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IT Unions?
aristotle2000 writes: "CNN.com has an article about IT unionization. I have generally been against the idea but the article raises some interesting issues, like training and development standards." Netslaves had a piece about the history of unionization a few days ago, good reading.
How do you negotiate salary for a group? Programming depends too much on individual skill, which is pretty hard to quantify. Some programmers are just way more skilled and productive than others. Certification doesn't measure that skill very well. Lines of code doesn't measure it - a better programmer will write the same functionality in less lines of code. Years of experience doesn't predict it either. It's not like working on a production line, and the better programmers want to be rewarded for what they can do. Unions be damned.
I guess you missed a previous slashdot discussion about the virtual impossibility of changing intellectual property rights assigned in employment contracts. There are lots of differences with unions, and I'm sure you realize that your post oversimplifies reality. Unions do reduce individualism, but nobody suggested that unions were meant to increase individualism. Unions don't appear out of thin air -- they appear when a bunch (multiple hundreds at least, I would guess from history) of people get really pissed off about how they're being treated.
-Paul Komarek
This is a great place to discuss the difference between median and average. A perfect driving record is definitely above average, but I expect it's not that far from the median driving record. That means, as a driver, you can be replaced despite your above-average driving record.
While I'm being pedantic, let's consider another example. There is an annual nationwide exam for math students called the Putnam exam. Despite the fact that the average score is some positive number greater than zero (out of 120 points possible, IIRC), at least half of the test-takers receive a score of exactly zero (all scores are non-negative). That means you can turn the test in blank, and still have 50% of the test-takers do no better.
Here's another good example. If you are a math major at an ivy league school, your best career move is to drop out in your second year of studies -- people in this group have an incredibly high average wealth! Of course, Bill Gates is in this group. What you really want to know, for security's sake, is what the median income is.
You may be above average, but that doesn't mean you can't be replaced.
-Paul Komarek
This is the single best post on this story.
-Paul Komarek
Be careful about using the term "we" so loosely. In effect, you are stereotyping your readers as images of yourself.
-Paul Komarek
Speak for yourself. By most measures (IQ, SAT score, GPA, income level, credit rating, average salary increase per year, NTN Trivia Player's Plus score) I'm well above average. Odds are not a factor in this.
If I don't like what my employer does, I'll find another job. I've done it before, I would do it again. I don't need to pay a union to bargain for benefits or salary for me, I can do it myself perfectly well with what I bring to the table and what I can do for my employer. If you can't say the same, find another field to work in.
Oh, and I have a perfect driving record. Guess I'm not average there either.
Uh, I think you're confusing "average" with "median".
Well, sort of. "Average" is an imprecise term that can mean any of mean, mode, or median. You're talking about the mean, he's really talking about the median.
Granted, when most people think of average they're really thinking of the mean. But strictly speaking any of the three is correct.
Unions today exist to give non-highly-skilled laborers artificial leverage to increase their salaries to a level which the job market would not ordinarily pay. Good IT workers are not easy to find, and because of the relatively high degree of specialization within IT professions, once a person has been in the IT field for a few years, he or she can usually command a fairly high salary by virtue of experience with a specific technology or within a specific industry. Because of this segmentation of the IT field, there just isn't the need for IT people to unionize.
This industry changes very quickly. Unionized information labor doesn't strike me as something that promotes keeping up with technology. It seems more like job security in case you find your skills are outdated.
I'm all for Unions. Corporations rip off every single one of their employees, except in the case of effective Unions, where the employees are the ones doing the ripping off. What's not to love? I'd just hate to see it at my employer, because I don't feel ripped off enough to want to reverse.
No one was talking about IT unions 5 years ago when VCs were pissing money away on ludicrous business ideas. People will obviously resent losing their jobs over this, but hey, did you really think you had a future in tieclip.com?
Seriously, anyone who deserves to work in IT should have no problem finding that their skills will always be in demand. When I hear people demanding Unions, I question the motivation. Maybe my outlook will change some day, but right now, I'm happy with my rugged individualism.
Additionally, most programmers I know care very deeply about how their skills are perceived (myself included). Most of us like to think we are the top 25% of programmers (myself included)--although it isn't possible for 75% of programmers to be the top 25% :-) That being said, why would programmers want to unionize, to protect, in many posters' words, the lazy and the inept?
No, it won't happen. There will not be an effective programmers union.
BUT, I strongly believe there will be a network support/IT tech union. Those poor schlobs have it rough. Being on call and never getting paid (or whether they get paid or not is a point of debate with the employer), working long hours over outtages, not being able to take vacations. Those people will probably unionize. Especially with MCSE certification programs churning out so many, their jobs are probably in jeopardy. Whenever they start to get paid decent money for decent training, they could get fired for some fresh MCSE who is willing to be paid anything.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
1) We make a lot of money. We have lots of opportunities for raises. I'll be damned if my 20% annual raise is reduced to a "cost of living increase" by a union
2) We are not politically unified. Programmers don't fit into a single voting block as factory workers tend to do. I doubt that we're all going to get behind Tom Harkin for the next election.
3) For many people, programming is a step towards management (not me, I'm a programmer forever). What the hell are those people going to do? Fight management one day, and then become a manager the next? Talk about blowing up a bridge WELL BEFORE you even get to it...
4) We don't need unions to protect our benefits. Generally, we don't care about benefits past the medical care and 401K. We just want employers to forget the sports equipment reimbursement type of "benefit" and just give us the fuckin' money.
5) I don't want a union to tell me that I can only work 37.5 hours a week. I work as long as I want to, or as short as I want to. A union would force some kind of stifiling structure on my life. If I'm going to be at work at 9 AM, then that's because I happened to be awake all night, not because I've turned into a clock puncher.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
>Well, guess what pal - the odds are somewhere around, say, 50-50 that you're below average. It
>reminds me of the stats that 80% or whatever of drivers say they are an "above average" driver...
Uh, I think you're confusing "average" with "median".
If you have 100 employees, and you give them all a test, it is possible for 80 of them to score 100 points, and 20 to score 0 points.
You now have an average of 80 points. However, 80 employees scored above that.
Which half is below average?
Granted, this is not a likely example, it's hyperbole to illustrate the point: 50% of the people are not always below average. 50% of the people *are* always below the MEDIAN. There's a difference.
-LjM
Training and development standards shouldn't be the responsibility of labour unions, they should be the responsibilities of trade certification organizations. My understanding is the in the USA you do things differently thant he rest of the world: the rest of the world has apprenticship programs that lead to certification in a trade, but in the USA people join a union and the union claims all it's workers are "up to code".
Give me independent certification any day.
Unions exist to get fair treatment for all laborers.
Unions seem to think that means that 'fair' means the same treatment for everyone, regardless of skill. Most of the time they only seem to think that workers should be paid according to seniority. Unions seem to defend those that are lazy and punish or try to hold back those that work harder or smarter.
I'm not interested in being part of that. I'm interested in pay based on merit, and that isn't necessarily always going to be viewed as 'fair' by everyone. I don't necessarily want to trade away my ability to bargain for myself for the tyranny of the majority.
I personally think that the reason it is so hard for unions to organize skilled technical workers is because we feel closer to management than blue-collar workers. Many of us aspire to, or know that our future will eventually make us more on the management side than we are now. Many of us hold an equity stake in the companies we work for (through options, 401K or company stock purchase plans), so we view our companies differently than does the auto worker, steel worker, rubber worker, etc. that is the typical union member. Many IT workers have an entreprenurial (sp?) spirit, and I don't think that is very compatible with unionism.
Well, guess what pal - the odds are somewhere around, say, 50-50 that you're below average. It reminds me of the stats that 80% or whatever of drivers say they are an "above average" driver...
So sure, unions are designed around the average, but given that half of all employers are below average in how they treat their employees, maybe the protections a union can offer are useful.
And given the increased power management has been given by the government and stockholders over the last few decades to screw their employees at no cost to the managers (how do you "accidentally" hire thousands of people you then decide you need to lay off and not get fired yourself), now might just be the right time.
Silly Rabbit, sigs are for kids.
I'm no fan of traditional Unions. I'm constantly trying to take control of my own career, not have some Union decide for me when I can get my next promotion/raise/whatever. They also tend to protect deadwood in a company, which makes it harder for the rest of us. Plus, I'm at times privy to corporate info that would produce a definate conflict of interest. I really don't think a Union, in the traditional sense anyway, would serve my interests in any way.
That being said, there are times when I've wanted to speak with many voices (which is one of the reasons for my Slashdot account), and have no real recourse. I think that a real, legally sanctioned _professional_ organization would go a long way to help some of my problems (like being here since 3:00am this morning). Something like what the denstists or doctors have - not really a Union that has barganing units and such, but an org that can sanction shops that don't treat their IT workers properly.
This is meant for businesses, not for thier employees. I want something independant of any one special interest. (Oh well, might happen before I retire in 20 years. Right.)
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I have an IT job. I am well paid, I get excellent benefits. I am required by my employer to take a week of training a year, which they pay for. I am expected to take 4 hours of overtime a week, that's in my contract. If I didn't want that I'd quit. My benefits are excellent, should they degrade I would quit. If your job is not satisfactory, then leave it. I don't even want to heard about the H1-BA visa people...if it's so bad, go back home.
In my company, there is a small underground push for a an "IT Union". Ever heard of the CWA? They trotted out Jesse Jackson during a push for unionization during our last stockholder's meeting! You gotta be kidding... Fact is, the only people I know who support it, are not exactly valuable assets to the company. Their skills are weak, and they are unwilling or unable to learn new technologies.
I believe that if the company believes the Union to be a threat they will increase pay/perks/benefits to those employees who deserve it. Treat them right and they will stay.
Blar.
It's very easy to say this all now, because despite the slowing of the economy there is still a shortage of IT workers, which gives you a disproportionate amount of power at your job. To the majority of workers in this country your asertions are really a joke. Quit my job when the CEO leaves, just to start over again somewhere else with no seniority, worse benefits, etc, etc?? (Of course for most people to have some sort of "transferable seniority" means that you're in a union in the first place).
I guess having worked in an industry (film industry) where I can confidently say that the unions save lives, I have a slightly different perspective.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Only the good stuff
Seriously, there are certain compromises made for the good of society. The concept of seniority is one of them. Most of us probably make less than we're worth towards the beginning of our careers and more towards the end, and that makes a lot of sense to me. When we're young, our needs are less, and they grow throughout our lives.
Anyway, everyone needs to eat, even people who can't work for shit -- or would you rather they starve?
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
First of all, only a small part of the job a cinematographer is specific to the particular camera they are using, and it certainly doesn't include loading!
Secondly, a "relatively new videographer" would never get hired to shoot a $100,000,000+ film. The actual DP for Star Wars II (and ep. 1) is David Tattersall who has extensive experience shooting film, and as far as I know SWII is his first major project shooting video.
A producer would always prefer to have someone with film-experience shoot their project -- when they get an inexperienced videographer it's because that's all they can afford, and they often end up regretting the decision! (I get regular offers to shoot projects on video -- I usually turn them down because a) a prefer film, and b) most video shoots are understaffed, underpaid and generally lacking in professionalism. Of course, they don't have unions!)
A large part of what you're paying for in a DP is their experience. Sure a kid right out of film school might be able to do some nice lighting, but are they ready to be the head of a department? There's a reason why most DP's don't become a DP until their mid-to-late thirtys.
In the film industry these days the union doesn't so much protect seniority as it provides a safety baseline for a production. It is not uncommon to work 18-hour days on a non-union shoot, with 6-hour turnaround time (which basically means 4 hours of sleep, since you still need to wrap up after shooting stops, and drive home). People are litterally killed by these kinds of conditions. Remember when Brandon Lee was killed on the set of The Crow? That accident never would have happened on a union set -- any number of union-mandated safety requirements would have prevented it.
Frankly, I wonder if people realize to what extent the working conditions that they take for granted are the result of union organizing -- things like the 40-hour work week, employer-paid health insurance, paid vacations, etc. Even if you never join a union, you should be thankful that someone did!
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
"I'm so skilled/important/eL337 that the company will treat me with respect/pay me what I'm worth/never fire me."
"All unions are filled with thugs and crooks who just want to take your union dues and are effectively useless."
etc. . .
(sigh)
To begin with, being skilled does not guarantee you proper treatment by the company.There are a number of circumstances where your skills will not save you, for example:
- You get a new boss who is:
- the industry you are in suffers a panic in the stock market. To keep the stock price from tanking, Upper Management hands down the diktat, "Lay off 10%! So let it be written, so let it be done!"
- Oh heck, I could go on and on . . .
. . . but the point is there are lots of circumstances where if you are being mistreated by management, you will be unable to defend yourself despite your Mighty Coding Prowess. The company is bigger than you. It has more money than you. It does *not*, I repeat *Not!* give a Flying Fiddler's F**** about you.- Stupifyingly dumb (It happens.)
- a sadist
- a technological illiterate (and therefore doesn't understand how Very Important you are.
and is therefore quite willing to let you go/treat you miserably/etc.In which case, it would be nice for you to have a nice big organisation backing you up.
As to the point about the honesty of unions, they vary. I speak from my own experience. When I was fired by one employer (because of my political activities), the union I belonged to at that time said, effectively, "Tough luck!" The next union I belonged to had the motto, "Nobody Goes For Free!" (Which meant that if you were fired, and wanted the union to take your side, they would automatically go as far as second step grievance. After that, the union would have to spend money on lawyers, so there was an evaluation on how likely we were to win before we went to the next level of the grievance procedure.) Some unions are good and some stink -- sorta like corporations that you work for.
That's the key word, "unskilled". The movie Matewan has been discussed many times on Slashdot. Anyone who is completely opposed to unions should watch the film. Basically, it shows that without unions, companies will do anything and everything to make an extra buck. You don't like a pay cut? Fine, you're fired and someone else more desperate will be in your spot tomorrow. The tactic only works if management can replace you quickly and easily. That disqualifies most of the jobs Slashdotters have. But I think that as IT becomes larger and larger, more jobs will fall into the "replacable" category and unions may become needed.
I don't have links, but I know Amazon is at the front of the IT unionization battle. There is a guy named Mike Daisey who is behind most of the organizing. I'll leave the Google searching to the reader.
-B
The signing of the treaty ending the vi/Emacs wars
Gates and Ellison bury the hatchet and go camping together
RMS decides to switch to Solaris
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
The president's guitar effects pedal?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Organizations have this nasty tendency to grow beyond their initial scope. Hell, look at existing unions in other industries...started out making genuinely needed changes in working conditions and pay. Now? Well...there has to be a reason so many people think most unions are corrupt and too powerful. Could be that they are...
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
It's a tricky question, really. I was directing my comments more against the assumption that a union would stay focused only on the original goals.
It is a sad thing that organizations almost always grow too large, often becoming evil in the process. It happens with corporations, governments, unions, even religions. Theoretically these could all reach a balance point that benefits all the organizations while not screwing the individual, but it never seems to happen. Perhaps it's not really possible, or perhaps there is not ever a true equilibrium...just swings towards different sides as time goes on.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
I beg to differ. Unions may be "bad" for you personally if you work in a union shop, in that you have to pay union dues and put up with (potentially) corrupt union leadership. But the threat of unionization helps keep non-union shops honest, even in traditionally non-unionized occupations. Even with the liberal worker protection laws in place today, I wouldn't want to go back to the pre-union days and have to rely on the goodwill of employers.
- Crusadio
I can see it now...
Picket line of geeks get's busted up by big burly guys. Geeks go home, hack into the company system (not that hard if they're already working for the company.) Find names and info on company executives that ordered the strikebusters. Proceed to do more damage than a thug with a club could think of doing.
With our power, the suits should be afraid of us. We just never flex our information muscle. We control everything, let's use that to our benefit.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Unions exist to give job security to unskilled laborers. That's a Good Thing, but if it applies to the IT field, we're all in a lot of trouble.
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I'm in a union, and I'm not unskilled. Just easily replaced.
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Anyway, what I meant was that if you can threaten to quit, and have it actually mean something to your employer, then you'll be treated fairly or you'll go somewhere else. The trouble is for people for whom threatening to quit doesn't hurt the employer; basically, those who are easily replaced.
So yes, I suppose that "unskilled" was an unfair characterization. Perhaps I should have said "easily replaced". That includes me as a teaching assistant: if I quit, they'll find someone else.
--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
But isn't this basically what unionization was supposed to be about in the first place -- the means to the (Marxist) goal that the workers own the means of production, and that by owning the means of production, workers can get better treatment.
I happen to have a strong personal distaste for Marxism, but let's take this particular notion at face value: that workers should own the means of production", presumably because doing so allows them to extract better working conditions from management.
In a steel mill, a worker cannot own the means of production in any meaningful sense of the word. Collective bargaining is required by virtue of the fact that it takes dozens - often hundreds, maybe thousands - of people working together to make a steel mill work. If a worker leaves, he or she can be replaced, as the means of production (the physical plant and tools required to maintain it) remain on-site. The workers themselves are interchangeable.
But in most software shops, the means of production are the neurons in the head of each IT worker. Each worker already owns the means of production; a departing worker takes with him or her a significant body of knowledge, and you can't just hire another off the street. Sure, the new hire may know C++ just as well as the guy who just left -- but do they know all the ins and outs of the class structure your application uses? Not by a long shot.
Hey, those on the right don't believe in unionization in principle; I'm not addressing you, because we already agree ;-)
But if you're on the left - question your motives. Is unionization supposed to be an end in itself? Or is it merely the means by which one ought to put control of the means of production in the hands of those who do the producing?
If you believe unionization is merely a means to this end, and you believe that this end (workers controlling the means of production) is a desirable one, is it not logical to conclude that unions are, by definition, redundant, when it comes to the IT profession?
If you work in IT, you already own the means of production.
Hell, I'll go one step further. I'll put my Marxist glasses on and look around. I work in a nicely air-conditioned office, and just got a double-digit percentage raise, and a bonus of triple that. I guess the Marxists are right - ownership of the means of production really is the way to go!
Of course, since I already control the means of production and have managed to use that control to extract concessions (a high wage and an excellent working environment) from management, it's too bad for the union organizer that I no longer need him as a middleman.
Money is the least of my concerns. I'd be worried about the quality of the environment I work in. Work is something I enjoy nowadays, and sure I make enough and I could make less and not be worried since my life doesn't revolve around a dollar. However what would that environment be like when co workers start slacking because they're protected by a Union and can't be fired?
Even moreso what is going to happen when a salary based becomes a standard and I make as much as my manager or someone else makes the same amount as someone else without having the skills for command a salary, and tensions rise between co-workers?
The environment (workplace) becomes less desireable to be at. Thats my concern not money. Most people in this field with enough experience know how easy it is to move onto other jobs for higher pay, and I could have done so plenty of times for more money. Why should I when I feel comfortable where I'm at?
Want Root?
Often from what I've seen with unionizing is nothing is done by the Unions in reality. Lets see what a typical Union would do when things are erratic.
Strike for more money for so called more benefits for the people. Strike for better working conditions for the people shorter hours, and the rights to ensure an employee doesn't get fired improperly.
Sounds good so far but at what price? So as a tech union member lets see what that gets me. Being I already make a lot of money, this week my paycheck just won't come to me since I'm on strike, and at the age of 27 I'm already making close to 6 figures so this missing paycheck may hurt my lifestyle and I don't know how long I'll be on strike for.
While I picket with my "brothers" a Union rep speaks with officials to get about a %.20 salary raise for me, but then he wants to raise my union dues for this, so that raise is now null. How thrilling. While I work I see lazy people who do nothing since their unionized and can't be fired. Oh yea I'm just dying to be unionized.
IMHO I don't think the tech industry needs to be unionized. Its done great on its own for years, and unions see how much money we often make and are simply trying to get rich quick off our sweat.
Want Root?
In my circumstance, the union officials sit in the same group as I do. I'm speaking primarily about stewards & chief-stewards - I have no contact with those higher than that role.
And shouldn't people have the choice to join a union?
Absolutely. I work at a closed-shop, we all pay a percentage of our earnings to work there. Some pay union dues, others pay an agency fee. It all works out the same, the non-union employees are afforded the exact same benefits as the union folk.
As an "unofficial" tech worker, I am upset that I have to deal with the union re: raises - in fact, I haven't had a raise in several years (not counting the cost-of-living BS that my union manages to wrestle from management every 4-5 years).
I work at a university and have been in 2 unions in my 15 year experience there. I've worked my way from janitor to system admin plus. And yet I was offered absolutely no assistance from my union(s). In fact, I was attacked by 1 union for trying to advance myself through tech ability.
Am I bitter? Sometimes. I troubleshoot their PCs, I install/maintain their CMMS systems, I write their reports (& then have to run them), I create their web presence (including cgi), I am a help desk, I train, I analyze, I code, and I also perform the job I was hired to do.
All this and yet I'm paid less than a parts-chaser. Wow, looks like I'm extremely bitter.
Collective Bargining may have had its place 100 years ago, but lets face it, the parade is over. IT professions are highly skilled workers and are in demand. Unionizing any workforce in today's economy will lead to further market inefficiency and a drag to innovation. Unions are monopolies of the workforce. UAW, Teachers Unions, etc. Give me a break. They are just monopolies. /.ers are anti-monopoly and pro-individual. We don't believe in collective bargining. I dont want a fucking Union card when I want to get a job (I would need one to become a teacher or work in an auto factory). The day someone forces me to get a union card is the day I quit and do something else.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Like we want the Union to set up development standards? "Sorry kid, you'll have to ditch xemacs for VisualAge; its Union rules."
Someone you trust is one of us.
All of the things you've mentioned you could bargined for by yourself and have put in your employment contract. You don't need a union for any of these things. The difference is that with a union, everyone gets the same deal. That means if there is something that you want different, tough. You get no say with a Union.
Someone you trust is one of us.
CEO compensation is tied to stock prices and thus tied to the market performance which as you pointed out skyrocketed disproportionately with reality. As CEO compensation is more risky than average worker salary (which is garuanteed), the two numbers cannot be compared. Average Management Salary during the 90-98 period tracked below 28 percent at around 26 percent. If you look at current executive compensation in high tech you'll see that its a pretty shitty deal.
Someone you trust is one of us.
"Geeks and Hackers local 31337"
--
314-15-9265
I can just see it now.
- Replace casual dress codes with boxers and t-shirts.
- Even MORE paid vacation. Hell, around here people only start a new job with 3 weeks a year!
- Higher salaries. Mid level workers can only afford Audis, they need Porsches.
- Remove all web blocking, not that we don't just find ways around it anyway.
- Gaming PCs and Counterstrike servers in all offices.
- Herman-Miller desks and chairs all around as proactive defense against repetitive motion injuries.
Seriously, what the hell do we need an IT union for? IT workers have it easier than many of the executives in their own companies! Even with all the dotcom/telco fallout there will still be thousands of unfilled tech jobs! This is just silly.
Why do you blame teachers when they strike? Why don't you blame the school boards who will not pay them what they deserve? Why don't you blame the citizens in that district that vote down pro-school referendums, and then complain why schools suck....and then have the nerve to blame teachers for the lack of "morals" in our teens (maybe parents should take time off of work to parent!!).
As for IT professionals.....I am a union IT pro. Two hours of pay a month goes to my union dues. In return I get a benefits package worth an additional 35% of my pay and includes full paid medical, dental and life insurance for the whole family and a generous retirment contribution that is vested immediately. Also, any overtime I work results in 1:1 comp time. All of this and our union has never had to strike! YES, unions work without strikes! Unfortunately, the only time you hear about unions in today's media is during strikes...you never hear about all of the good things they do for the employee (day care, same-sex partner rights, etc).
Finally, just becuase you are a union member does not guarantee job security....a common union myth. I can be fired just like everyone else in the world, however, there must be a reason for it. If my employer wanted to can me because I am doing a poor job, first they would have to notify me that I am doing poorly and give me a chance to improve (usually a month), and if I don't me their satisfaction I am a goner.
Being a union member does not make me a lazy, do-nothing employee. It makes me a happy, appreciative, hard-working employee....one that works to live, not lives to work.
ÕÕ
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Having a union would probably help everyone who wants to write code on their own time without using company resources and not have their company claim ownership of it.
I'd imagine that union contracts would probably allow employees to retain ownership of anything they produce that isn't connected to their job.
I'd rather take my chances with a jury of "my peers" than with organized labor.
While payscale and health benefits may not be the issues that inspire IT workers to unionize, there are other issues. H1-B visa workers are of course often abused and it would seem that a union would make a hell of a lot of sense for them. There is also the issue of the "IT shortage." IT unions cold lobby politicians to realize that the "IT shortage" does not exist.
Personally, I think the concept of unions is great. However, like many good concepts (socialism, communism etc), there have been some piss poor implimentations at times, and occasionally implimentors who were less than honest about what they were doing.
As an example, my father tells me the story of being a Union iron worker for a while. His shop went on strike demanding more pay. In the end, the raise that they got was enough to more than pay for the money that they lost in the strike, yup, assuming they all continued working there for the next 40 years anyway.
Thats bad Union management. True, you can't win every time that you go to the table, but the unions job is to represent the workers, and to help them, not to cause them to lose wages, or stick it to the management.
Then again, he talks of the time that a manager was treating him unfairly, giving him a hard time while he tried to do his job. A quick visit to his union rep and the manager changed his tune right quick.
In short, a well run union, one that is run by people who truely care and are out for the good of the workers can be a very very good thing (as they say "United we negotiate, divided we beg".
Then again, I work for a university. We don't need it here. Unless there is a major crunch and stuff has to get done now (which happens once in a while, but only if we can't avoid it) we don't work long hours, and the benefits are good (I honestly don't understand being willing to work 50 or more hours a week and get only 2 weeks vacation a year etc - you could not possibly pay me enough to do a job which takes up THAT MUCH of my life - I did it for about 6 months and said "fuck that")
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I definitly agree here on many points - and I consider myself a supporter of unions too. I would love a union.... a well run one.
A good union is a good thing. However, a poorly run union can be worst than none at all (but, arn't many things that way?).
Take the NYC Stage Hands Union (I forget their actual name). You can only get into the union by being sponsored in. Stanbdard bribe to get sponsored in is around $100,000.
However, once you are in, union regulations make it simple to hold down multiple jobs, none of which take more than a couple of hours out of your day, and all of which pay full time salaries.
(like the regulation that theaters must hire 2 different people, and pay them both full time salaries to wipe down the stage before and after every performance - one for before - one for after)
Now, to me, it sounds like they are corrupt and milking it to hell. However, not all unions are like that, and they certainly don't have to be.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Reading through the outraged comments here, I've truly come to Grok the phrase "It's like herding cats"
;-P
The exploitation has moved from business over employee to union over employee. And shouldn't people have the choice to join a union?
Unions might help certain people, but they also hold back the talented and the achievers. I could go on, but suffice it to say that it's a two way street - as many unions have shown themselves to be just as corrupt and exploitive as businesses.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
There are no 'shop organisers' and none of the usual 'the workers' versus 'the bosses' rhetoric. So there is no conflict of interest; I don't tell them things that are commerical in confidence. This organisation is not interested in forcing a one-size-fits-all on employee or unions. (Although it has worked towards saftey net conditions.) This is not quite the balanced organisation you might like to see -- but it does balance my own country's employer body, the AIIA.
I've also found APESMA membership to be better value than my other membership of the more traditional IT professional society, the ACS, which seems more concerned with prestige and suit-ish stuff that I do not understand. But apparently others do, because Lawyers, Accountants, and the like see membership of the ACS as being a badge of 'professionalism' of the same value as membership of their more established professional societies.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Have got my own company and at this point am on a contract.
You can't handle the truth.
Just a quick look at the postings tells me that not too many of you have given a long thought about what a union can be.
There is nothing stopping us from designing a union that only addresses the isses which we need to have addressed, WHICH was the entire point of the CNN story.
It is not about money or job protection, it's about standards and skills. The union need not be anything more than that.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
A corrupt Union leadership would not last long around a heavily wired membership.
Companies that have finished their layoffs will next seek to cut costs of remaining employees. At this point a Union can begin to look attractive.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
me, thanks. Seems to me that unions require traits that most IT workers just don't have. I'm suspcious of the motives behind the CWA and others when they try to round up IT people. It seems to me that they're trying to a)just add more people and b) add more influential and white collar people to their rolls. I don't think they care a whit about the people. Unions became self-sustaining entities long ago....much like some of the programs the gov't funds.....
Yeah! Hack the Planet! Kill the Gibson! Do it for Joey and that hot Acid Burn chick!
--
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Although this wont generally apply to tech workers, it definitely does when your slaving away in some dark and dirty factory: SAFETY.
:)
without the unions in place, BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY THIS, companies will take every chance they get to cut costs at the expense of the employees health and safety.
One of the first jobs that i had back in 93 or 94 was at a grimy little sweat shop out in the county. The locals called it the Finger Factory, and for good reason. Many of the press machines were wore out and old. They needed to be replaced ASAP. But for years nothing was done as employees would have fingers crushed or in one case a guy lost his arm. Sweet eh
What did it take to replace the machines ? Well, the owners daughter was working there during the summer part time, thank god she lost two fingers because it probably saved a whole lot more in the long run.
I've seen this time after time after time, The Boss/Chief doesn't care about the grunts. Maybe its some sort of elitist pychology, plebians eat their dinner at 7 at night, we eat ours at 5, never any sooner or later.
Tech workers thank the lord dont have this burden on them, well, unless they get carpal tunnel or some other DEADLY disease caused by repetitive Quake sessions.
Unions protect the laziest workers, inspire mediocracy, and do a pretty good job of protecting workers health and safety. Not exactly what the tech industry needs.
BTW, in the aboved mentioned machine shop, just last year they formed a union with 98% backing of the workers. The Boss decided it was time to close up shop two days after the union came in.
From my personal experience of working 70 hours/week and working 40 hours/week, i came to the conclusion that:
Working more hours does not lineary correlate with producing more
To be more precise, there is a point in which you are working so much time and your productivity per-hour is so low, that you are actually producing less in total than if you worked less hours.
Please keep in mind that (contrary to popular belief) being productive IS NOT THE SAME as producing lines of code.
What this means is that if you keep on working bellow a certain level of mental "freshness" you can actualy have a negative productivity (because you are introducing loads of bugs that later will take time to be tracked and solved)
As with everything, there is a point of balance in which you work the adequate number of hours to get the maximum total productivity. This will vary from person to person.
Knowing the right moment to stop and go home is what distinguishes the Really Excelent Programmers from the Simply Good Programmers.
Information about the work enviroment in each company (country).
This allows for informed decisions about the questions:
Social Skills so that you know how to handle your current manager and know how to negociate your next job
Not necessarily true for all unions, or for all locals. A union (and especially a LOCAL) are as strong as it's membership. It'd be nice to have an IT union. I'd love to have 40 hour work weeks, get overtime for any time over my 8 hour day. Time and a half for saturdays, double time for sundays, and double time and a half for vacation days that I am forced to work (and triple time for anything over 8 hours on that forced work day on a holiday).
Most IT people work more than a 40 hour week, including myself. Reward - pre-ipo stock options?
NO THANKS - SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!
Yeah, some things about unions aren't great - but for someone who's worked both sides of the fence, I could definately see the benefits of unionization of some IT jobs, especially the "lower level" jobs such as technicians.
[Connection closed by foreign host]
I'm a union member, and no, I'm not lazy and don't sit around doing nothing all day. I do replace lots of Mickeysoft stuff with linux and BSD, however :) . I am a public sector employee, so I don't make as much money as in the private sector; however, I get better benefits.
But here are the important things, things that get even more important as you young geeks grow into middle-aged geeks and have families. 1) As I mentioned-- medical, dental, pension. 2) Overtime for working beyond 40 hours. 3) My pager stays on my desk when I go home at night; i.e., I can have a Real Life(tm) with my family (and my compilers). 4) I'm not an at-will employee-- I can't be fired just because the boss can hire someone for less money. 5) I can't be fired for my continual, unabashedly militant leftist political and union organizing activities. 6) I don't have to kiss suits' asses.
All you anti-union dittoheads need to pull your heads away from your monitors for awhile (yeah, I know 2.4 is out, but...) and read some labor history. If it wasn't for unions we'd all be working 80-hour weeks and be at the bosses' beck and call 24-hours a day-- oh, wait, this is IT, that's the way it is....
Get the connection? And you know what the really sad thing is? You know why you've got your 80-hr/wk, no overtime job? Are you ready? It's because the boss is too fscking stoopid to do your job!!!
One of the things that always strikes me as odd is peoples dislike of unions. A union is the sort of thing that would be able to really help out with the ungodly work hours that most technical people get. When management says something like: "yes, we're happy to pay you 100,000 a year" and then 2 months later say, "we expect you to work 80 hours a week, no overtime pay". That sucks.
Organized labor can help stop that. Hell, organized labor did help stop that and give most sane jobs the 5 day work week and the 8 hour work day. How can management get away with taking that away from technical employees? The employees aren't organized.
the autoworker makes about $40K more than the MCSE.
Wait that's not true at all!! All the ATEC commercials say that brand-new MCSEs make 100k+. They couldn't possibly be lying, could they?
Enigma
Enigma
Which is why I deny promotions that separate me from the hardware. As a pilot once said in response to why he didn't like promotions, he said, "Too many promotions and they don't let you fly."
Unfortunately, for reasons I do not understand, refusing promotions is grounds for firing at many companies. WTF?
I had recently sent an e-mail to my companies legal council asking the what if I want to work on Open source projects and what the company policy would be seeing I had signed an non-compete which took all my creative rights away. Well they said that basically the way the company saw it was that they owned me and he used those exact words, so say I had a part time job on weekends working at say McD(not that I would) and they wanted me to work work on saturday even though I had that second job. They feel that they come first. Not exactly fair.
There are people here who for the past 3 months have been working 15-16 hr days 7 days a week manditory because some management idiot didn't spec out a project properly.
Keep thinking that way. We are in the eyes of most IT company "Slaves"
When I was getting certification (which I paid for), some of the people there were doing certification as part of their "you're unemployed - hey maybe we can retool your 45 year old plumber self into a programmer" Unemployment Insurance benefit.
I was reading a C++ book at lunch, and this former machinist comes up to me and says "hey, zat book on thuh curriculum?" I said, "no, but I want to learn about this." He looked at me like I was from space. I told him that if he wanted to do IT, he was going to have to spend the rest of his life keeping his skills up, researching new and better opportunities, etc. He was flabbergasted. I mentioned the words "work hard" and he just about cacked his trolleys right then and there. HIS game plan was to take his 4 month "intro to programming" certificate, go to Nortel, and tell them to give him a job for $85,000 per year (this was mid-90s Canada, where entry level, you'd be lucky to score $35,000/yr CDN). Cause he got 4 kids un a morgidge, eh. And then spend the rest of his life goin to the plant as a C programmer, punchin a clock, writin some C code, gettin cost of living raises per year, etc.
I told him his skills'd probably be obsolete or needing upgrade within 18 months.
He went ballistic. "So what are they doin this training fer, then?" I replied, "to get you started. You're looking at long hours, spending your own money and time on textbooks and training just to stay ahead, and you can honestly forget ordering Nortel to pay you that kind of money."
"I don't wanna do that kind of thing. I just wanna do C programming. What's union scale for a job like that?"
I laughed him out of the room. Suggested he drop out and take something else. He asked me why it wasn't unreasonable to ask for 85,000/yr cause that was what HE needed. I suggested to him that they could get people with DEGREES AND EXPERIENCE for less. And if they went to other countries, they could get a Ph.D from Bangalore for that. After a slew of trailer park racist garbage and anti-boss invective, he walked out and never came back.
We have enough idiots in IT management keeping their jobs through back-office politics. We don't need more - and I certainly don't want to pay for that kind of crap. Not out of my paycheque, and not in terms of increased software prices, either.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
And I moved to the United States and ended up making far far more than that, especially considering the taxes.
You wanna be a Chretien slave, all the more power to you.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
My Dad worked for a large equipment manufacturing corporation and was a member of a union, for about 30 years. I remember repeated contract negotiations at regular intervals (2-4 years) which generally resulted in additional pay and benefits for the workers. Sometimes there were work strikes, one or two in that 30 years extended for at least 6 months. But the union got a little cocky in my opiniun. They tried asking for a bit more than they should have, from a company that they knew at the time, was losing money because of a slowdown in their current market.
My Dad didn't like the idea, but he nevertheless went along with the Union's decision to strike. Almost all of the townspeople, and the local press, thought a strike was a bad tactic. They were already well paid and compensated. But the Union wanted to squeeze blood from a stone, I guess.
Eventually, my Dad noticed the talks went nowhere and it was a useless waiting game. I'm proud of my Dad for making the decision to cross the picket line and think of his family and his welfare at a time that it was completely obvious that the Union stopped doing so. The Union was blind to what was going to happen, even though everyone else knew that the company must shut down their operations in this town to survive as a business. Still, the remaining Union members supported their side of a losing battle. For those people, I have no sympathy.
The company hired temps to fill in positions and rewarded those who did cross the picket line with available overtime work and continued benefits coverage, even though the original union contract ran out.
My Dad made a fortune on overtime pay, so to speak. He was able to pay off all his bills, the mortgage, etc. To him, nothing was different as before the strike, except maybe loads of voluntary overtime and doubletime with the associated pay.
The company did eventually shut the doors, even while the picketers were STILL standing at the front gate. Those, like my Dad, who decided many months ago to cross the picket line received various compensation depending on their seniority. My Dad recieved early retirement, with pay and benefits. Not bad for a guy who is more than a decade away from federal retirement age.
He's not filthy rich from it, but with his mortgage, bills, and cars paid off, he can still live comfortably with what he makes with his retirement benefits. Had he stuck with the almighty union, he wouldn't have the time he has now to spend with his grandkids.
Also... This was no two-bit union. It was the UAW
Great and in a few years what happened to grandfather can happen to someone else. He was president of the Farm Equipment Union in the 50's. When the United Auto Workers Union came in and wanted his members. They threatened his life, said he was a communist and harrased my dad and his brother on the way to school. The family had to move out of state. Getting bricks through your windows tends to ruin dinner. Unions stopped serving their pupose a long time ago. Anyway working in an air contioned office is a hell of a difference from working in a factory where you can be mamed or killed. I do not see too many people being chewed up by the laser printer.
Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?
Thats very kind of you to say so. I never felt that my membership of a union required me to be lazy or unintelligent.
"they probably got some benefit from unions in the past."
I have got lots of benefits from unions. If you want to stretch it back in history these would include the right to vote, the right to free speech. They would include pension rights, the health and safety executive, protection against unfair dismissal, the right to representation on pay bargaining, the right to paid holidays.
"Unions are just a symptom of a desire to socialize everything "
Gods above. McCarthy did a really good job on you lot didn't he.
Phil
You are confused I am afraid. In both the steel industry and the software industry the workers ARE the means of production. The Marxist point of view is that the workers should benefit from the fruits of the labour. In reality the person who owns the company benefits from other peoples labour.
The IT industry fails squarely into what in the UK we call someone mistakenly the "middle classes". I guess from a Marxist point of view you could use the term "petty bourgeoise" although its not quite the same thing. Whatever you call it its a class of people who though they are essentially working class, think that they are not. This class was created deliberately in the last century due to the demands of the increasing enfranchisment of the population.
Now what is the purpose of the union in this set up? Collective bargaining often makes a lot of sense. The problem would be however that an IT union would probably be split and confused. Is it a working class union or a professional body. This is the case with the union that I am a member of. As many of its members feel "middle class", it spends a large amount of its time pretending to be a professional body. Its pretty ineffective as a result.
"it's too bad for the union organizer that I no longer need him as a middleman. "
Of course the union organiser should generally be a part of the working class population that the union represents. The problem is that the traditional unions have been around for a long time now. They tend to have lost their original revoluationary roots, and have become incorporated as part of the capitalist system. I say a union official laying into a friend of mine because he was being "too political" during a demonstration. Rather funny to be honest. The modern day union organiser that you are talking about is as a result of the corruption of the ideal by the ruling class though, rather than being indicative of the idea of unionisation in the first place.
Phil
It's not artificial leverage. Unions give workers the leverage that they, as a similarly situated market segment, deserve in the economy. If money is influence, one powerful employer has the influence that say 20 employees do, the employees together have more influence than that one rich employer in the issues that affect them all in common. The fact that their specific jobs are specialized doesn't change the fact that they all depend on corporations for their livelihoods, which gives them one HUGE similarity. Corporations are legal liability shields for the rich which give them unfair advantages in labor negotiations. Shouldn't workers have a similar right to "incorporate", so to speak, to act together through a representative body just as corporations do for owners?
This is a typical neo-conservative response. First they say free the market from regulation, then they say that employees trying to freely associate and set the price of their labor is against the free market. Whatever, dude.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Wrongo!
You laugh, but a one time IT workers were union, I knew one of the. Job description's were very narrow. Analysts wrote the specs, Programmers then coded, and loaders then loaded the programs into the machines.
Unions give security to unskilled labores because unions have the standard of last hired first fired. In IT shops when times get lean, managers pull out the performance reviews, rank everybody, then draw a line and can everybody below that line. At least that's the way it worked at every IT shop I've worked in. In a union shop, if your performance is borderline incompetant, and they have to hire additional personel the newer guys will be canned before you are when times get lean.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
That is a very arrogant and uninformed attitude. So you think machinists, electricians, teachers, police officers, firefighters, craftspeople, and nurses are unskilled? Come on, many working people are much more skilled than the average office worker. If fact, most unskilled laborers aren't in unions anyway, they're the guys you see in the morning hanging around 7-11 waiting for someone to pick them up for a day's work.
Unions exist to protect workers from exploitation from their employers and to promote a more equitible split of the fruits of their labor, pure and simple. And if you think unions are bad because they let working people earn a reasonable living, well, think of the alternative where our middle class evaporates and we have a somewhat sizeable well-to-do group and a HUGE poor population. Doesn't bode too well for the future, does it?
Even if you aren't in a union you benefit from their existance because they tend to normalize the employment market and keep corporations from acting too avariciously. Do you enjoy only working 5 days a week? How about getting medical insurance and retirement support? Do you like paid vacation? Thank the union movement.
The guild fights for additional training, for example, for IT pros. The IT pro's agree that for a mutually agreed period of time they wont leave their job for another. If they do, they are kicked of of the guild and loose the guild seal of approval (read certication). If the Guild actually enforced rules on its members in a such a way that companies would no longer see the Guild as a threat, then IT kiddie could actually start seeing better mobility and a promising future within a job rather than by changing jobs and companies would have the piece of mind that their Buzzword compliantly trained emplyees won't leave them for a bigger and better position upon learning a new craft.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Unions exist because people [have not been able to/have not been willing to] gather information on the labor marketplace.
There is no reason for unions to exist in a capitalistic environment: Where work is demanded, employers compete for empolyees. All that is needed is for independent groups to provide easy access to this employment data. Viola! No need for unions.
In my opinion, unions can only cause long-term harm to the economy by providing unnatural stress on businesses when economic pressures mandate change. With unions, these necessary changes are much harder to implement, and hurt union members in the long run.
Hmm... you didn't actually refute any of my claims - you just told me I was wrong.
Let's be honest. Unions members are lazier workers who are not as bright as skilled/white collar workers. I'm not saying union members should be forced to live bad lives because of their lower intellect; they probably got some benefit from unions in the past. But it seems like the time of unions is over even for these people.
Employment information is too easy to get in today's world. Especially for people who are more capable. I know this isn't PC to say, but it is true. Some people are born better looking, some are born smarter, some are born faster - and some are born the opposite.
Every time a society begins to submit to the will of stupid and the lazy (a significant % of laborers), it goes all downhill. Unions are just a symptom of a desire to socialize everything (because poor Johnny is too stupid to function without big brother!).
I know programmers and IT workers are too smart to fall for that trick.
Instead of forming unions, let's create programs to Help the Stupid and Lazy overcome their handicaps (only put in more palatable terms if you wish).
I love your scare tactics.
...and someday all our jobs will be obsoleted by computers that know how to program for $0.01/hour.
As long as we have a democratic nation with an uncorrupt government and lot's of free speech, there's nothing to worry about.
What you should be complaining about is our government's desire to do business with nations that do not practice these ideals.
#1. It's just self-evident. It's why the US excels over Europe (in everything but auto manufacturing... hmmm). Guaranteed jobs lead to lower output and less innovation. I'm sure there are many union workers who are hard working, but there must be a significant % who are not.
Intelligence allows people to think for themselves and to create their own opportunities. Education is definitely not required, but it helps.
#2. http://www.google.com/search?q=jobs
#3. Your examples are of relatively homogenious societies (esp. sweden) (which the US is not) - as they receive more immigrants the situation will change and they will be forced to ditch many of their social programs (sad, but true).
Your USSR example makes no sense(corrupt, undemocratic, no free speech). Actually, I don't think history provides any good examples of countries like the US. What we do know is that socialism hasn't been able to keep up with the US.
#4. Live and learn. Mistakes are made. With big-brother they take a revolution to recover from - recovery in a free market is relatively painless.
I would maintain that programming requires a certain amount of creativity, and that creativity is basically intelligence. And how many layed-off programmers are unable to pay for food and housing?
ps - I know it all sounds like "elitist garbage." I have a heart, but you can't cheat reality.
Let's agree to disagree, I don't have the energy to continue this and I don't believe we will be able change each other's minds.
Personally I don't think Unions are such a great idea for IT, HOWEVER, I think there is a severe lack of both Industry Associations and good books for IT management. There is a lot for programming, Sys Admin, Networking, technical details, etc, but barely anything on IT management itself. I think there is a desperate need for good group discussion on how and IT/IS department should function within an organization, providing services to internal customers. The days of the computer geek department are over. Geeks are still necessary, yes, but a more business oriented approach is important, and it seems many IT professionals have nowhere to go to talk about ideas and best practices in this respect. That's my rant!
Unions are not yet appropriate for the IT industry. Eventally they will be though. As the industry grows, the work will not require less skilled personel, but the skills will become more readily available. As this happens over time a union may serve to benefit te workers for than it might today.
Every industry seems to go through this cycle. An industry like the computer industry gets a tremendous boost by, say, the introduction of the PC, and a half a decade goes by without there being an academic curiculum available to churn out reasonably qualified people, then as soon as that curiculum is in place, companies feel that they have a never ending supply of grist for the mill. The same is true for the rapid growth of the internet. With the advent of an easy interface to information (the web), growth is spurred, and qualified people are difficult to find. The academic community lags about half a decade behind, but as soon as a curiculim is developed - and I saw a TV ad for a trade school advertising "become a certified webmaster" yesterday, so the time may be nearer than I'm suggesting - companies feel there is a never ending supply of talent out there.
That would be the point at which a union might be useful (once this corporate belief that IT is a comodity job, becomes prevelent). After the work becomes commodity work, for which there are many (supposidly) qualified people. Today, however, the job market is still good enough as to allow the qualified IT employee to seek out good companies and negotiate good terms of employment (with regard to required overtime and such).
As an entity for collective bargaining, the need for IT unions has not yet materialized, although I'd expect that in the next 5 years or so the need will arise. For that reason it may be valiable for a few unions to begin gathering steam, although the vast majority (the referenced poll from the article not withstanding) of IT workers will not feel the need to join. As a collective bargaining entity they just aren't needed yet.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
...not a labor union. I'm more concerned over the representation I'm receiving in Congress then in my CEO's office. When I speak in that office my voice is heard. When my opinion takes the form of a letter to my local congressperson the results are shall we say, minimal at best. We need advocates that will make our jobs easier by letting us do things like reverse engineering, white-hatting our own networks (which almost became a crime in the EU), examining empirical data and being able to discuss our findings.
We make enough money to live comfortably and we're actually able to do something about it if we feel short changed.
BOSTON SUCKS!
When I first started working with my current employer I looked at the union as a necessary evil. I was going to work for a very well respected company in my city and should get some good experience out of it so I figured I would stick with it for at least a while. Then the realization hit me. No matter how hard I worked I was not going to get much based on merit. Every year every employee gets the same percentage raise and the same perks. It made me start thinking why should I work hard? It doesn't pay off. /. readers seem to be the single male variety so they would probably prefer the Big Bucks, more hours, more pay option over a union. To each his own I guess, but I love being home by 5:00 every day.
Like the article states, it's not all about money with a union. In IT we hear so much about switching jobs and making the Big Bucks. Yes, with a union you don't get the Big Bucks. But, I work 40 hours a week, I am guaranteed training, I have great benefits, I get paid overtime, and most importantly, I see my family much more than at previous jobs.
I could go on about the pros and cons here but what it comes down to is preference. With a union you tend to have more job security and more guaranteed perks and benefits. You may get paid more at a non-union shop but you don't have much solidarity if management mandates forced overtime (which would probably be unpaid if you are salaried) or other similar negative policies.
From what I have read in the past it appears many
Even if you aren't in a union you benefit from their existance because they tend to normalize the employment market and keep corporations from acting too avariciously. Do you enjoy only working 5 days a week? How about getting medical insurance and retirement support? Do you like paid vacation? Thank the union movement.
Yes, I do. But at least in our industry, these things aren't due to unions. They're due to supply and demand.
As a former help desk jockey, I can tell you that even that job was at least ten times better than my job at the local fast food joint. Unions are need when pay is low and work is dangerous. Is helpdesk work pay low (relatively speaking), or is the work dangerous?
And why would you want to fight for your fellow workers? Why not fight for your own job? Unions are designed to protect the incompetent, no offense intended. Let the market separate the weed from the chaff. The only thing a union would do in the US is drive out business.
I don't believe that professionals should belong to unions. Unions do have their uses, but in the end they seem self serving than serving the true needs of their employees.
The best example of why professionals should never be subject to unions is the ALPA. This union, originally created to protect pilots now enslaves them. Through union rules a pilot can never go to another airline without being FORCED to the bottom of the ladder all because of rules the union fought for on the supposed behalf of the employees. If airline pilots are not "professionals" then I don't know who is. They are highly trained, rigorously tested, and entrusted with immense responsibility. Yet in turn their union makes them no better than numbers.
The worse unions are those in the public sector. Unions have no business there, there is enough protections by law for government employees, and for that matter all but the entry level regular employees, that they now have simply transformed themselves into political entities. Teacher unions constantly strike in the middle of school year, regardless of the effect on students, because suddenly they, the employee, have become more important than the students they serve. While teachers should be paid well and receive good benefits, in this case they should also be expected to not put themselves before the children entrusted to them. Want to be on strike, then show your professionalism by not doing it when children are being taught. These same unions also thwart almost every effort to require measurable results from their members. How is this a benefit to society?
This is why I don't think most IT level jobs should ever be unionized. For IT to work it requires people of demonstratable skills who are willing to work together to accomphlish the needs of the business. Considering the need for people in our field we sorely lack reason to be unionized. The common method is to scare people into believeing that they will lose everything and be constantly abused if they don't join. Why should I want to dedicate nearly 2 weeks of my pay to a union? If you don't believe that is what it costs, then I suggest you check into what some unionized people pay. Friends of mine pay more than one hour of their weekly paycheck as union dues! The unions explain away the true cost by saying things like "It only cost you xxxx per week, but look at the benifits. However look at the xxxx * 52 and see just how much money you really are paying!
The real money makers in unions are those employees in businesses that cannot afford to cheat their employees in the first place. The number of qualified people is way to low for them to get away with running them into the ground. Through networking I know which companies to avoid, and as should be they are always understaffed. It takes time, but they do come around.
With a unionized staff we would not have had the ability to rid the company I work for of people who thought the whole day was for smoke breaks and surfing. Thats the cost of a union, you will end up with people in your IT department who don't contribute, forcing those who do to pick up the pace.
No, the cost of losing my professionalism is not worth the benefits of joining a union. I take pride in doing my job, and learning to do it better everyday. I don't need a crutch, and fear having one available.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Unions exist to protect workers from exploitation from their employers and to promote a more equitible split of the fruits of their labor, pure and simple.
And if that's the reason that unions exist, then I agree that we don't need them in IT.
The tactic only works if management can replace you quickly and easily. That disqualifies most of the jobs Slashdotters have. But I think that as IT becomes larger and larger, more jobs will fall into the "replacable" category and unions may become needed.
Unions only work when dealing with workers whose positions have been commoditized is what you are saying. And you're right, that doesn't apply to IT. But beyond that, I don't think that it ever will apply to IT for the most part. Sure, there are your simple call center and desktop technicians that can probably be considered commoditized, but beyond that it's pretty much wide open.
The thing about IT is that everything is about customization. If you're a truck driver, the trucks are pretty standard. If you're a welder, the torches are pretty standard. If you're an electrician, the wiring jobs are all pretty standard. If you are a developer, everything that you do is customization. Your familiarity with the company's environment, needs, and existing codebase would probably take 6-9 months of training and "on-the-job" experience in order to replicate. You won't be commoditized anytime soon.
Between 1990 and 1998, overall inflation was about 22.5 percent. Average worker (non-executive) pay increased by about 28 percent (minus inflation, natch). Corporate profits rose about 104 percent. The S&P Index rose 224 percent (yes, we all know that's in the tank now). And CEO compensation? Well, that rose about 481 percent.
Interesting. Does anyone else find it odd that the study stopped in 1998? What if we extend it to include up to the first quarter of 2001? How much lower would that be due to stock market dips and cost-cutting? How many of those CEO's whose compensation rose 481% had that compensation drop to zero when they bungled some decision and ran their company out of business?
It's rise an fall...CEOs have a lot of problems. The compensation seems outlandish to us mere mortals, but as someone else pointed out it is often tied to stock performance. It's not uncommon for a CEO to have a $200,000 base salary and then options on 2 million shares. Or for there to be a performance bonus in the millions of dollars. But that's because they're driving the bus, and they'll only get them if the company does well. In that sense, the CEO's compensation is more tied to the well-being of the economy than the average workers (and 1990-1998 were GREAT years for the economy). But then we average workers don't get canned (usually) when the company's stock drops $10 and then have to spend 9 months with a headhunter to find another position that we're qualified for, so we have more security in that respect.
But beyond that, what if I found a company and am the CEO? Am I not entitled to outlandish compensation for my efforts in the company? As much as I hate Microsoft, when Bill Gates was CEO he deserved every penny of compensation that he received. When Steve Balmer took the reigns, he got a similarly large compensation package, and he deserved it too. They were both there busting their butts in the early days of Microsoft to make it into what it is today, and they certainly should be rewarded for creating such a large, powerful, and sucessful business.
All I am saying is that look at the long run, one day geek might go back to meaning a low life loser and not a tech stud. Just a thought
And when that day comes (if it ever comes), then that will be the time to form a union. If commoditization of our jobs occurs, then we can fight back by organizing. But by organizing now, we would be bringing about the very fate that we wish to avoid. Beyond that, I don't believe that the day will ever come that we would need a union to protect us from our employers anyway.
Unionizing is a great idea, the average union worker makes well more than minimum wage and well more than he would have otherwise made, or in teh case of some unions, had made in the past.
The average IT worker makes well more than minimum wage, and well more than he would have likely made in another trade, and most IT workers are making more money now than they did in the past.
Union workers have garunteed health benefits, garunteed retirement programs, work a maximum set of hours (how many 14 hours days have YOU pulled this year), are treated more fairly, are taken more seriously by management because numbers have clout, get liveable minimums set for a variety of other things.
IT workers (most) have health benefits, retirement programs (401K or IRA accounts), are treated better than the average worker in most of trades, and are well above liveable minimums for most other things.
On the subject of working a maximum number of set hours, I don't see an advantage to that. As a consultant I bill hourly, so the more hours I work the better. In most cases the average IT worker doesn't work more hours than he is willing to. Those that do end up working more hours than they care to usually end up going somewhere else to work, just like every other non-union workers. In most professions today you will find that most people work long hours. That's just the way of things with a professional job. When you are a tradesman long hours become an issue because you are a commodity. They don't have to have the same person there working that machine for 12 hours a day, but it's cheaper than hiring another person to work it for 4 hours.
As far as being taken more seriously by management goes, I don't know what you mean. My managers (the people I report to) always take me seriously. They are paying for my opinions and experience. The management at my consulting company takes me seriously because I am a good worker who knows his stuff (and I make them money). I think that you'll find the whole "not taken seriously" aspect to be far more prevalent in blue-collar, commoditized jobs. An expert coder is usually taken more seriously by his boss than an expert machine-stamp operator. White-collar bosses look at the employees more as equals than blue-collar bosses because they usually ARE more equal in terms of experience, education, lifestyle, etc.
Every industry seems to go through this cycle. An industry like the computer industry gets a tremendous boost by, say, the introduction of the PC, and a half a decade goes by without there being an academic curiculum available to churn out reasonably qualified people, then as soon as that curiculum is in place, companies feel that they have a never ending supply of grist for the mill. The same is true for the rapid growth of the internet. With the advent of an easy interface to information (the web), growth is spurred, and qualified people are difficult to find. The academic community lags about half a decade behind, but as soon as a curiculim is developed - and I saw a TV ad for a trade school advertising "become a certified webmaster" yesterday, so the time may be nearer than I'm suggesting - companies feel there is a never ending supply of talent out there.
IT has existed for decades, just not in its present form. Schools have had IT curriculums for many years...they're called CS, CIS, MIS, etc degrees. What you are seeing is an expression of people who still want to take advantage of the whole "dot-com revolution" by convincing people that a 2-week boot camp will allow them to earn $100,000 a year.
The IT job market will never become commoditized for the simple reason that a 2-week boot camp WILL NOT allow you to earn $100,000 a year. A great deal of education, training and experience goes into becoming a skilled IT worker. There is in effect a barrier to entry to the market. As long as that initial investment is necessary, the market will not become commoditized.
Unions had their place, and that place will come back if they disappear. Nonetheless, I don't think that we have such a complaint to lodge that WE need one. And, for the record, as someone who once had to deal with them from a management perspective, I hate unions.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
I'm well paid, I don't work many hours, and my benefits package is quite nice. Why on earth would I want a Union? Unions have been terrible for teachers in this country (the good ones make as much as the terrible ones). Just imagine what IT unions would be like: IT flunkies that barely know Windows NT will be paid the same as talented Unix and Oracle admins. I think my knowledge of C, C++, Java, EJB, Solaris, NT, AIX, Cisco IOS, and a degree is CS is worth more than a what a union can give me. -ted
The issues that are on their minds:
;-)
Training
This is a pretty good reason, but what amount of training is necessary? Training engineers to do a job beyond what they were hired to do is not in the company's best interest, that's why they don't offer it in many places. However, most companies will offer training on the existing or newly implemented systems, and those skills are transferable.
Establishing standards for software development
Like anyone really wants this...
Protecting benefits
IANAL, but wouldn't the company have to compensate you at whatever amount they signed to on your employment contract?
Forced overtime and the H1-B visa
Forced overtime and H1-B visas are two separate issues.
Forced overtime is an integral part of software development. This isn't highrise construction we're talking about here where a single contractor will be responsible for a single structure. Software is on the most highly competitive industries today. If your company averages 40 hours a week of productivity per employee, it's going to get eaten by the company that averages 45 hours a week of productivity. Schedules are short because they have to be. Unless you are an Open Source company (or even if you are) you are hampered only by your own ability to produce. Unions will do nothing to alleviate forced overtime.
H1-Bs are a terrible visa system, but frankly the only one that the U.S. has got. It would be better to have a visa that allowed job title changes, longer "out of work" periods (it's 10 days currently), and easier transition to permanent resident status (green card). However, the unions seem to be focused on getting rid of foreign workers altogether in an effort to "save American jobs", rather than supporting foreign workers' right to employment in a global economy.
Anyway, that's just my karma whore opinion.
Dancin Santa
Here's a little data to consider in the context of this discussion:
Between 1990 and 1998, overall inflation was about 22.5 percent.
Average worker (non-executive) pay increased by about 28 percent (minus inflation, natch).
Corporate profits rose about 104 percent.
The S&P Index rose 224 percent (yes, we all know that's in the tank now).
And CEO compensation?
Well, that rose about 481 percent.
Unions are far from perfect institutions. Like any organization they are prone to take on a life of their own. Like any nexus of power they can acquire nasty relationships with nasty people.
But the fact remains that there is still plenty of room for collective bargaining on the parts of non-executive workers. It's fairly clear who's really reaping the awards under the current power structures.
Source: 1998 Executive Excess report, United for a Fair Economy and Institute for Policy Studies,
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Union workers are fat, annoying, elitist jerks who make too much money for what little work they do. Any time you contact one, he is as likely to ignore you as to actually help you out, and when he does help you there's a good chance he'll act put out.
This surly, onoxious attitude makes them meld perfectly with IT folks, with the small exception that I've yet to see a mob run IT department.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
You're right - you're very talented and deserving of your pay. But as technology is maturing, sysadmins that can program are going to become obsolete (all you'll have to know to do is call MS support).
You will be your own undoing here: you are eating into Corporate profits. If they can pay a less qualified person less money than you make, then you will be fired. If they can pay someone in India or Russia less (where the labor laws are more lax or unenforced), then you and your less talented successor will both be out of jobs... and sweatshop labor isn't good for Nike sneaker, Gap shirts, or IT. No racism behind it. Corporations will seek to exploit their work forces to get higher profits, no matter where they are.
Now if you seek to complain, you will be fired, and if you complain too badly, you will be blacklisted. then you will starve. histories lesson is that people will exploit others for personal gain if possible. organized reaction is one of most effective methods of fighting oppression. hence the unions. sorry the hobbesian outlook on life, but you are being naive to thing the people upstream for you wouldn't fire you if possible to make even a buck more a year...
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
i feel that quite a few people in slashdot who are not so familiar with the concepts of supply and demand will gain an appreciation of labor history and economics after 3 more graduating classes of IT employees.
...electricians were bleeding edge once, too...
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
As the network administrator and SOLE computer guru for a medium-sized public library, I find myself getting the short end of the stick, so far as salary is concerned. You see, if you don't have that gold-embossed MS degree in library Science here, you don't get paid shit (pardon my language, I know many of you have sensitive eyes ;-) )
Some would argue that a higher degree should mean more money, but here I am with a degree entirely unrelated to computers or library science (Theatre Arts, thank you very much), getting paid 10k less than the librarians who are both YOUNGER than me and INCAPABLE of anything beyond typing a document in M$ Word. Do I feel slighted because I started as a Mac person who eventually worked his way to an understanding of Linux and still gets paid squat?
Mmmmmm...... COULD BE!
Of course, not having formal training in IT means that no one would hire me if I chose to jump ship, ergo my return to the classroom at the local community college. But I can see how IT unionization would benefit me, or at least others like me.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!