got to stop before the tech industry eats itself. The business owners aren't going to do it, as we've seen lately with Amazon and Cobalt, they're going to do whatever they can to keep things as they are.
I see many postings citing the differiation in skill level in the tech industry as a reason not to unionize. The assumption is that either pay will be based on seniority or all workers will be paid the same. I do not see why this must be the case. My parents are both professors with Ph.D's (also high skill level) and belong to the university's faculty union. My Dad however makes a lot more than my Mom because he publishes more and gets promoted more. By the university's standards he is a better professor so he is paid more. Also the pay in different fields for professors history vs. chemistry varies a great deal.
I imagine a union of programmers would negotiate to get standards for minimum pay-level (no HB-1 visa underpaying) and working hours (no 7 days of 14 hours in a row). Beyond this different programmers could be paid different amounts. Why couldn't individuals negotiate their own salaries and still be in the union? I have known some professors at my parents' university that have negotiated special raises.
I it just doesn't seem fair.
About 25 years ago I worked in retail, selling home electronics. I was given the choice of joining the retail clerks union or quitting. I told my boss that I'd rather quit. He didn't want to lose me, so he promoted me to store manager. All the time I worked there, the union employees were making very close to minimum wage and were working in horrible conditions, and the union manager was driving a very expensive car and wearing suits more expensive than any worker could afford. There were no strikes. I'm sure there was lots of corruption.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
My mother lead a union at a hospital and she never endorsed this crap.
I for one would agree to all five conditions. Plus let me add:
6) My union would not stand for people habitually coming in late or not at all.
7) My union would not get involved in issues like abortion or military action in Bosnia, etc.
However, what my union would do, is follow in the tradition of union forefathers/mothers who made the workplace a safer place, outlawed child labor, and established the 8 hour work day/40 hour work week.
My union will be the one that saves your tail from being fired and blacklisted for not putting in 80 hours constantly, against your will.
And if you think you can just LEAVE for another job, think again. The dotcoms have fallen. The party is over.
Oh and I also predicted unions would get a big boost in the IT industry if the dotcoms happened to fall and an employer's market situation came about. Well, that time is coming. We'll soon see.
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
They're skills are unique and a finite number of people can do their job at all, therefore, like executives, they should be generously compensated (obviously less so than senior managment - but the point is that both groups are critical).[snip] However, techies, like blue-collar folk, tend to be isolated from management and most likely to be subjected to unfair treatment (I don't know any Marketdroids who worked 70 hrs/wk for two weeks to meet a deadline only to get laid off the next morning when the project got done on time). This is where some form of representation comes in.
.1 * c, the law of supply and demand stops working well when we move away from ideal free market conditions.
This is sorting itself out on its own, without union help. All the dot-coms that try to get by through slave-driving without a plan are going under. The companies that don't reward their workers are begging on the streets for more VC, and they're not getting it. The companies that do get it will weather this downswing, and come out doing just fine.
There's plenty of documented cases of employers abusing the H1-B system.
I agree with you that the H1-B system is screwed up. The problem lies in its implementation, not the fundamental concept of encouraging immigrant tech workers, though (which is what you had originally seemed to be saying). Once again, I'll make a blatant plug for Canada and point out that our immigration system is generally less screwed up than yours. We don't ship people back after 5 years or any of that crap.
If and when all software is made by Apple-Microsoft-Intel-NBC or IBM-Redhat-Sun-AOL-TimeWarner and three other companies, leverage would shift substantially away from the workforce to the employers.
If that came to pass, yes, it would be time for unions. I don't see it happening any time soon, though. Until it does, I think unions would be more a burden than a benefit.
That gets hard if everyone is colluding to screw you. It's true that some software isn't made by a couple oligopolies like cars are - yet. Despite this fact, anti-consumer initiatives like SDMI, CSS, etc. have managed to get universal support.
These examples are quite different from employee treatment. Employees are generally a lot more informed about their companies than consumers are, for one...
Counterexample: Pepsi workers where I live had shitty wages, pension plans, disability pay, etc. The union came up with a proposal that would have compensated Pepsi workers slightly less than local Coke workers with equivalent jobs. The company made a ridiculously low offer and then refused to negotiate "on principle."
If it was the tech industry, all the Pepsi people could have just left for the nearest Coke plant. Then Pepsi would have been up shit creek without a paddle when they discovered nobody had been commenting their code...
Rank and file union members have set up websites criticizing bad union leadership and company management alike
For now, I think that level of organization is all that's needed--no formal unions necessary. The company I was working at this summer did some nasty bullshit to employees, mainly because of two idiot executives. If we had wanted to, we could have simply told the general manager that X had to change or all his developers would walk. That would have destroyed the company completely, since it would take 6 months for anyone else to figure out our flagship products. I nearly organized such a coup, but, as a lowly co-op student, I didn't quite have the pull needed. All that was really needed was a desire to change things on the part of employees--a union was simply unnecessary.
Just as Newton's laws stop working well as we approach
Yes, but, at least right now, the computer industry is very close to an ideal free market. There are many "sellers" (employees) and many "buyers" (employers), and no one entity or small group has excessive market power. If that were to change, there might be a need for unions... Until then, they're just dead weight.
First, do you think that a union would really fix the H1 Visa problem? I'd assume that a union would just try to decrease the number of H1 Visas. I suppose it might force companies to pay H1 Visa recipiants more since this would make them less attractive, but this just means that only the companies without unionized labor would have lots of H1 Visa holders. I think federal legislation to force fair treatment of H1 Visa holders wopuld be much more effective.
Second, do you think that unions would really do anything to fix the problems with unfair co compeat contracts and NDAs? These issues are much to subtile for your average union and they only effect a minority of emploies (the more intelegent ones). Now, I suppose that a tech union might be a bit smarter then other unions, but I still think that it would ignore it's smarter most importent members in favor of the mass of dues paing html typing idiots.
I think the tech industry would be much better served by having a "tech workers loby" which did not deal with companies, but dealt with congress and the courts instead, i.e. it would try to help show that bad contracts and H1 Visa abuse should be illegal.
Alternativly, one could make an argument that unions would be ineffective since there are many many tech companies, i.e. unions are designed to deal with companies which have "monopolies on work." Now, the solution to this problem would be a more "distributed union" where the workers just discussed the problems they were having at work. It would be possible to look up people's opinions on companies to get a realistic view before joining a company and it would be possible to get help organizing "one time strikes." Actually, maybe we are closer to having such a place then we realize.. maybe a weblog like slashdot or kuro5hin could do this job.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
It is true that technology companies expect un-sustainable levels of work, but in the vast majority of cases, these companies are fairly compensating their employees.
This is SUCH bullshit.
How do you compensate someone who is totally lost to their family because they're stuck in the office 7 days a week?
How do you compensate someone for the entire months lost due to crunch time, forced by the people who a) have the money to invest in realistic scheduling and b) aren't there with you the whole time?
I think it's interesting that your description of extortion, "either you give me this, or we [sic] wont work," is in fact a description of a market economy, which can be summarized as "either you give me a better price or I won't buy your gizmo."
You wouldn't know a market economy if it bit you in the ass. Markets work best when you have many sellers and many buyers, all operating independently. The tech industry has tens of thousands of competing companies and millions of employees, which is just the way things should be. The tech industry is damn close to an ideal free market.
Adam Smith, the idol of capitalists, would in fact have approved of unions, in my opinion
Do you know anything about Adam Smith? He would have viewed labour unions as market collusion, an evil that distorts prices and creates market inefficiencies. Your statement is about as ridiculous as claiming that Karl Marx would have favoured the AOL-Time Warner merger. Please, take an economics course.
With reasonable labour laws (such as those in Canada), there's really no need for unions in the tech industry. If you don't like your job, get another. When you leave a tech job, the company loses huge amounts of accumulated knowledge, and, whether the company knows it or not (the good ones do), it costs them big-time. This is more true in the tech industry than any other industry I can think of.
Nobody wants to pay you $75,000 for 8 hours a day with 6 weeks vacation? Maybe it's because you're not worth it. Ideal markets do a very good job of paying people what they're worth. Sometimes the truth hurts. If nobody wants to pay you $X, upgrade your skills, look around, and you'll probably get what you want.
Don't try to tell me it's hard to find a new job--it's easy if you don't suck. I'm only a co-op student, and I have no trouble. First co-op term, I had to turn down interviews because I was getting so many, and I got exactly the job I wanted. This time, I only applied to one place, and got the job without even an interview.
Yes, companies pull occasional bullshit like firing people without telling them, but that just means your labour laws need a bit of tweaking. If that happened here in Canada, you could sue their asses for wrongful dismissal.
Sure, unions increase wages in the short-run, but they ultimately harm workers by decreasing the supply of jobs or putting employers out of business or by taking huge chunks of your paycheck. It's simple economics--if you increase the price of something (higher wages), demand will fall (==less jobs). There's a few details (price elasticity of demand increases with time, etc.) that tell you that the reaction won't be immediate, but it will happen.
Historically, unions have been corrupt, anti-democratic organizations. I know this because, during the Cold War, my grandfather was an active member of the Communist Party in the US. He was ordered to infiltrate the UAW, which he successfully did. Maybe it's no longer the Communist party that has their fingers in the union pie--it could be the Mob--but they're not really about protecting workers. Corporations don't have a monopoly on evil...
I know what you're going to say "Aha! Those labour laws are there because of unions! So there!". Yes, very true. Unions did have a useful place in society. They're not needed in today's highly-educated, highly-skilled labour market, though.
Maybe you're thinking "but I deserve to be paid $XXX,000, and I should get 72 weeks of paid vacation a year". Why do you think you are somehow entitled to any of this? You're entitled to what you can negotiate in good faith with your employer, and you're entitled to have your employer honour your employment contract. Nowhere in the Consitution is flex-time, sick leave, or overtime pay guaranteed.
I'm not saying people don't have the right to organize unions--they do (and should) have that right. I'm just saying it would be stupid to do so in the tech industry.
Money is power. Employers have it, you don't. Unless you're an employer.
Maybe at McDonalds, that's true, but things are very different in the tech industry. What developers are selling (knowledge and skills) is extremely valuable, and good companies know this.
At the place I was working this summer, if the two most senior developers had walked, the company would have folded. Management could come and go, the market could change, but these developers were the company. The knowledge in their heads was irreplaceable, and management knew it.
That's power.
An intelligent employer will pay employees what they're worth and do everything possible to keep the good ones around. Unions make that harder, because now Joe Slacker has to be paid as much as Jane Ubercoder, just because he's been around as long. When you fuck with the free market, things almost always get worse.
c) accept that collective bargaining can fit very neatly within a free market. If a company can't deal with workers organizing, then it's the company's fault. Nobody forces companies to accept unions, it's sometimes just the best business decision to make.
This is clearly wrong. Companies are forced to accept unions all the times. That is what the NRLB is all about. They force elections for the union and then require that the employer accept the union as the representative of all the workers. Even workers that vote against the union are coerced into accepting union representation.
The current labor laws are incompatible with a free market.
Yes, and that would explain why bad management practices and lousy working conditions are so prevalent in the tech industry today, wouldn't it. There have been numerous stories on /. about bad treatment of tech workers, particularly in shit-kicker positions like tech support, simply because no workforce has ever united against bad management. Sure, an individual can take a stand or walk out of a job he/she doesn't like, but what are isolated individuals going to achieve in the greater scheme of things?
It's time that tech workers united, be it as a union or at workplace level, not only for our own sakes, but for the sake of the clients/customers who put up with bad products as the result of bad management.
Yes. This is something that a lot of people miss about unions; the legal protectection against abuse.
Here i Denmark, the IT-workers has a rather good union called PROSA. When you have to sign a new contract, NDA or noncompete, you just take it to the unions lawyers first, so they can look it over. Since these lawyers are experts on their field, they can give you good advice,like; "this is standard stuff, you can sign it." or "take the contract back, and make them change this line, because..." or "This is a lousy contract, but you can sign it anyway, because if they try to enforce it, we will take it to court, and win."
Especially noncompetes, can be really, really bad for your career. Why learn that the hard way?
I know, smart US IT workers take their contracts to a lawyer too. But if push comes to shove, it is really nice to have a union behind you. It seems that a lot of US citizens, often prefer to drop to take any action against really unfair work treatment, even though they have a really good winning case, simply because, the thought of a long, legal struggle, would grind people down, or that the slight chance of losing the case, would mean personal ruin. So people swallow their defeat, and humiliation.
But if the union is behind you, the picture might change; The corperation can't play the "we grind you down in a long lasting legal struggle" card, since they now deal with an organization.
The employer can't intimidate the worker, with a bunch of lawyers, telling him lies, since the union got lawyers who knows the law.
And the union cover the legal cost too.
Most cases are standard stuff, but if a case is really unjust, the union can throw all its weight behind it. Something you can't get, when it is just you and your lawyer, against a perhaps large company.
Most intelegent programmers laugh at the thought of a "tech union"... demand is so high that for most of us we could easily walk and get another job. I recently did just that, much more frendly co-workers and much higher pay. Tho I noticed that there are a great many out there in the tech world that couldn't quite make it into the "elite" status. In fact I see so many freeloaders in my workplace, it makes me sick. The last thing we need is a union to protect these people. There are so many tech jobs out there right now that if you need a union to protect you from management, it means you just arn't smart enough to be in that line of work.
Although I am clearly biased on this point, I just dont see any other need for a tech-union, perhaps someone else can enlighten me on this issue.
-nite
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
We need unions. That is why its the united states of america.
I'm sorry, but I have to comment on that piece of patriotism... it's just that there are also unions outside of the united states. And AFAIK, US didn't invent it (UK, I think), nor is it the country with the most unions.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
1) If all programmers, as a union demanded that, tehre would be less programing jobs.
2) Tech companies screw employees usually only because the employees are young (or rather, if they were a little wiser, it wouldn't have happened).
3) Of course. Companies can always screw their employees. But I want to see big companies first. If MS Employees unionize, I can understand that. But I don't want to be labelled badly as 'non-union labor' just because I don't want to play in your club.
You know.. all too often, all the pro-union stuff sounds great at first. I mean, it does. Fairness across the board, benefits, etc.
I watched a supermarket go union. The promoters came in, and over a year and a bit, took a place where everyoen *liked* the boss, adn everyone was treated fairly, pretty much all would agree... and different people had different non-official benefits.. like the lady with her crazy sister who had to go take care of her all the time.. bos cut her LOTS of slack, gladly.. she was part of his community. Boss kept some peopel in who could only work a couple hours a week, because they tried, and needed the money. Boss did LOTS of things, like giving people extra days off, rewarding good work....
Once the union came in.. sure.. everyone got a little raise... the boss no longer had say in seniority, could no longer decide who or what should be in charge of what (not to the same degree anyway)... and.. no longe rhad the freedom to be generous with certain employees. Sorry... lady, yuo can't work enough hours. No job for you anymore...
Sorry billy.. you can't spend extra hours after work stocknig shelves.. you're a service clerk.. your contract says you can't do that unless I promote you adn give you a raise.. they say if I need shelves stocked, I should bring in a higher paid shelf stocker. I know you really simply want to work a few extra hours so you can save up to go to college.. but I'm sorry. The Union says no.
And now, everyone just bitches abou ttheir 'contract' instead of liking going to work every day, knowing that the owner of the shop, who is *responsible for the fact that everyone has a job there*, is their friend and respected community member. Now he is just 'management'.
Tech union? no thanks.
Labor history is the history of new technologies coming up, corporations racing to take advantage of them, and claiming that they want to have a direct relationship with their employees.
Railroad trusts operated camps of Chinese workers who came to the United States to do the jobs that there were not nearly enough Americans in that region to do.
Why deny dot-com employees the right to organize? Management organizes its institution as it sees fit, often ignoring the technical knowledge of their employees, to the detriment of the employees and the company.
Customer service employees-tech support staff, sales staff, and even web designers and sysadmins get overworked and underpaid.
Furthermore, the fact that real wages have been declining for decades has finally borne fruit in a growing group of disgruntled, disaffected people in many industries.
I feel that this peremptory statement dot-coms make about unions, which presumes to know the attitude of employees, misses the point: Dot-coms have good reason to be afraid of their employees!
IT employees realize that their skills are crucial to the operation of these businesses. What was once a tiny, specialized field has become the marketplace for more and more people. Unlike the drivers of a fleet of trucks, if IT workers go on strike, all they have to do is make a few keystrokes to disable a system. Only a lack of coordinated effort among these employees prevents them from having this kind of bargaining power.
Goat sex free since 2001
Collective bargaining helps the workers at low and average skill level at the expense of the exceptional. Labor unions base pay on minimums and seniority. Many studies (see DeMarco and Lister) have shown that an exceptional developer can be as much as 20 times more productive than an average developer. Unless the pay scales negotiated by the union reflected that (and good luck getting the majority to go for it) exceptional developers would find themselves having a difficult time negotiating the double to triple average salaries they can find now.
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One year you can be bleeding edge, but if you sit on your butt, you'll very quickly become a useless freeloader.
Security must be the most wicked example of this. Six months out of date means you're useless until you catch up.
If tech workers were unionized, a prized worker five years ago, given a guaranteed senior position through "seniority", allowed to remain stagnant would be a bafoon. Imagine taking direction from somebody who thinks of Java as some new experimental thing, UML does not exist, and fat clients are the norm.
Pilots, teachers and the like don't have these problems. They have different problems.
As for the "idiot construction worker" comment... Most tech people I've known fully respect trade workers. Who in their right mind would call a gainfully employed individual in a job with plenty of free time an idiot?!
That combined with the "you deserve more" comment has me wondering why you're trying to manipulate your audience.
That goes absolutely both ways my friend...
Unions cross the line too.. you better believe it.
It's possible that unions serve as a vital part of the economy, in the manner of a governor, holding back periods of economic overexcitement and limiting the inevitable corrections after the excitement runs out of steam. Naturally you don't want the union holding _all_ power, that'd be like shutting off the engine entirely and there are plenty of cases of unions that ended up this powerful and totally out of balance. But throwing away the 'governor' is a good recipe for revving until you blow up your engine, and that's no better.
I'm anti-union, or at least, that's my stance. I've seen the crap they pull... but of course, I don't know everything.
Folks, Unionization in some trades is different than in others. In some trades, it can have a huge effect on the economy, in others, it doesn't.
For instance.... I would hate to be viewed as 'non-union' labour, just for offering my services. I don't want some union to turn into a monster that dictates (for the good of it's members) how and when and what those people are permitted to do for a living. I'm sorry.. that's not what it's supposed to be about.
Now.. if I look more at something like the union that, say, supermarket employees for a chain of supermarkets belong to, it makes more sense. The employees organize so they can have some muscle with the equally-organized company employing them.
If you work for a megacorp.. maybe this is what you want.
If you work for a dot-com startup with only a hundred or so employees, get real. You can organize your own revolt if you really want to.
This sounds racist to me. If other people are willing to do your job for less, and they're just as capable as you, why shouldn't they get the job? Because their skin is a different colour?
You obviously know jack shit about H1 visas. Because of the fact that the ONLY reason someone on an H1 visa is here is because of their employer, they are AT THE MERCY of the employer. Everyone here is talking about how they can just change jobs if the work conditions suck- not so with an H1B. They are with that company for the long haul, no matter how shitty the wages are or how terrible the hours are. Ever heard of those stories of people who pay their life savings to be smuggled to freedom, only to be put in to indentured servitude when they get here? Guess what, H1B's are government-sponsored indentured servitude. Who loses? Guys like you and me, who don't get jobs because some poor schmuck from india is getting paid a pittance to work 80 hours a week.
Call me racist or whatever, but I don't give a rat's ass whether someone here on an H1 visa is fluroescent green, they're being exploited by the companies they work for, at the expense of people who live here. That's not racist, that's pragmatic.
:-)
Okay, seriously now...
I think I'm probably anti-union. I understand how important they are in a market where employers literally decide whether workers starve to death, but in the 21st Century tech sector, such a thing is uncessesary. I'm an individualist, and I would hate to be denied a job because don't want to be part of a union. This happens because unions make companies sign agreements not to hire non-union employees, and if the company breaks this agreement, the union members leave and the company is "blacklisted" in the same fashion that companies blacklisted union members a hundred years ago.
And this is largely a matter of perspective, but I also think that unions encourage laziness and a lack of personal development. That may be fine for some beer-swillin', gun-totin', wife-beatin' blue-collar white-trash steelworker (not to encourage stereotypes, heh heh) in rural Kentucky, but I'm a tea-drinkin', C++/Java-codin', pasty-white East-coast boy who puts his personal interests and the interests of his employer (after all, I am part of the company too!) ahead of the interests of some amorphous coagulation of power-hungery socialists whose only common thread is their current occupation. (Yes, unions and Socialism have a long, torrid history of pleasing each other orally. Just look at how much union supported Al "I went to China and all I got was this lousy failed political model" Gore.)
I mean, come on! In an era where any technology worker can turn a great idea into millions in stock options and become a bourgeois CEO overnight, why would anyone in this industry want to encourage such Mafiaesque organizations of groupthink drones who squeeze their employers' balls so they can do poor work and get paid [relatively] big bucks? (Heh, If you need proof of what this, look at the American automobile industry. Unions are the reason American cars have such a [rightfully] poor reputation)
I'm not discouraging all groups of workers. I am an admirer, for instance, of certain German labor groups who have strict requirements in terms of knowledge and training for their members. When you hire a member of one of these guilds, you are assured a certain level of expertise and quality of work. These workers feel a sense of duty to both their guild and their employer to do good work.
I am an adherant to what I understand is a typical Japanese business philosophy, where the workers feel they are representatives of their organizations, and work hard to bring the company, and therefore themselves, honor and fortune. In contrast, union members see themselves as their employers' enemies, and work for themselves and their power-hungry union leaders. Much like typical communist systems, the leaders end up becoming militant despots, and the workers, their unknowing robot slaves who think they're benfitting.
I enjoy my job. I know that I am a part of the same group as my boss, his boss, and the CEO. I know that by doing good work I bring acclaim to the entire company, and therefore, myself. I am not my own enemy.
Unions can suck my capitalist cock!
(This as really some wonderfully craffed flamebait, don't you think?)
All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
As with virtually anything in politics, it's up to the people to make sure that unions don't become corrupt. We should be skeptical of our union leaders just as we should be skeptical of our government.
What it takes is for some of that top 10% to decided that they value power over their employement (beyond do-this-or-I'll-quit), some degree of safety in their employement, due process in their fate, and benefits beyond simply money. Heck, they might get more money too.
In an informal way, this has already kind of happened. A large portion of the highly talented programmers et. al. have shown that they don't value money over everything. They aren't executive, they aren't "professional" in the anything-to-benefit-the-company fashion. They actually have moral conviction and will act on it. So things aren't that bad. At the same time, it's not a big step to unionize from here.
What gives you the idea that they are run by "thugs"? Unions give you a chance to be able to ask for a raise and not just get fired for the sole reason that you asked for one. They allow you to have a say in what your contract will be, if a majority of the workers don't like it, it's out. What does ego have to do with this? An elected board representing the union will allow the union to stay (for the most part) without corruption. The members of the union can just vote out the people they think are ripping them off.
It would be nice to see something like this for technology.
What you are interested in this case is passage of immigration laws which would punish companies abusing H1B employees.
... Nope, that's pretty much it.
And who will lobby Congress to pass such laws?
Well, there's Unions. And
Problem is the Unions currently have no stake in the technology sector so aren't really all that interested in using their considerable clout to clear up the H1B situation. If parts of tech work (lets say operations type stuff) would start getting union representation, the H1B abuse that we've seen wouldn't last long.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The problem is that right now we're settling for less than what we should expect. There are some fabulously profitable companies out there. But all of that money was made by coders, who got a generous amount of money, but in all honesty deserve more.
This sounds suspiciously like communism and the labour theory of value. Just because somebody didn't type a line of code doesn't mean they didn't contribute. As much as I hate sales and marketing, I know that they are also essential to most companies. Companies live and die by their management--just compare a well-managed company to a poorly-managed one, and you'll realize how valuable management really is.
Maybe you don't think CEOs deserve their multi-million dollar salaries. The truth is that the good ones easily earn their paychecks and more. For instance, Apple would be dead and buried without Steve Jobs. In that light, no matter how much they're paying him, he's clearly been a net contributor to the company.
2. Tech companies haven't been above screwing employees. People get let go a couple weeks before their options come due, often for fabricated reasons. H1-B visas get rammed through Congress to drive down IT salaries. Imagine if the Big Three automakers tried to import tens of thousands of foreign workers and then pay them substandard wages!! It can only happen in IT.
This sounds racist to me. If other people are willing to do your job for less, and they're just as capable as you, why shouldn't they get the job? Because their skin is a different colour?
Marketing practices of today may become labor practices of tommorrow. If a company is willing to screw consumers with "content protection" do you really trust it not to screw its own employees?
If they screw you, you leave. With sites like F*ckedcompany.com around, it's not too hard to find out which companies suck before you apply. If it's true that marketing behaviour is indicative of employee treatment, then it should be really easy to avoid loser companies. You have nobody to blame but yourself if you don't do your research.
A lot of anti-union people scream "I'm too good for a union - unions are for idiot construction workers." But many industry that depend on highly skilled labor are highly - pilots, aviation mechanics, teachers, athletes, actors. It obviously works for other "knowledge industries".
Three of the five groups you mentioned have recently pulled or are pulling strikes about bullshit issues and making ridiculous demands. I'll focus on teachers' unions:the teachers' union in BC used parent volunteers as an issue in a recent strike. They told teachers, "Remember, parent volunteers are here to take your jobs." The union actually wanted to keep parents out of schools. This had absolutely nothing to do with helping kids, and would have destroyed many sports teams and other extracirricular activities. These unions force job advancement to be dependent on seniority instead of performance. That harms kids, and removes any incentive for teachers to do a good job. The good teachers ultimately become bitter and frustrated with the system as they watch bad teachers climb up the ranks because of their seniority. The result is the mess that the public school systems have become today.
Technology unions probably would be different than old-school unions...
Oh, sure, at first they would be. They'd be all dressed up as something new and shiny, and they'd try to make us think they'd reformed. Gradually, they would reveal themselves, taking larger and larger bites out of our paychecks so they could donate money to political candidates we didn't support. They'd misinform employees to make them hate management, so they would have a stronger hold over us (I've seen this very trick happen before). Unions are corrupt--don't kid yourself. Unlike corporations, they have nothing to gain from good employer-employee relations.
I know of *no* industry where unionization has decreased wages or really adversely affected employees.
It's a basic truth of economics that increased prices will result in decreased demand. In other words, if unions artificially jack up wages, the result will be lost jobs and an inefficient economy. It's not a coincidence that the computer industry is ununionized and has experienced so much growth.
Money is power. Employers have it, you don't. Unless you're an employer.
Power doesn't like to compromise. Of course employers don't want Unions, it compromises their authority. "You don't need a union, we have a direct dialogue that we value". Fucking whatever. Let me translate for the dense:
You don't need a union. Unions increase your negotiating power which makes wages rise and firing people more difficult. We like to pay what we feel like paying and fire who we feel like firing.
Employers who respect their employers would encourage their employees to form Unions. Employees who work for employers who share their interests have no motivation to join a Union.
If money is power and businesses are not democracies, where does the power in our society lie? Wake the fuck up!
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Engineering unions do exist, but only at large companies. These are not the kind of companies geeks generally enjoy working for anyway -- they tend to be bureaucratic and defensive.
An anecdote on unions generally: when I used to work for the industrial-defense complex, I worked at a fairly small group within a very, very large company (Hughes Aircraft, if you must know) with about 200 people, of whom the programming staff was about 40 or so. (Yes, you saw that correctly -- 80% overhead. And I think we were one of the leaner organizations!) Somehow, we had inherited a lone union guy, perhaps a Teamster, perhaps a UAW man -- I don't recall. His job, apparently, was to show up for work every day perfectly soused. He was redfaced all the time and reeked of scotch. Most of the time he spent in the warehouse in back. Nobody could say what he did, but we all made damn sure that we didn't try to move computers during the day when he might stumble out from his warren. No matter how incompetent he may have been, he could still issue a grievance against us geeks for taking his (or a co-unionist's) job by moving a Wyse terminal. Ugh.
That's because you're not looking hard enough. Airline traffic controllers. Eastern Airlines, where the unions badly miscalculated and drove a foundering airline into the ground, leaving all their members without jobs. The auto industry, where they drove down quality, pushing American car buyers into the waiting arms of the Japanese. Unions make stupid decisions all the time that result in a net loss of unionized jobs.In the end, unions are about solidarity, not intelligence. If history is any guide, and I think it absolutely is, a programmers' union would rapidly dissolve into pissing matches about who gets to write "if" statements, and who gets to write "where" clauses. Nothing would get done, and the fun (and there is a lot of it) in our field would rapidly drain out of it, to the exact extent that the business is unionized. As one of my friends who works as an animator for a major studio observed once he got his union card, the union heirarchy is dominated by people who can't draw worth a damn.
Dog is my co-pilot.
If you're part of a union and it's NOT backing you on issues as important to a tech as IP is, then YOU ARE USING IT WRONG. What, you figure the idea is to import some grizzled old Teamsters or UAW guys who will make everybody be little slaves to two bosses instead of just one? You've got some funny ideas about who is running the hypothetical tech union show. YOU ARE. Unless you're going to make it work like you describe, in which case who needs you?
Tech workers don't need a union. We need a Guild. With the breakoff of SAGE from USENIX, I'm hoping (and trying to scream enough) that SAGE will actively become what we need.
Both Unions and Guilds can provide very important benefits for their industry (not just their membership):
The big things most of us don't like about unions are things I think we can avoid by having a guild:
I want a Guild. I want someone to back me up as a professional, to help me get my job done better and more efficiently (both for myself and my employer), and help insure that I'm not being abused. What I don't want is someone telling me how I have to work, for how much, and what I can't do.
Guilds, NOT Unions.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Unions are horrible things. They only make sense for people to stupid and unimaginative to know they can walk away from a job and join a competing company or start their own company if they don't like where they are. I remember my father working years going to night school after work so that he could progress in the world. Finally after a decade or more of special school and training he got a promotion to a job that was much better and paid better. The union sued him and the company and won. He was forced to train someone (without extra pay for doing so) else at the job when they had no prior experience in that field and honestly really couldn't do the job. That person got to take the job while my father was forced to go back to being a grunt worker. The company still arranged so he ended up doing most the work for that position but he couldn't get the promotion or the raise because the union always complained whenever he tried. To top it off the union often strikes forcing him and others who just want to make a living from being able to so that some idiots can fight over if they get 7 or 8 vacation days a year. Luckily now that his kids are moved out and he doesn't have so many responsibilities he is looking for a better job but it was enough to teach me my lesson. I've quit jobs before for organizing and I'd do it again. If I don't like where I'm at I can easily find a new job.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Leaving aside your pop economics, the "Scabs will replace you" argument is only true of unskilled labor. In tech, getting up to speed on coding projects takes time and effort, and usually is accomplished best by the sort of informal training that happens when you interact with experienced coworkers. Scabs will have a hard time adjusting. Hence, employers will find it cheaper to negotiate than to fight, not to mention better PR. Go preach your management propoganda elsewhere.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I'd recomment A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. It isn't exclusively about unions, but it talks about them quite a bit, and places them in context as well. I found it quite enjoyable to read as well, and I'm not that much of a history buff.
In some cases Unions are required due to employers taking advantage of uneducated people. But in most cases the unions hinder the progress/salarie of the dedicated individual. All employees are grouped into classes/departments and perfomance is no longer considered. ie. NOT IN MY JOB DESCRIPTION. Imagine a software house where we have debuggers and programes. If a programer finds a bug he will no longer be allowed to follow it through and fix it. It will have to be transfered to the debugging department to document it and research it. Example: I have seen a hotel maid pass by a news paper in the hallway and call a houseman in order for the paper to be picked up two hours latter the houseman finally has time to pick it up. If a manager would have picked up this paper a greivance would be filled. So a 2 second job took more than two hours.
As for:
* Tech companies will lay-off people without a second thought if it helps the bottom line.
No collective agreement will prevent this. Lay-off's are a part of business, they allow a company to recover when they are unable to make ends meet. If lay-off's are not permitted then you are headed into bankruptcy.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
And of course people never get unfairly promoted in IT now do they?
Here's a link to a CNN story that I found particularly apt.
Enjoy!
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The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
He asked for a *balanced* viewpoint in a book, not that of a card carrying socialist.
Union Rep: Just give us 20% of your wages and we'll provide you with monthly brochures filled with an in depth analysis of where your money is going after we masquerade the illegal activities we will actually use your contributions for.
Dot-Com-Guy: Well according to Slashdot these contributions will not help the Linux movement to overthrow the evil Gates empire
Union Rep: You see by contributing you assist other dot com'ers who are ending up on FuckedCompany.com
dot-com-guy: How much will this affect my stock options?
Union Rep: Well we currently have Sammy the Bull Gravano who has made great strides in the Ecstasy game to invest your money in the hot new pharmaceutical sectors in Amsterdam
dot-com-guy: Is he a Slashdot moderator?
Real news you can use
360 degrees of Karma
That's what they used to say to rape victims.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
That is hsortsightness: you and many here think that their talents are very special and will remain like that for ever. There was a time when differential calculus was mastered only by Newton, or when only Chopin or Lizst could play their own music. Now any high school or first year-college guy *has* to understand calculus, and in any music school you can find a dozen people that can play the piano as well as it could be expected in Chopin's time.
;-)
Lets say that the IT wrokers are better off *now* without unions, but that will not last forever because those skills we thing are so precious now will be common currency sooner than we expect.
God bless M$ that keeps moving the posts without reason. I loathe Linux that makes the skills I acuired 5 years ago be equaly relevant today
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Those conditions all sounds perfectly normal. But then i'm (currently) a Union worker in the UK.
I don't know what sort of weird idea the US Unions seem to have, but they sound like a bunch of idiots with no idea where they are going, or what they're supposed to be doing. If the Unions in the US really are as bad as people are making out, then I a can understand the hostility the Americans show towards them.
In the UK, if you want to join a Union, you can. If you don't want to join, thats fine too. No one will force you, or bully you, or think any less of you. If the Union workers go out on strike, non Union workers are (usually) able to cross any picket lines without hassle. I know for a fact that during the industrial action that was taken by my Union last year (One day strikes), that non Unions members, and even essential Union members, were able to cross the picket lines and go to work. Hell, they even came out and had a chat on their break times with the Union reps. I guess we know how to be civilised about it.
Unions are there to support you in your job. They are there to handle pay negotiations, secure fair deals for workers, and to handle grevencies for employees who are unable to talk to managment for whatever reason (Bullying or uninterested managers for example). They are not there to think for you, or to tell you what to do.
I pity all these people in the US who don't know what a proper Union is all about. They really do make life a lot easier, and the monthly sub for (my Union) is less than i'd spend on beer on a single night out. Good value for money, i'd say.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Sort of off topic, but this is a bogus statistic. Especially in OO languages, lines of code mean nothing in terms of productivity. Some of my most productive days at have been spent refactoring a bunch of nasty code into more clear and maintainable pieces, often in the process reducing the number of lines substantially. If two programs do the same thing, but one has 30000 lines of code and the other 10000, which do you think will have fewer bugs?
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Really. What happens if the new place is just as crappy as the old place? Change jobs every three months and see how willing another employer will be to take you on. What happens if you have a family? Do you move them around all the time? Not everyone is 24 and unmarried in the tech industry. I've worked at just as many bad companies as good ones and it is difficult to tell whether the management is any good, not to mention the fact that it could change for the worse in 9 months time. Unions are a way for workers to have a say in how a corporation is run. Why shouldn't tech workers have that right? It certainly would have curbed the excessive behaviour of some of the companies I've worked for.
Let me guess, you're the same type of person that judges the US's poverty level at anyone getting (approx) $17,000 usd/year. If you think you can comfortably support a family on that kind of income in the US, you've got to be insane. This is what the unions fight against, they let people come together to make their lives better. Read your history a bit, understand what it was like in the industrial era without unions. Workman's Compensation was a joke, if you got sick, you could loose your, job and in some cases, your home, due to the fact that a lot of factory workers' homes were owned by the company's they worked for.
It's not FUD, it's true. I was in a very similar situation when I worked as a bagboy at a grocery store. I made barely above minimum wage, and was forced to pay union dues. It was ridiculous and annoying. If the union had struck, I would've crossed the picket line in an instant, and I suspect most people working there would've too.
Also, $42/mo is astronomical, IMHO. And I care a lot more about a healthy relationship with management than pay or vacation time anyway.
I actually kind of favor a tech union because I think management tends to treat their employees very badly (in terms of forced overtime without pay (for salaried) and job stress) and don't listen to them. I don't know if a union could change this, but I don't know of anything that would have a better chance. But if it ever became like any of the major labor unions I'd want to see it wither away and die.
The worst unions protect mediocre or poor workers, are corrupt, and force you to be a member. They really do. I've heard too many detailed first-hand stories of actual incidents from too many different unconnected people for it to be a made up hoax.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Hear Here!
I'm very suspicious of unions. About as suspicious as I am of large corporations. But, they have their uses. I'm all for mandatory open shops. If workers at a company don't see the need to join a union, maybe it doesn't need one. If the company changes its tune, people will learn, and join the union.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
All the talk seems to be about either a union or non at all. We're smarter than the average button pusher/machine watcher over at the steel mill. Why can't we find a better solution to our problems using the technology we love so much?
The biggest problems I've heard expressed here as a reason why tech needs unions are:
1) unrealistic hours
2) pay that is not as high as it should be
The main reason not to unionize is that a tech worker can walk next door to get a job at any time. This argument is quickly countered with the idea that individuals don't make enough of a difference to force a change.
The problem boils down to that the individuals do not work in concert to sway management. Unions fix this, but impose their own overbearing 'management' in the process. I pose this question: Would tech workers work in concert if the had the same expectations of their workplace?
For instance, many here report being 'expected' to work 12/7 for weeks on end. I find this appalling, as do many others, but yet this poor slob is told, "that's tech work." But what if there is a way for the poor slob to show his manager that 12/7 is not normal in any way, and that professional workers do not find those requirements 'professional' in any way?
There has been some moves to form a programmer's guild. If one of these guilds posted sample contracts that listed what are reasonable pay and expectations for workers, would it produce change? Specifically, could the poor slob show that to his manager, say," Hell, no!" to his manager when asked to work ridiculous hours, and resonably expect that no other poor slob would step in to take his position after being fired? Could the existance of such a standard of conduct and expectations reasonably be expected to convince the manager that he won't be able to find anyone to fill a position with unreasonable requirements?
My take on the situation is that tech workers are being taken advantage of because they are young, inexperienced and just don't know any better. I think the situation could easily be rectified if we informally banded together to agree on broad expectations of pay and working conditions. Then the college grad could look at the "What to expect from work" website before the job hunt, and not settle for third world sweatshop working conditions.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Please read this before flaming ;)
I have seen several friends on H1 Visas abused in the workplace. I would happily join a union that would address this - and other issues.
Now, the above two lines were only an example.
The Real Meat of the matter:
* Tech companies expect un-sustainable levels of work from their employees.
* Tech companies will lay-off people without a second thought if it helps the bottom line.
* Tech companies will require unfair, new contracts to be signed by all employees, without any form of negotiation at all! (This is taken from real life experience - where a consulting firm completely revamped all employees stock option contract, without protection for wrongful termination / layoffs, and gave us no option but to sign or resign!)
For too long, people have been of the opinion that: Techies are overpaid, and thus should be mistreated.
I believe that Technical people are highly paid, for doing very challenging work, that most of the people (even educated well...) would not be able to or want to do.
Here's my support for Tech Unions and organizing. What does the industry have to fear, if everything is really A-OK already?
Might we actually get more than a week of severance when the filthy-rich board of our dot-com decides to lay-off half of the company?
Might people working here, away from their families abroad, actually be able to take reasonable time-off to visit their relatives, and return to work?
Please be reasonable folks... add the influence of the slashdot readers to the Unions organizing. Listen to their goals if you personally meet those organizing, and if you agree with them, support them.
If this is the case then the union won't last very long. This is because the company that employs it's members will probably wither and die.
My experience with unions has been from the point of view of a relatively new industry (electronics)and an incompetent and hostile management. This is where unions excell IMO.
However for people of a programmers or similar ilk I think that a guild or society (eg Lawyer)
would probably be more applicable. This would
probably fix the mediocrity tendencies of unions
(which are sometimes needed in non-skilled shops!)
but provide a protection mechanism for members by ensuring that only the Guild( or Society) supporting companies will get the best people.
Well it works for lawyers and engineers.
The anti-union sentiment on slashdot always manages to surprise me. Here's a couple of ideas for all you laissez-faire ideologues. Why don't you:
a) read a history book on the labor movement, rather than accept what's force-fed you by corporate media outlets and stand-up comics.
b) think a while about what's going to happen when the next big recession hits. Just because your skills are in demand now doesn't mean they always will be; or do you think PHP scripting and network programming are skills so integral to western civilization that you'll always have a job?
c) accept that collective bargaining can fit very neatly within a free market. If a company can't deal with workers organizing, then it's the company's fault. Nobody forces companies to accept unions, it's sometimes just the best business decision to make.
--
- When asked to give estimates for something you hadn't had time to check, say you MUST have time to analyse it.
- Check the task and try to divide it into component parts.
- For each part that you feel you had enough experience doing it before, come up with a duration value and add 10% for problems (they always happen). If that part depends on something else (ex: having certain data from the costumer) the state it very clearly (and put it down on a note, you might need it if the other part doesn't deliver on time)
- For each part that you do not feel you had enough experience doing it before, say so and refuse to give estimates. Never forget the argument that it's the manager's responsibility to come up with project times not yours (they get the money, they get the laurels so they should also get the blame).
- If pressed from management with irrealistic estimates say they ABSOLUTLY WILL NOT BE ACHIEVED. Don't forget to tell your manager that you will reafirm the IMPOSSIBILITY OF DELIVERING ON TIME AND THAT YOU SAID SO TO YOUR MANAGER to anyone that asks you (or not), including the costumer and your manager's manager
- If the management still decides to go ahead with impossible schedules no matter what then flattly refuse to work extra ours. If you usually work 10 hours/day immediatly reduce it to 8 hours/day so that they get the message. You might also consider VISIBLY looking for a new job (at the start of a new project that will make them go crazy).
- Beware of working extra hour for any shitty-shit problems - if you are SEEN as willing to got the extra mile for small things you will be COUNTED UPPPON to always go that extra mile to finish irrealisticly scheduled projects on time. It WILL NOT STOP - for every project you manage to pull out against incredible odds you will be "rewarded" with at least one other project like that
- Never forget that THEY need YOU more than YOU need THEM. When you leave the company might not go bankrupt but the project you just left might very well go belly-up (or have an incredible delay), and that will surely have a negative impact on the preson(s) responsible by that project
The beter you are at what you do the beter it works!!!"Unions do nothing but promote mediocrity. They dont reward for being a better worker and they DO reward for being "just good enough" (Which in a union shop, is usually pretty bad)."
You have a great point about this. Unions also are allowed to dip into your paycheck practically at will and they use this money soley to promote ONE political party that over 40% of union members do not support.
Which is a stupid way to buy influence, the reason why the corpers contribute to BOTH parties is so that they have influence no matter WHO wins...
Also, unions have had a lot to do with the de-industrialization of the USA. Back in the 70's and early 80's, virtually EVERY factory where I'm from (Ashland, Ky) ended up shutting down, mostly after the unions comitted job suicide by strike after strike during bad economic times.
Now don't get me wrong, unions DO have their place, and at one time, in the early 20th Century did a LOT of good in getting reforms in workplace safety, the 40 hour work week, etc. But I think they have long outlived their usefulness in the places where they are still prevalent (heavy industry and government). Workers apparently realize this as well, as union workers are now a small minority of the total workforce.
Will unions come to the tech professions? Sadly, YES. Why? Because of operators like the place I used to work for. The management treated the tech department like dogs, paid us nothing (and refused to give me a raise at mu annual review despite the review being near perfect). They took full advantage of West Virginia's "Chineese overtime" system (as it is called) and paid us far less than our hourly rate for overtime that at times we were FORCED to work.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the tech staff turned over 100% from the time I was hired until the time I left.
So yes, I DO think unions will come to technicians, and other service workers. But it will be the beginning of the end of the tech industry as we know it.
I just hope we are a lot smarter about it and keep control with ourselves, and not create a political self-serving bureaucratic machine like the AFL-CIO or the Teamsters (who had a president, Ron Carey who stole an election, called the UPS strike solely to try to save his own ass, and ended up settling for pay increases that would take the average UPS worker 5 YEARS to recoup the pay they missed during the strike.).
We as a profession do NOT want to go down that road.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
How is it good for the economy? Because it's good for workers. The economy is not purely measured in the size of the GNP, the Dow and the NASDAQ. It's also measured in quality of life.
I think it's interesting that your description of extortion, "either you give me this, or we [sic] wont work," is in fact a description of a market economy, which can be summarized as "either you give me a better price or I won't buy your gizmo." Unions are not extortionist. What's extortionist is when an employer says, "We're employing you for $2 a day with no health benefits and no recourse if you get injured. You'd better keep working here because if you don't, we'll fire you and be deprived even that $2. And if you try to unionize, we'll fire you, also."
Adam Smith, the idol of capitalists, would in fact have approved of unions, in my opinion. He believed in unfettered bargaining for goods and services, in a free marketplace. It's disingenuous at best to assert that a nonunionized job is equivalent to a marketplace. The employer has control over everything, and the worker only has control over whether he works there or not. If he decides to go somewhere else, he is unlikely to find anything better if employers are left to their own devices. Only with collective bargaining can labor be put on an equal footing with management. I could cite lots of cases of employee exploitation, but I'm sure you're aware of them, too.
The tech world is no different from other industries. Simply because there arent's any knives or swinging cattle carcasses doesn't mean that there aren't hazards, or that employers don't exploit their (often easily-replaced) employees.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Unions normally exist in a market with one employer or a few employers acting as one. The goal of a union is to stop monopsony power.
The reason for this? The "menial" tasks that the anti-union people talk about in the auto-industry are actually considered skilled labor. They have valuable skills. However, if the "Big Three" decided that they would only pay $12/hr, these people would have nowhere to sell their skills, because there is only one employer. A union (monopoly of labor) and employer (monopsony of labor) negotiate, and you can something similar to a competitive market, but less efficient. However, it is more efficient than union/competitive industry or monopsony/exploited people.
If you have a competetive marketplace like in tech, (there are 10s of thousands of employers, and even in areas with sparse tech, there are probably 15-25) with lots of potential employees.
Unions will fail in tech, because "scabs" will laugh and cross pickup lines, and we're as a rule not imposing enough to scare them. Unlike the teamsters, I can't see tech unions working with the mob to kill scabs, but that's just me.
Alex
You can also see a model in some more activist unions of the union opposing things that aren't directly related to employment, but represent the beliefs of their employees. The National Education Association is probably the most notable such union -- much of their lobbying in education isn't related one way or the other to employment, but simply reflects what teachers believe are the best ways for schools to operate -- as opposed to what pundits, principles, school boards, and sound-bit-searching politicians think is best.
As someone who will be entering the teaching profession in the near future, I can speak with some authority on this. The NEA is NOT a labor union. Consult their website, read their literature. In none of those materials will you find the NEA refer to itself as a union, or be affilicated with other unions.
The AFT, American Federation of Teachers, is a union however. They are affilicated with the AFL-CIO, advocate strikes if conditions deteroriate to the point where they become necessary. The NEA does not advocate strikes on any level.
Yes, the NEA lobbies all levels of government on a variety of issues not overtly releated to teaching, but in the view of the NEA, all issues relate to teaching. The NEA has an official position on gun control (less guns in schools=good) and nuclear weapons (they kill people) for example.
The only national teachers' union, AFT, does not lobby for any issue not overtly releated to teaching. They have an official position on national testing, but leave gun control to others.
The NEA is a teacher ONLY organization. If you are not a teacher, you cannot join. The AFT, on the other hand, says that any school employee from the counselors to the bus drivers can join. The philosophy being that everyone who works for a school has a vested interest in it being the best possible. However, management of the school (administrators and principals) are not allowed to join. The NEA leaves that decision up to the local level. If local branches of the NEA wish to permit administrators to join, then that's kosher. Most local chapters will allow administrators to join, so long as they were members of NEA as teachers, before moving into the management position.
Calling the NEA a union is simply incorrect, despite them having a number of features which most unions have.
No sig is worth reading.
Folks, higher skilled workers earn more than lower skilled workers in this industry. Even when the lower skilled workers have more seniority. The reason is that we don't have collective barganing and each worker is free to negotiate their own wage.
Moreover, we don't have a couple of hundred dollars a month sucked out of our paychecks to fund the organizer's pockets.
The net result of all this is that those of us who are in the top percentiles skills wise get to make a shitload more money than if we where in a "union" shop.
In the world of unions, every worker gets the same wage, regardless of differences in talent. They get the same raises based on years of experience. They have no power to bargain on their own behalf - no matter how much better they might be than their coworkers.
And folks, there's a hell of a lot of difference between a top-end coder or data analyst and a mediocre one.
Unionization will be a loose-loose proposition. Top talent will loose wages if they stay in union shops and union shops will loose top talent since they won't pay them what they deserve.
Bad idea, folks. Really.
Of course. I've built several of them. There's most of a 1974 Plymouth Valiant in thousands of individual Zip-Lock baggies in my living room at the moment. The clerk at Wal-Mart asked me if I was dealing drugs because I buy so many baggies.
Building a car isn't easy, and anyone with sufficient knowledge of all the parts of a car that they can relatively successfully assemble one, will be paid more than minimum wage as a simple law of supply and demand.
As for machining brake pistons, as an example, it's very easy. With ten minutes of training, anyone could do it. It makes mopping floors look like ir would need a PhD. I would suggest that $35/hr for such a job is rather excessive.
I should ask, what does it take to have a good life in Toronto? What is the cost of living? How many hours would it take to earn at mininum wage to pay for an house? Apartment? Food? Bills?A lot. But you obviously don't know anything about supply and demand.
Let's say that affordable housing for minimum wage brainiacs is a two hour commute away.
If Taco Bell can't get people to mop the floors in downtown Toronto because all their minimum wage employee base is, by virtue of real estate costs, too far away from work, then Taco Bell is going to have to pay more money. Either to entice people who can live in the more expensive parts of the city to work there, or to offset the high costs of the commute.
I think unions have a way to go to improve their image and their fuctions in a high-tech world, but they fought the good fight back in the 1800s for everyone to which I'm grateful.Great! Yeah, the 1800s were a time with no labor laws. The industrial revolution was in its infancy, and as society shifted from an agrigarian existance to an industrial workforce, yeah, unions had their place.
But today? Nah. If you don't like your job, get another one. Can't find a better job? Read a book, then try again.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I disagree. The reason your car doesn't explode is because it's engineered that way. I am honstly awestruck when my auto mechanic friend pulls parts out of a vehicle to repair and they are in such a state of disrepair that you have to shake your head... I mean if your CV joints go, they usually cripple the vehicle instead of locking up and causing an accident. If your tie rods go... well then you're fucked but usually these things are built such that when a piece dies, it dies gracefully. I would hate to think what vehicles designed by web programmers would do.
For sure! It's all about quality of design. Quality of construction is important, but the design should have sufficient tolerance for errors in the construction that nothing really bad happens.
As an example of construction errors, a long held legend among Toyota dealership mechanics is that approximately 40,000 Camrys left the plants in 1987, missing a right front speaker.
A speaker is a little harder to miss than a tiny little C-clip that retains the active ingredients in your brake master cylinder! And Toyota has, unquestionably, some of the best assembly quality in the industry. (Note that they're not unionized, either, and yet Toyota employees are better paid than many union factories.)
Actually, the fun thing about Toyota is that they pay their staff a small minimum. And then the assembly line workers get generous bonuses based on the quality of their work. The net effect is that everyone is paid what they're worth, because your pay is inversely proportional to your defect rate.
Sadly, UAW is very much against this sort of practise. I think that's telling.
If a job requires a level of skill then pay for it. Don't pay the twitt stamping out metal pieces $28/hr to watch a machine work and take the product and put it on a shelf for post-processing. That is promoting mediocrity.For sure! And remember, most of the people in these manufacturing jobs *are* mediocre. They're there because they were too lazy or unmotivated to go to school, or to learn about something like computers on their own. And therefore, when you give them a union, they become mediocre with an attitude.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
If you were, you would be more likely to know that most unions are run by the mob.
(Posting anonymously because I don't want to be buried under Giants Stadium)
No, they don't do that anymore. Too messy.
Now, they take you to a Jersey wrecking yard, toss you into the trunk of a toasted Caprice Classic, and then you get to ride through a Newell shredder.Ouch.
That's the leading Hoffa disappearance theory, too, BTW. If you've never seen a car shredder, lemme tell you, there'd be nothing left. These things can shred forged nodular iron crankshafts.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
How about the automotive CEO's that make 60-70+ million a year? Now that is wage inflation, at least the guy making pistons is producing something.
I think $60-$70 million is a little more than what the CEOs get paid.
Now, as for what the CEO does. He organizes the company, provides a vision and an outlook, and helps to ensure that the shareholders get a good return on their investment.
The guy who machines brake pistons does something that can be taught with ten minutes training.
If you lose your CEO, you'll have to use $$ to lure one away from another company.
If you lose your brake piston machinist, you can train any McDonalds counter-schlep to do it in under ten minutes.
I fail to understand how you can equate the CEO with such unskilled labor and suggest that any wage parity is warranted. That's sheer idiocy.
The automobile has its purpose, commuting isn't it.When the alternative is riding on public transit with unionized hotel chambermaids and other smelly dregs of society, yeah, the car's purpose very much is commuting. And if my government won't allow me to drive to work, then my quality of life is impaired. I will then take my talents and skills and move somewhere that allows me some standard of living for my hard work.
Canada is a capitalist economy, I do know that for sure.To the same extent that France is capitalist. Sure. Any further to the left, and the national passtime of hockey will be replaced by shredding copies of Pravda for toilet paper.
I'm not sure how much your capitalists rely on the government though.Northern Telecom gets over $100 million in government subsidies every year. Canada has a population of approximately 1/10th of the US tax base from which to draw those subsidies.
You probably have a more represntive government, which allows such things as nationalized medical care.I'd rather have the option of paying money and geting health care where I don't have to sit three hours in a waiting room with a chatty homeless heroin addict as I wait for a strepped throat prescription.
Here in the US...Wanna do something illegal?
Here's a suggestion. You seem disenfranchised with the US. I'm disenfranchised with Canada. You want something more left, I want something more right. I'm 6'4", 185 lbs, brown hair and eyes, 26 years old, no criminal record. If you've got similar stats, we can pull an ID swap. How's that?
You'd be able to vote for the Socialist Workers Party next Canadian election, and I'd be able to vote Libertarian next American election.
The scary part is, I'm only halfway kidding.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Labour law falls under provincial jurisdiction. The difficulties in organising vary greatly from province to province.
True.
And while there are many things I don't like about Mike Harris, his stance on unions is one of the reasons I helped to re-elect him.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I'm not quite sure what the linkage is, but does anyone smell a rat where pro-H1Bs and anti-union sentiment can be found in the same place?
But it doesn't stop there. Some creative jobs are organized. Hollywood is very unionized; actors belong to the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) or the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), musicians belong to the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) directors belong to the Director's Guild of America (DGA), drivers belong to the Teamsters, and most of the support people belong to the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Workers (IATSE). Lucasfilm's animators and CGI techs in Northern California belong to IATSE, which is trying to organize online entertainment shops. If you're doing web design or involved in running a web site, it might be worth talking to an IATSE organizer. They send people to ACM SIGGRAPH meetings in SF, so they're not hard to find.
A union shop is a great advantage in an industry with heavy time pressures. It gives the employees an effective way to push back. Anybody in those unions who works a 12-hour day gets paid major overtime. Get called in for a weekend emergency, and big bonuses apply. This discourages employeers from understaffing and overworking their employees. If a job needs to be done 24/7, it takes four full-time employees.
Organizing in the US is very tough. Over 90% of employees who try to organize a union are fired, even though this is illegal. Canada, for example, has stronger labor laws, and it's much easier to organize there. This is the main reason for declining union membership in the US.
Despite the obstacles, temps at Microsoft have successfully organized a union, and won a lawsuit against Microsoft.
... such as collective pricing on insurance, registry of good/bad employers (our own black/white lists), legal counsel, etc. without a traditional labor union?
;)
There are features there that I'm interested in, particularly since it would help reduce the risk in going independent.
Someone mentioned the idea of a 'guild', which is really very interesting, and probably the best fit. SAGE is AFAICS a mostly skills/interest group, what I'd be interested in is something like that but with the addition of services at group prices. I can get 25% off ORA books with a Usenix/SAGE membership, howsabout 25% off Sun or Cisco hardware?
Your Working Boy,
Although the easy answer here is to be multi-skilled. e.g. I can do Java, Delphi, architecture design, OO design, test design, technical writing, IT strategy design - and implementation, business analysis, requirements gathering, and a few other software engineering tasks.
I can also run a business team of 10 people - but if you tell my boss this I will slap you, I'm trying to keep it quiet so that I don't have to. But I do get involved with business process design, with reviewing business practices and with creating corporate strategy.
I'm not saying I'm any good at any of these things. But my company thinks that I have enough skill in each of them that it employed me (and has since promoted me) ahead of people with more specialised skillsets.
(Just to confirm, I do have extremely well developed skills in some of the above areas. And I really suck at some of them. I wont say which
~Cederic
Yes, companies pull occasional bullshit like firing people without telling them, but that just means your labour laws need a bit of tweaking. If that happened here in Canada, you could sue their asses for wrongful dismissal.
In the UK, we have to pay for our lawyers, so unless you've got a lot of money, your only hope would be to get union support. I'm tired of hearing that unions are evil. With secret ballots being mandatory, what's to stop the members voting out a corrupt leader? Why shouldn't employees want to protect themselves from poor management?
This argument is all because the media lies are believed about union excesses and the excesses of corporations are smoothed over. Could this be because the owners of the media don't like unions rather than unions being bad?
There is a startling difference between the traditional laborer and the tech industry: The very best tech workers can be up to 100 times more productive than the average. There is no way in hell that a manual laborer could be even 2 times more productive than average, they are slowed down by physics and the other workers around them. Not true of tech workers, someone else's slowness is independent of your own speed.
Good programmers know that they can crank out thousands of lines of code in a day if the requirements are well defined. The industry average for lines of code per year dropped to 6500 from 9000 per programmer. Is this because the requirements aren't there? Probably in large measure, but in any case, the average productivity stinks. You elite programmers out there: doesn't the average year of output sound like a slow month?
I'm using this to conclude that we do not need a union for the tech industries. There is no need to try to protect the other half of the bell curve. They can get a job that they can handle, and stop trying to pretend that they are techies. If they want unions so bad, let them go make cars.
- Convinced that anything slightly anti-business is "communism", and that "communism", regardless of what it's describing today, is "evil"
- Americans, and therefore subscribers to the notion that Unions are just a way of channelling money to the Mafia
- Convinced that all programmers are single, young, and in a job market where they can pick up any type of job they wish, and therefore able to choose the Linux based open source employer of their dreams with no dreaded clueless salespeople to screw up the objectives and with benefits that'd make those poor sods in "socialist" countries like, er, every single country other than the US, weep.
Is there any way that this topic could end up being anything other than a flamefest?It's just one of those topics I'm surprised you'd want the Slashdot crowd to contribute to. Next stop: "Should Government Trustbusters Nationalise Microsoft?"?
--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The point of the union is to help people get a good, stable income and benefits so you can raise a family, or whatever, with peice of mind.
.COM, a union is definitely a viable option here. Working together is a good thing.
People don't realize that a union is a safety net, so that the worse case scenario doesn't happen.
The UAW (United Auto Workers) has directly affected the quality of my life while growing up. There were a lot of tough times in the 80's and the UAW helped my family through it. There were stikes and shutdowns, etc. It all worked out in the end, and my family and the company are both doing well.
In fact, I would be willing to say that if the UAW did not exist, I would not be where I am today, with a good tech job and having the free time and interest to write this post on Slashdot.
Just because you have not benefitted from a union does not mean that MILLIONS of other middle-class people have not. Many people's quality of life would not be as high, plain and simple.br>
Also, considering the fact that I would not feel very comfortable raising a family while working for a
Look at the automotive industry. It's full of people who do menial tasks like machining brake pistons. And yet, their unions are so strong that they get paid $35/hr+ - for minimum wage work!
I don't know. Can you build a car?
I should ask, what does it take to have a good life in Toronto? What is the cost of living? How many hours would it take to earn at mininum wage to pay for an house? Apartment? Food? Bills?
I think unions have a way to go to improve their image and their fuctions in a high-tech world, but they fought the good fight back in the 1800s for everyone to which I'm grateful.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
I am not amazed by the incredible range of emotions this topic has spurred. I am totally saddened and angered at the elitism, racism, generalities, banalities and for the most part a reliance on anecedotal evidence for the arguments. Where is this alleged intelligent IT professional?
I would venture to guess that a large part of this audience is young and too specialized to see a large world of which they are a part, and how much of the opportunity and easy pickings they have are because people died at the hands of company/government supported efforts to keep workers as thralls and chattel. And you have the gall to think that it does not continue to happen and will not continue to happen?
A sense of community should go way beyond the buds you play Evercrack with and include all the 'sheeple' out there who have bought into the silicone snake oil scheme. That demand for product, whipped up by the media and marketing is the only reason you have the job opps that are there now.
Booms don't last forever. Talk to the folks who make the physical existence around you possible. Think about how recent the reliance on computing is. Think about how only half of the U.S population owns a computer, or uses one in the workplace (and sales suck). Think about how hard the push is among Big Corp America and the lackey government that paves its' way to turn every kid into a tech wizard. Soon you will be the old farts trying to get a job maintaining some 6GL code you've never seen.
As more of us who are currently old farts start to realize that all we have learned in those worker dog jobs translate into tech skills, and small corps realize that two stable adults that need a little training are worth more than one unstable whiz kid, you may just wish you had some protection.
I just had to add some flame bait didn't I?
'Looking back to a better day, feeling old and in the way.' -David Grisma
You obviously haven't seen the quality of service from your local (unionized) DMV lately, have you?
Or attended a trade show and waited four hours for people who walk at a snail's pace and take routes around booth spaces reminiscent of a Family Circus cartoon in order to get your packing materials back for your booth.
Unions exist to protect union members, not customers.
Unions bad/good? It all depends.. they can be both.
What bothers me, these days, is how often a perfectly happy workplace is interrupted by 'outsider' union organizers who come in to try to convince the staff that they should unionize, under their guidance, because it will benefit them.
We aren't talking about several employees getting together and saying 'we need solidarity, so we can change things, because we don't like what's going on here', we're talking about outsiders coming in and brainwashing (or propagandizing) the staff into thinking that it's GOOD for them to unionize.
THAT is my problem with it...
If I ever own a shop, and people try to unionize, I *WILL* shut it down.
(just a reference, I work for one of the computer biggies down in Austin)
:-)
I am well compensated for the work I do.
I am quite happy with my environment.
I know that if I am not happy with my conditions, whether it's pay or environment or management, I can go elsewhere and do just as well if not better.
I find the idea of having to pay a part of my salary to somebody to represent me, in a word repugnant. I can go in and talk to management anytime I want to and they will listen to me.
I find it scary that if I were in a union and they decided go on strike/work stoppage, even if I didn't agree with the rest of the union, it would affect me directly. This is the flip-side of the coin, if their interests did not represent mine, my voice would be silenced.
Unions cannot stop me from getting laid off, so what's the point of wasting money on dues?
Maybe it's the Texan in me, but I just don't cotton to other people "representing" me. I like to do my own negotiations
Folks
Unions don't help in the long term. They are for profit organizaitons that use harsh tactics to intimidate both employers and union members. I've seen this done for over 10 years. In other trades that my family members belong to.
As a developer, I strongly feel we need representation that will not cost us a dime! We need a guild that will represent our needs. A non profit organization that will be our voice.
Unions don't work. Only the tatics employeed by unions work. Unions encourage their memebers to perform illegal acts against a company when certain working/contractual conditions are not met. This is not good for our economy nor is it good for the future. Large IT companies will go offshore and hire unskilled laborers, programmers etc.. to do the work that can be done here in the states.
Don't be against some kind of organization, make sure you think about a guild, that doesn't profit from our hard work. We need some kind of a foundation. Something like the Free Developers Guild (FDG), Free Network Engineer's Guild (FNEG)
etc...
The Guild's can force companies to make working conditions better etc.. by notifying the media, political representatives etc..
The Guild's will never engage in illegal activities, like sabotage(sp), violence against employers and employees.
This what we need to work for.
Peace
James T. Romano
Don't look for a needle in a haystack. Look for a needle with other needles
As you'll find in the SEC filings of almost any public company, the primary goal of a public corporation is to improve the value of the company's stock for the shareholders.
My primary goal is to give myself and my family a good life.
These goals aren't always compatible. My job (sysadmining) requires that I work long (10-15 hour) days in uncomfortable working conditions. Pay isn't an issue. A senior UNIX sysadmin doesn't want for money.
As far as the hours are concerned, the only thing that can change the situation is if there are more qualified sysadmins in the market, or of my company stops growing.
As far as the uncomfortable working conditions are concerned (sitting on my butt in an over-crowded cubicle since we have no storage space), the only thing that could make my life better are improved ergonomics. Since my company isn't required by OHSA to do anything about the ergonomics of my workspace until after I'm already in pain, they're not going to do anything.
Right now, the only weapon is leaving or the threat of leaving. What kind of weapon is that? For the first three months at my next job I have to pay COBRA rates for heath insurance, I have to completely adapt a new environment to my suitings, and at the end of it all, I'm just working for another company for 10-15 hours a day, in cramped and uncomfortable work spaces, in a sea of cubicles so noisy that I can barely concentrate on my work.
I want better working conditions. I want better hours.
You were either smart enough to acquire new skills for which the job market is tight while your old skills were current, or you lose your job.
Or you pay a bunch of thugs a few percent of your paycheck every month to preserve your job, even though you're obsolete, and your job can be more efficiently performed by someone (or something!) else.
I prefer to live in the former reality, not the latter. Therefore, I will oppoze unionization in my industry and my company, and I will not work in a union shop.
My company is run by managers smart enough to realize that the way to succeed is to make the employees sufficiently happy that they'll never want to unionize.
If your company's so bad that you want to unionize, it's a symptom of a problem with management. A union is a brute-force solution - beat the crap out of management until they grudgingly give you a few pennies back; with luck, it'll be more than the union thugs take. The better solution is to enclue management until they take the right steps to fix the underlying problem of employee dissatisfaction.
Any manager who refuses such encluement can easily be dealt with by leaving such a company.
Isn't it ironic - the Marxist fantasy of how the "workers shall own the means of production" is the reality in the tech world, by definition.
If you're a leftist tech worker, re-read your Marx. You don't need the class warfare, (of which a Union is part) because you're already living in utopia.
If you're a rightist tech worker, just laugh ;-)
Manager Says Union Not Needed
This just in. In an important new development in labor relations, managers at leading firms have determined that unions are not needed. Despite widespead speculation by management that this was the case, positive proof was lacking until recently. An executive at a leading technology firm, Cobalt, was quoated as saying:
"Because clarity on issues like this is important, we have updated the Employee Handbook expressly stating Cobalt's position that a union is not needed here,"
When asked about safety regulations, taxes, reports to stockholders, and equal rights; management had no specific comment other than that they were "cautiously optimistic".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
In my juristiction (and pretty much everywhere, AFAIK) there's absolutely nothing an employer can do about a union. They either accept the contract, or they don't do business.
And since the union pretty much decides who gets hired/fired, you'd better not talk to loudly about disolving it.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Anyone interested in unionization or revolt against their capitalist masters should read George Orwell's "Animal Farm".
Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.
What the union organizers won't tell you is that you're only trading your chains for their chains.
Unions cause poor quality and regimented, unhappy workforces by promoting conflicts between managers and employees, and by pushing for stupid work rules that cause overstaffing. As a consumer, I want nothing to do with unions but am forced to deal with them (airlines, telcos, public sector). As an employee, I don't want any part of such activity. If my company treats me badly, I'll quit and go somewhere else - I'm confident in my skills.
sulli
RTFJ.
So most of you are coming off the greatest economic boom seen since the invention of cross border sea trade in the Mediterranean with the Minoans. And so most of think that either bad things can never happen to you or bad things can't happen.
tsk tsk tsk you poor innocent children. Let me educate you.
You work a bunch of hours now and say it's ok because you feel you're being compensated for it. Look out into the future. You're now older, have more responsibilities are expected to work the same or more hours and since the Great Downturn of 01 you haven't had a raise or much of one for 6 years, your job is less stable than ever and your CEO just cashed out to the tune of $100 million dollars because he/she train-wrecked the company the likes of which we haven't seen since Mike Armstrong managed to take ATT the most powerful monopoly in the country and screw it into the ground.
There's a new crop of freshly scrubbed help desk meat coming the door and they are grateful for the opportunity to get shit and shot for a few months at maybe 60% of what a geezer like you makes. But still you're confident. After all you're the greatest fucking programmer since the invention of hex and as long as the company keeps making the doorways big enough to fit your ego through you're good to go! But what's that sound - OH YEAH the phone's ringing and your manager wants you to sit down with a consulting company to give them skill sets and develop requirements for the new programmers that are going to be outsourced in Ireland and India. Yeah I know - tough break, you tried to get all those H1B's in the door at start your own internal group but you couldn't get the numbers and REAL AMERICAN programmers cost too much. You want to fork back your equity to pay for them?
So you passed on the management track to 'Stay Technical' and now you're not in a position to decide your own fate. You the alpha nerd are now the target of every cost reduction scheme. Dozens of other alpha nerds and nerdettes (AN/AN-F) are looking over their shoulders hoping its not them that gets the ax. All of a sudden project status meetings stop. You can't decide if its because the projects are dead or simply because managers are afraid to share any information with each other anymore. Sr. Team leads are 'encouraged' to look for savings in their own ranks. Remember 1 AN/AN-F = a multiple of baby nerds so you have to decide do you toss some qualified experienced bodies on pyre or do you commit the children to the flames. Either way, the only way out is up the chimney. 3QTR analysts hammer the stock and your options are officially so far under water you'd need the Glomar Challenger to get them back. Now you become aware that the work groups have been informally broken into 2 factions. The An/AN-F's and a junior group headed by new junior team leads who are going through the same exercise as you, looking for places to carve flesh. Flash forward. It's the next day and whole development group is scattered in a bloody heap. Scraps of bodies here, carnage, gore, goo over there. All killed off in a paranoid orgy of hate mistrust miscommunication and manipulation. The executives that are left are bought off to the tune of millions, the development assets are sold off to the offshore company and company ceases to exist. The workers did the knacking job themselves because they had no power position in the company and no stance from which to apply leverage to management.
If you think this story is scary just consider that it is true.
Exactly right. Don't get me wrong I do think promotion on who's been loyal to the company longest can be a good system but only provided they have equal skills for the job.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Evry industry is nearing a effective monopoly or oligopoly - they collude and 'palm push' at the top, setting agendas for everyone.
Havnt we all heard of the WTO? of the WIPO? FTAA? etc etc? What is happening is the Capatalist System is hitting a peak. It takes money to make money, and TransNationals are realizing it is easier to share in profit than really compete. Have a look at the auto-industry.. seen any real innovation, anything 'market shattering' there in the last 30 years? No.
The barrier to entry for a worker is at the bottom - and their is no effective difference (in inherent rights or ablity) between one person and the next (outside skills which im sure we could argue werent that varying). Where as _any_ business is being 'sown' up these days - the barrier to entry is skyrocketing in almost every sector. What this leaves us is with one group that can set demands very effectively to the other (Business to Person).
My point? Well, when we realize that the 'free market' for employment is really not 'free' at all - that we are all forced to operate in a climate where their will always be someone willing to do your job (just as well) for just a little less (or another interview-ee willling to accept a little less) labour will realize its only opportunity is to try and work together. TransNationals are certainly doing it - people have nearly zero bargaining power in the employee marketplace.
Some people are going to pipe up saying "I make $120K a year - and could walk away into another $150K job in a week": I say good, but right now times are good for everyone, dont kid yourself - when 'times get bad' you'll wish you had any job at all. The TransNationals make money even when the economy is crap, and be certain: The transition to 'outsourcing' and 'contract employees' and its ilk will assure that when times appear they might get bad, all the really ruthless TransNationals will start chopping people left and right... it has to do with being nimble and having a more disposable workforce.
Workers of the World Unite!
One of the biggest problems the unions have had in breaking into the tech sector is most tech workers (rather correct) assumption that unions protect workers regardless of ability and productivity. They rely on seniority and other nonsense. These things don't fly in the tech industry. More ability and productivity = more pay. It should always work this way. Unions have never been structured to handle this.
This applies in tech and just about every other industry. The perfect example is my grandfather. He worked for Stanley (the US company that makes tools) way back before they were a union shop. He was a tool and die maker, dealing with 1/1000ths of an inch daily. He had good steady hands and a keen eye and could fix just about everything in the shop. He was a higher level tool and die maker because of his abilities. Then the shop unionized. He and the other high-level makers got pay-cuts, so that the lower-level (and lower-skilled) tool and die makers could get a raise and make the SAME money that he now did. Gone were raises, promotions and perks based on ability. Now things like seniority mattered. The work suffered, the tools suffered, and it was never the same through the rest of the time he worked there. But it was considered *OK* because now everyone made the same money and even the unskilled tool and die makers were now *protected* from the evil company that only wanted to make a buck.
You had to see his face while he told this story to fully comprehend it. He used to love his work, before he was in a union.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
After viewing the wide array of "Unions suck/Unions are for the lazy" posts here, I figured I should throw in my Cdn$0.02.
A couple years ago, my dad and another firefighter were suspended for speaking out at a town council meeting. The volunteer department found out through a 1-inch town newspaper item that their ladder truck was being farmed out to a nearby large city for a while, despite being told four weeks before the truck was staying in town. The firefighters had serious concerns about farming out the truck; the town has several tall buildings on the south end, and the ladder would have been moved to a department a good ten minutes away from where they normally were. The chief, who was involved in the decision to transfer the truck, said nothing about the decision to the crew.
At the next town council meeting, most of the department showed up. One firefighter, a lawyer, spoke for the group in front of the council about their concerns, both about the transfer of the truck and the secrecy in which the deal was shrouded. Despite being very civil and calm, the council ripped him, then called the chief up to back them up. After he was done speaking, he nearly ran out of the chamber. My dad followed and had a somewhat heated conversation with him. After the council meeting, my dad spoke with media that were on hand.
A couple days later, letters were delivered to my dad and the other firefighter. Indefinite suspensions! For speaking! My dad might have been suspendable for arguing with the chief, but the lawyer/firefighter was clean; there was no reason to suspend him. After a month, both firefighters were brought back on board. Soon after, some of the firefighters started looking into organizing. Despite several attempts to avert the organizing by the chief, the fire became a member of the Teamsters, and the first organized volunteer department in Canada.
The union wasn't brought in to increase wages, or let the firefighters be lazy; on the contrary, lazy people don't risk their lives around open flames on a regular basis for fun. They were brought in to preserve job security, to ensure fairness in disciplinary situations, and to ensure the firefighters have a group to defend them should the town try something stupid like that again.
So, yes, unions are still sometimes necessary in this age. If nothing else, tech workers might find them useful in making sure they aren't overworked by fly-by-night dot.coms that are likely to end up on FuckedCompany.com in the near future.
Much like big corporations, unions aren't all bad.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Chances are that if you're being offered stock & options, you aren't at one of the many companies who are screwing their employees big-time, so why would you want to strike anyway? Striking is for those who are being screwed by their employers, i.e. those that aren't being offered stock, don't get compensated properly for their many hours overtime, etc. And it happens more than some people here care to realise, many seem to shrug it off with "I'm such a damn brilliant amazing programmer that everyone is just offering me really amazing jobs all the time etc etc." Come on .. who are these people fooling? A "great-sounding job offer" is not the same as a "great job" - job offers are supposed to attract you - they almost always sound a lot better than they really are. And sure, salaries are super high in silicon valley, but then so is the cost of living, so you blow a lot of it on rent etc anyway. And while there may be a lot of demand in Silicon Valley for skilled tech workers, the situation is NOT the same elsewhere in the states - there are places in the States where it is fairly difficult to get a tech job, and you *can't* just walk out of any job and walk into any other job you want to, anytime. The same everywhere in the world.
Sorry .. went into a bit of a rant there .. :)
"They only make sense for people to stupid and unimaginative to know they can walk away from a job and join a competing company or start their own company if they don't like where they are"
Firstly, not everybody WANTS to start a company (duh) - quite frankly, thats much harder work and longer hours than a 9-hour a day programming job. Secondly, not everybody is in a situation where it is at all possible to just walk out of their job and walk into a new super-amazing spiffo job tomorrow - if you don't happen to live in high-cost-of-living silicon valley, there are many areas in the States where the demand for skilled tech workers is very mediocre. And, believe it or not, not everybody wants to move across several states just to get a nicer job.
Speak for yourself. Consider, just for a brief moment, that maybe other people have different situations to yourself.
A lot of the "high skill" tech jobs out there are easily replaceable. There are only a very few that the industry actually utilizes that, at least on paper, it doesn't look better to hire the cheapest guy on the block. If you have ever read the mythical man month, you would know that replacing you DOES cost the company more money in the long run, but the premise of that book is that management doesn't understand that.
Unless you truly specialize in some area that isn't in the realm of widespread knowledge, there are a lot of people who can hash out web pages and perl scripts in a snap these days.
Eh...
Do firefighters on a volunteer department get paid anything more than a token stipend?
About $20 per call. Since the department's coverage area increased a year ago, there have been a lot more calls.
Was this your father's primary job?
No, he's also an electrician at a Big Three auto plant (here's a hint; one of their concept cars, debuted at the Detroit Auto Show, runs Linux).
If not, then my response to the suspension would have been a hearty "bite me...fight your own fires."
And then it would have happened again to another couple firefighters. These guys see it as a duty; it's not exactly fun, but they do it anyway. My dad's been doing this for 25 years, and it's only in the past two or three that the town has started trying to pull crap like this. They felt it was better to organize before things got too bad, rather than let the morale of the entire department be tanked by a bunch of politicians. All, except for one vehemently anti-union guy, backed the union drive, because they all knew (from watching it happen live, in person) it could just as easily happen to them.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Although I am clearly biased on this point, I just dont see any other need for a tech-union, perhaps someone else can enlighten me on this issue.
1. Any group has more power acting cohesively. Imagine how much money we could pull in if we had real bargaining power with all the companies in the industry. Imagine if all the programmers in the US refused to work for less than, say $55,000. Free-loaders wouldn't be justifiable anymore, and anyone who was good enough/hard-working enough would be even better. Look at pilots - they're less bright than coders by a lot, (I speak from USAF experience), but they're highly skilled and unionized - most airline pilots bring in $100,000+ for doing a job that's substantially less challenging than writing complex code. Did I mention they have unions?
The problem is that right now we're settling for less than what we should expect. There are some fabulously profitable companies out there. But all of that money was made by coders, who got a generous amount of money, but in all honesty deserve more.
2. Tech companies haven't been above screwing employees. People get let go a couple weeks before their options come due, often for fabricated reasons. H1-B visas get rammed through Congress to drive down IT salaries. Imagine if the Big Three automakers tried to import tens of thousands of foreign workers and then pay them substandard wages!! It can only happen in IT.
3. Marketing practices of today may become labor practices of tommorrow. If a company is willing to screw consumers with "content protection" do you really trust it not to screw its own employees?
4. A lot of anti-union people scream "I'm too good for a union - unions are for idiot construction workers." But many industry that depend on highly skilled labor are highly - pilots, aviation mechanics, teachers, athletes, actors. It obviously works for other "knowledge industries".
5. Technology unions probably would be different than old-school unions - it would have to be easier to get rid of people, since it's easier to freeload than it is in manufacturing. Contracts would probably be shorter term, grievance procedures would be streamlined/scaled back, working condition issues would be much less important, etc.
I know of *no* industry where unionization has decreased wages or really adversely affected employees.
...and it's also a symptom of collective brainwashing.
There is obviously a problem with the fact that, in such a wealthy country, most workers do only have two or three weeks of holidays, a neanderthalian protection in case of disease, and very few days (sometines no days at all, they are considered as "sick days"!) for a woman who's having a baby.
I'm sharing my life between the US and my native country. In my native country (it shouldn't be difficult to guess where I come from), I have 9 weeks of holidays/year, I will get my full salary even if I'm sick for a very long period (that is, much longer than the number of "sick days" in America of than a short-term disablility period -during which you usually lose 25% of your salary in the US-), my wife will strop working three months if she has a kid and get a full salary (she'll even stop 6 months starting with the 3rd kids), etc... I'm not saying it's a panacea, nor that it's not going too far. I'm saying that America is scandalously backward on these issues, because everything has to be sacrificed in the name of competitive business.
In the name of economic competitivity, a preoccupation which really has become hysterical in America under the Reagan-Bush era, American workers have accepted the most extreme sacrifices on their working conditions, their free time, as well as their retirement and healthcare systems. This truly is brainwashing, and could not have happened if strong (and smart, which apparently was the problem in the US) unions had been there.