Slashdot Mirror
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."
> 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
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.
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
:-)
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.
--
I like to watch.
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.
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.
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.
--
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
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.
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.