Silicon Valley Rebirth?

broohaha writes "Using the analogy of fire clearing dead wood and making room for new life in a forest, there's a Newseek article out on the goings on in Silicon Valley these "post-bubble" days. Subjects briefly covered are Intel, Google, and Wozniak's new venture, Wheels of Zeus." It'd be difficult to be literally rebirthed from the thousands of tons of concrete that now seemingly cover the Valley, but hey, as a metaphor, it works.

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ITAA has won too many victories

[nabucco]

With hundreds of thousands of H1-Bs in Silicon Valley, and 200,000 more on their way each year, the ITAA has won it's victory against engineers (aside from their doing away with FLSA overtime requirements for computer professionals, or overturning repetitive stress injury laws). It's never going to be the same for engineers unless they start educating themselves and supporting professional organizations of the like that doctor's (AMA) and lawyer's (ABA) have.

For instance, there's a bill in Congress, HR 3222, which links the number of new H1-B visas granted to the unemployment rate. What professional organizations are pushing to get this bill a hearing? It's pathetic that IT worker's are less organized than doctor's, lawyers or even steel workers (who just got a nice present from Bush in terms of tarriffs). Until engineers start educating themselves, and then their fellow engineers, and joining or forming organizations like Washtech, CESO, AEA and the Programmer's Guild, this post-boom slump will last a long, long time. Same old 60 hour weeks and 24/7 oncall, but for less and less pay.