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Unions in the Tech Sector?
nanogeek asks: "I've worked for a few years in the computing infrastructure/support department of a large university. In my time here, there have been organizational movements and/or strikes by many segments of the employee and student population (librarians walking out, grad-students seeking a fair wage for TA responsibilities, etc). However, none of this fervor for collective bargaining and fair treatment by the upitty-ups seems to have touched our department; and this seems to be rather endemic to geekjobs. In a year when commerce was brought to a halt on the west coast over a dispute about the change in the use of technology in the shipping industry, I have seen my department and my co-workers displaced, disrespected, displeased, and occasionally dismissed over the same kinds of technological shifts (in both my case and that of the longshoremen, the changes require retraining and reshuffling of workload, manpower, and payment). Common complaints have been that we were never consulted before these changes were enacted, and I wonder if a powerful union could be the answer. Is there room for such labor organization amongst geeks? Does the mutability of the technology involved preclude the kind of stasis brought about by unionization? Does the status of the economy currently make it so that any attempt at such broad-based organization could be circumvented by black-listing and purging members from the rolls? Or could a powerful geekunion bring about a sea-change after which a modicum of parity between the bosses and the drones could be established?"
Also, think of this: with an IT union, wages will most likely be capped for its members. Rather than the open market determining rates, it will be the union. I, personally, would much rather take my chances and go for the higher wage.
I have seen my department and my co-workers displaced, disrespected, displeased, and occasionally dismissed over the same kinds of technological shifts
Oh yeah, poor you, forced to work there. Unions are the last refuge of the inept and the inflexible.
People whine about the RIAA being anti-free-market, protectionist, etc, then turn around and propose something like a union? Gimme a break.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Many's the time the other PhD's and I down at the lab have grumbled about how we get low wages despite the fact we are building the future. If only there was some way we could organize and demand some respect and acknowledgement. Forming a union sounds like a great idea. If we got enough backing we could even demand that the fat-cat politicians be kicked out of Washington and that the intelligentsia (by which I mean me and the people I work with) be put in charge.
That said, I tend to share that attitude. I think unions are a critical part of a modern post-industrialized society; but they all seem to think that they need to be doing things constantly. Frankly, right now in the IT market, a hypothetical union shouldn't be doing anything significant at all: pay is decent, benefits are decent, and so on. The reason it's not as good as it was two years ago is the economy, and you can't blame just one or two companies for that. And I just don't trust unions not to try to wring concessions out of an employer, and get half the union downsized out of jobs in the process to pay for the bennies of the half that got to stay on.
It's probably not going to happen. Unions tend to foster lower pay in exchange for job security and steady hours. Tech heads tend to want high pay in exchange for little job security and strange hours.
Unions do not do anyone any good except those who will not work hard and achieve. Without a union, you are still free to demand higher wages and better conditions and quit if you don't like it. A Union constricts the employers and employees and allows slugs to subsist on the achievement of others. If you want job security, go work for the government. Tech jobs are probably among the best, most well-paid and have the most favorable environments, and saying that you need a union to improve upon that is just crap.
http://www.naildrivin5.com/davec
I would like to state, officially and on record, that the responses to this article thus far have ruled.
There is not ONE (nor more) namby-pamby socialist to be found.
Why the hell would I want to give up part of my salary in order to help out those who make my working life harder?
There was a time when the union came in handy. Our boss (anti union) wished to put two union workers under a non union boss (demotion) and change work hours (for some reason you made more pay if you worked second shift/overnight shift) without changing pay rate. Also an increase in hours, on call times, yada yada, plenty more I wont go into . Overall the union did a fine job keeping a boss from abusing his employees.
However, the same union rules prevented us from accomplishing things as well (no unapproved overtime, so when a project ran long, we HAD to go home, even if we wanted to stay and fix the problem so that several hundred users would be operating okay).
They're sometimes useful, but more often then not, they're an annoying hassle.
Most geeks are arrogant. We're used to having complete control over our own domain (whether that's our personal box or a huge network) and we brook little interference. We each believe that we're the best, or that with a little more experience with X, we'll become the best. After all, we got where we are largely by teaching ourselves, right? What's so hard about learning a few more things?
... imagine that ... the mainstream media, controlled by the same few large corporations, presents a largely negative view of unions to the U.S. public. It's occured to me that perhaps they have a bias.
... 250 years.
There's something to be said for this attitude - most people have trouble with computers just because they're afraid of them - but there's much to be said against it.
Stastically speaking, most geeks are not high-end, in-demand, uber-geeks. Nor will we become such. We forget that other people learn at least as fast and well as we do, that the entire geek population is filled with people who basically get high on learning new ways to control their digital environment. It's like the Prarie Home Companion: "All the children are above average." It ain't so.
All the replies to this thread so far have echoed a common perception of unions: they exist to enforce mediocrity and prop up the lowest common denominator. Question for those who hold such a view: where did you get it? From the newspaper? From TV? From a series of reports on-line?
Hmmm
My older sister is pretty high up in the USPS union, and she talks about it a fair amount, so I am informed. Being in the union is a little like being arrested by the cops - everyone, theoretically, has the same right to a defence. This [supposed] sniper guy - he's getting a public defender. Yeah he looks guilty, but that's not the point; the point is that it has to be proven - he has to be granted due process.
There's a large part of unionization for you: due process. Management knows that it can't capriciously fire someone for (e.g.) having the wrong political viewpoint because the union will take it to task.
Another part of unionization is collective bargaining. Those with valuable skills in a certain domain will band together and say to management, "If you want our skills, here's how we define 'fair treatment.'" There's nothing anti-capitalist about the idea of unions (implementation is another thing) - it's simply one group of people selling their services to another group.
People are stronger acting together. Unions, implemented correctly, start and end with that sentiment. This "rugged individualism" (rugged geekdom?) plays well on TV, but doesn't scale to real life. We've all seen that typical geek skills are becoming more common and less valuable.
Once upon a time being an auto worker was an arcane skill - only a handful of people could build cars, and no one thought it was possible to automate the process. In hindsight that was incorrect. Put down your cyberpunk novel for a minute and realize that the assembly-line was created by Henry Ford specifically to commoditize auto labor, to take as much skill as possible out of the profession. And it worked, while everyone else thought it was impossible. Who'll be the Henry Ford of geekdom? Want to bet your future that one will never appear?
Ask yourself why organized labor scares management so much. Is it because companies care about their workers, their products, or the people who buy them? If you believe that you haven't been reading the news for the last
Having said all that, there are some very real problems with unions. But no more so than with any other group of people, with human faults and foibles. You're a cog in a machine. Maybe you're an especially large and influential cog, but you won't stay that way. Whether you organize with the other cogs is up to you.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
I don't know about you, but there are many reasons to consider unions for techs:
1) H1B visa abuses.
2) Exporting IT and programming jobs overseas.
3) Significant layoffs across the board in silicon valley (yeah - some might think that it's deserved, but ask no for whom the bell tolls...)
I am quite concerned about being able to work as an engineer for 20 more years (I've got 11 years already). I think that the corporations will find ways to reduce our salaries. What will you do when your $100K/yr job is gone and the only things around are $30K work at Frys?
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
Unions mean you work when you are told and under the conditions of the union. Entrepreneurs are going to constantly be presured to tow the line or leave town. No moonlighting. Competitive wages will be gone. You'll work for scale, and give a (large) percent of your income to the union.
In the case of United Auto Workers, unions costs have doubled the price of most cars. Expect IT to become more expensive and go overseas. The tech sector is already hurting. Unions could kill it.
A large portion of the tech community consists of people who have an impaired ability to work with others and a distorted view of their own importance.
Plenty of IT types see themselves as the backbone of the company, since they "support" the systems that are the "backbone" of most organizations. They work long hours without overtime and are often on call. Programmers often have it even worse, having to deal with short deadlines and an always increasing demand for quality.
To make this more palatable, companies have infused workers with the idea that they are being "entrepreneurial" by working outragous hours and doing unreasonable work. The lure of stock options and advancement has convinced plenty of people to abandon their lives and families in favor of careers.
In reality, most IT workers are tiny cogs in a wheel. As time goes on, distributed systems and offshore labor will either automate or export their jobs out of the market.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I don't even believe in tieing vacation to length of service. Give the cash and the bennies to the high performers and let the mediocre fight for the scraps.
Many others have already detailed the downside of unions. I would add that jobs that require higher intelligence and greater individual motivation to learn and better themselves (such as Engineering, IT, and other high-tech industries) do not lend themselves well to unionization. The members are simply too intelligent to put up with the expense, corruption, and BS of "Big Labor".
Todays labor unions are less about improving the fate of their members and more about increasing the funds in their pension accounts and gathering political power.
For instance, the largest teachers union may as well just be a fundraising wing of the DNC.
Professional cat herder: Must be able to crack whip while groveling, talk out of both sides of ass and type with toes. Needed to design, implement and manage a geek union. Organisational skills a plus but not required.
I think this ComputerWorld article sums it up pretty well...
Alot of the Slashdot Libertarians will post their negative views on unions (And I agree with some of those negative points), so I'll post a positive view.
I'm actually amazed that IT wokers don't organize. IT workers are willing to bend over backwards for their bosses: 15 hour work days, no weekends, cancelling vacations, endless workloads, changing goals. You would rarely see this in a union shop.
I used to work at one of the only unionized IT shops in the US: www.igc.org (Some of you may remember IGC from the early-web days. We provided usenet, web, and mailinglist services to nonprofits and NGOs). I served as a union rep for 1 year.
After 2.5 years in a union shop and 2 years at a non-union-shop, I prefer the Union. Here's why:
- At the union, we all worked 40 hours a week, sometimes more to meet the deadlines. I rarely worked weekends. We got more pay for pager duty.
- Most union members get Wage pay vs Salary (but this isn't specific to the union). More then 40 hours = overtime pay. This financial incentive encourages management to hire enough staff. With Salary pay, it doesn't matter if you work 70 hours vs 40 hours, you get paid the same. Management has a financial incentive to squeeze you for as much time as they can get
- At the dotcom, I worked 50-70 hours a week. Refusing the work was not an option. Even though I made 20% more money at the dotcom job, I made LESS PER HOUR then at the Union.
- Equitable pay rates. None of this "John and Jane both do the same job and have the same experience, but John makes $30K more then Jane because he was hired during the dotcom boom" bullshit.
- You can still get more pay with more experience
- You can still get bonuses based on merit and goals.
- You can have a Union rep on the board of directors/management team/leadership circle . None of this "Managment is switching all of your tasks. You need to have project Y done by next week! Now get going!" crap that I see in typical businesses.
- The union reps have special legal protections in most states. A union rep can go to the head of the company, and say that their plan is doomed to failure. In a typical business, you might get fired or disciplined for 'subordination'. That can't happen to you if you are a union rep (In most US States).
- We had monthly union meetings to make sure that our shop was on track
- Union reps were elected in a fair, anonymous, democratic process
Note: Most of the above points can occur in any business. But it's rare unless the workers organize.
At the same time, none of the above issues are mandatory to a union. It's your union, and your membership can decide what it wants to do. You can be as strict or as flexible as you want.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Unions are the last refuge of the inept and the inflexible
Before you make such an ignorant comment, I suggest you read a little history about what working class life was like before unions. Or what such life is like in non-unionized countries. Or what's been happening in the US as the power of the unions has been undermined by the plutocrats who run our country.
Sure, there are problems with specific unions, and specific situation. Guess what? There is no perfect system. But if you want to see a real refuge for "the inept and the inflexible", I suggest you look into the manager and low-level VP ranks of any significantly sized company. It sure isn't those folk who get laid off when the senior management fscks up.
I've seen the acronym "TA" appear in a few articles recently - could someone please explain it for me. Ty.
I swear by my job, and my pride in it, that I will never join any union, brotherhood, or "workers association", nor will I allow, tolerate or associate with any such entity in any job I ever work at.
My skills are my own soverign property-- no union, guido, flim-flam man, or other parasite will ever profit from them, nor will they be allowed to undermine my value by negotiating in my behalf.
As a FREE MAN, I know my value, and will never submit to the tyranny of others.
I will never allow myself to be in a position where someone can extort money from me under penalty of losing my job if I don't pay it.
I am a free man. I will not give that up.
No unions.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
You want unions? Do a little field trip. Visit a union office and talk to the president. Now try to decide if you want this guy to A) take a manditory deduction from your paycheck every month B) negotiate your pay raise C)tell you when you have to take breaks D) tell you what you can and cannot do at your job. I'd rather keep my money and negotiate myself.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Grad students earning extra money running tutorials, marking work, that kind of thing... Storyline about their unionisation battles in Doonesbury, but the archive search isn't working right now.
- Good nerds pulling the weight of the lazy nerds. Incompetent nerds are never allowed into the union. Less competent nerds are paid less than the better nerds. Nerds who slack will be kicked out of the union.
- The jobs being shipped to cheaper workers off shore. First off, if the off shore workers are willing to do the same work for less pay, then the jobs will be shipped there even if we don't unionize. However, the union can represent a body of workers with a skill level that they aren't guarnteed from random off shore workers.
- No ability to work overtime. This could be a major disadvantage. However, too many coorporation have been making it where only the lowest levels of employees are paid hourly, everyone else is salaried. So, which do you prefer, no option of overtime, or 80 hours of unpaid overtime.
- Ridiculuous union rules. True, there will be rules imposed by the union, which could very well be annoying. But wasn't there a recent Slashdot Article explaining that businesses will soon begin inforcing its rules upon the nerd community. The choices are the silly rules of the nerd union, or the silly rules of management.
The computer industry is different from the auto industry, so we can't just use the same rules. I know my system is far from perfect, but at least I tried to work on it, rather than saying that it can't be done.These are both projects of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Some of the CWA leadership actually have a clue that if they tech workers are going to organize, their unions aren't going to look like the Teamsters or UAW.
Techs Unite
WashTech
and there is no place for a union in IT. We are professionals, as were public school teachers, before they were unionized. .sigs), "Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither"(go ahead and correct me, I know I don't have it verbatim). However tempting it is, seeing the layoff axe swing closer and closer, minds strong and flexible enough to do what we do can't submit to chains.
Unions can be beneficial in jobs that can be filled by just anybody. If you can be replaced by somebody who can be fully trained to take over from you and produce just as well as you, the next day, your employer is unlikely to restrain himself from abusing his position of power. In cases like that, the only way for the workers to have sufficient influence over the job is to pool their influence.
It's unfortunate when they must do so, both for the employer, AND the employees. If management could have made work tolerable for the employees to where they didn't need to unionize, and management failed to take that action, they've just inserted massive inefficiencies and rigidity into their operation for no good reason. If management was unable to accomodate the employees demands because the business would not support it, there is now no way to save the business.
For the employees (as a whole, not the first ones in), they are now stuck in a situation where the only way to advance is to wait their turn in the rigid union heirarchy, or move into management.
Once you give up your right to negotiate for yourself, you are no longer a professional. It reminds me of the quote from Benjamin Franklin (often seen in
Rather than reiterate what others have mentioned already, I'd like to add one little benefit about unions. Most, if not all, unions have lobbyists. A percentage of the money you spend to the union would go to having our own folks in Washington fighting to have politicians pass laws that are sane and beneficial to us. Having powerful people in politicking for us would do a lot more than sitting here on slashdot and whining about the abuses of the DMCA, the Patriot Act, etc.
Of course, this would mean that in elections, we would all have to vote the same way, and most "geeks" (I hate that word) are too damn stubburn, independent, and argumentative to vote a certain way because our union endorses a certain candidate.
Worst Sig Ever
"In just two years you can be well on your way to a life of wealth and fame. Blabalbal"
Not to mention the Big tech firms importing H1B visa slaves by the boatload and monster layoffs in Silicon Valley and it's little clones around North America. Shipping big but not complex programming projects off the Outer Mongolia and Elbonia
Tech firms pay big for good people, they always will, but case in point I worked at small tech firm a few years ago and the CTO used Taos, While they did have some clueful people they also had a practice of training losers to pass the Solaris and MS certs.
Sure they passed, but that's all they know. I expect newbies to be ignorant but eager. Certs are an instant sign marking them with a large L on their foreheads. These guys were just clowns.
I have proudly have no certs and a the height of the boom I was making $120k
If we are stuck with some form of Unions why not go back to the origins out situation is just like the days of Gutenberg, the printing press revolutionized the world, much like computers have now. There is still room to grow, but we need to cover are asses.
As a professional society we can have a voice and properly rank our members according to skill level. A tech manager who hires a guild journeyman would know that person is able to do certain things and have a resource of higher skilled people to call on.
If you can quantify how much your staff knows then you can make accurate plans. Beancounters hate it when you say
"Will it take long? - Hours? Days? Weeks? Who knows? Genius is mysterious." (Marcel Marceau as Professor Ping in Barbarella [1968] )
I doubt any of you haven't heard the referances to the "DUNE" Guilds about Third Stage Guild Navigators regarding Master Sysadmins and Coders. Why not make if formal?
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
In an free market, wages and working conditions are set by supply and demand.
The main objective of Unions is to force through salaries higher than the market rate. If they are successful, they will get these improvements at the expense of:
- Other employees (unionized or not) - Company profitability
In other words, at their best, unions are successful zero sum game players. Typically they do much more harm than this: - Cause unemployment, as few employees want to pay above market rate - Attract employees to old-fashioned parts of the economy. For example, people want to become port workers instead of IT nerds because the former pays better (which of course would not be the case if wages were set by the market) - Cause strikes and other obviously economcially harmful activities - Fight technological innovation (i.e., stop bar code technology in the port).
It is a fallacy to say that the long work of unions have caused today's high standard of living. It is not like Rockefeller et al sat with enough modern cars, computers and TV shows to supply the entire nation, and that the Unions managed to take these luxuries and distribute them. Rather, it is the fantastic improvements in productivity in all sectors that have given the masses a descent living.
One can also observe the development of real wages in industrial countries. It turns out that these have grown more in countries with weak unions (US, Switzerland) than in countries with strong ones (France, Sweden).
Vote NO for an IT union.
Tor
The issue in the West Coast lockout (the workers did not strike) is about their contract, which the PMA wants to break.
The PMA is the Pacific Maritime Association. It's a union for the companies. What, are you surprised that business owners have their own union? Of course they do. They're not stupid.
There are two types of people; those who divide people into two types of people, and those who don't.
The Recording Industry Association of America. It's a union, for management. An organization of companies, that hire lawyers, bribe politicians, and negotiates for their own interests.
Imagine if we had a "Music Buyers Association of America" - we could do the same thing.
Or, we can read Ayn Rand novels about the glorious free market system that doesn't exist in the real world. Your choice.
There are two types of people; those who divide people into two types of people, and those who don't.
It's interesting that companies like Microsoft, et al, are sending jobs over to Communist China, while preaching to us about the wonders of free market capitalism.
In communist China, there are no unions. Try to start one, you wind up in jail, or dead.
The union movement was started in America, by Americans. The right to join and form unions is protected by the Constitution (it's called the freedom of assembly).
Of course, companies are smart enough to join their own unions, like the Chamber of Commerce, industry associations, RIAA, MPAA.
Remember the IT management union, the people that lobbied to government to allow all those H1Bs into the country, to lower wages? They did a great job. That's what organization does, it gives you power and a better position to bargain.
There are two types of people; those who divide people into two types of people, and those who don't.
Let's take a little mental trip to everyone's favourite un-Unionized workplaces - the EPZs of the Phillipines (or various other countries in that reigion)! There we have workers in factory, doing unsafe jobs, being underpaid, and getting no respect from their superiors. Comparing that to the Tech sector, I can hear all our local /. Liberatarians screaming "that could never happen to us, they're unskilled and we're not, we can just walk if we're unhappy" and other fun things like that. But I encourage you to think with a bit of a more global perspective.
You think you're safe because you're skilled? What about all the people coming out of schools in India and the Far East, who are just as skilled and hardworking as you are. And they're willing to work for a third of the price you are, because cost-of-living is so low there. Or they'll work for an equally low wage here if you dangle the magic letters "H1-B" in front of their faces.
So why don't we all just walk if we're not happy with our situation? Well, for the obvious, where are we gonna walk to, and what will we do when we get there? Sure, you can say you'll walk to Fry's, but in this discussion, that's not what anyone means. Walking is both bad for you (you've gotta find a new job) and bad for teh Company (they've gotta get all the new workers integrated with the project).
On a more general note, is their any other industry where it's considered acceptable for the workers to have to work 16-hour days and weekends, carry pagers 24/7, kill holidays at the last minute, and spend their lives in dark cramped rooms in front of a monitor? No other industry would stand for this - it'd be illegal. If we want any power of negotiation, we need to Unionize.
Having said that, I also think there should be some limits on it. In France, for example, it takes only two people to call a strike (but it has to be over an issue for the common good). The SNCF is en greve literally every week in some part of the country. That's too far. What I want is a Union that will stop my job being transfered to Bangalore (or Wisconsin) for no other reason than the bottom line of a company. I want a Union that will make sure I'm compensated if I have to spend most of my expensive holiday in Austria and my valuble vacation days on the phone because the Global Crossing pipeline went down (happened to a friend of mine). And I want a Union that will stand up for me when I say "no" to the "can you come in on Saturday and Sunday" question because my son has a school play - or because I want to sleep in and watch the Game on TV (or at least make sure I'm well-compensated for it). That's what I want, and what we need.
Cue The Sun...
It would be an awfully good antidote to Sun's N1, which aims to replace large numbers of systems administrators with a little program that Sun wrote. ;)
At least, that's their goal, anyhow.
I have worked in several union shops (manufacturing companies) in the past, and currently work for a RBOC (union shop) being contracted out to a large aerospace manufacturer (union shop). Since I'm in IT, I'm not a bargained employee. Here's what I have witnessed:
At the RBOC for whom I work, the local CWA decided to threaten to go on strike. The company was doing poorly (as every telecom was/is) and needed to cut costs to stay in business. Instead of offering all-expense-paid benefits to the employees, the company wanted to do a more traditional "we pay most, you pay some" health plan -- I think it works out to around $20-40 per bi-weekly paycheck for a family plan. The union nearly walked (and I mean it was down to the *last* minute). I do not have any desire to have co-workers that maintain that mentality.
At one manufacturing facility, I was on the floor of the DC, hooking up some fibre. We had the union electrical workers run the cable from cabinet to cabinet, and they turned it over to me so I could actually hook it up. While plugging the fibre into the switch, it slipped out of my hand, went through the hole in the floor, and landed in the cable tray under the floor. I nearly had a greivance filed against me because I reached down and picked it up (without pulling the floor tile, no less!), instead of calling in the union electricians again to pluck the cable from the basket, about 8 inches below the floor. I do not wish to work with people that have that mentality.
At a different manufacturer, I needed a null-modem serial cable built. I'm quite versed in cutting silver satin cable, crimping ends on to them, and assembling DB25 adapters. Instead of being able to put that together in the 10 to 15 minutes it would have taken me, I had to wait 2 weeks for the on-staff, union electricians to build the cable for me. I gave them the exact pin-outs, and yet, they managed to cross the wires. Instead of being able to open the DB hood and change the pinouts myself, I had to send it back to them and wait another 2 weeks until they could "get around" to fixing it. I do not wish to work with people with that mentality.
At that same company, I had to wait for about 3 days after I was hired, for a union member to come and move a desk from the office next to mine, so that I'd have a place to put things, like my computer and phone and whatnot. Three days, I had no desk, even though there were three of them in the office next door. Simply because they had a guy who would file a grievance if anyone moved furniture except him. I really don't want to work with anyone with that sort of mentality.
The long and the short of it is that I have seen first hand, in several different companies, how the unions' protection of a single employee has lowered the efficiency of the company, and of the other employees of the company. I've heard this brought up time after time, and I can't think of any way to make my day at work worse than by bringing in a union.
The Union I work for is focused on trying to be a partner with the organisations in it's membership. By creating a partnership between the employers and the employees (represented by the union) there is the ability to foster the idea of a team, everyone paddling the same canoe etc. Of course a public sector union with a Labour (left wing, union friendly) government helps!
As with some of the comments I have read, I haven't joined a union because I have an attitude of a job has to be done so it will be done (sleep, food, drink excepting). But at the same time I have seen/heard some of the things that employers do to employees and to be fair the dumbass things employees have done to employers to get them to respond in that way. But basically for me it is "We are all individuals" Life of Brian.
In an ideal world there should be no need for unions, employers and employees should be working together for their mutual benefit - the employee knowing they need a job and a employer knowing they need the skilled (ok skill can vary a wee bit) labour to get the product or service out the door. Natural attrition and the more skilled people rising to the top (with associated benefits) should create a natural order
But then in an ideal world there should be no need for armies, police states, anti-terrorists campaigns etc.
--this is quite the amusing thread. Like you I maintain I am a "free man" but realistically, you and I work for the private federal reserve bank and the private IRS incorporated* if you follow the economic food chain far enough and don't stop at some cop-out point. Tyranny? Be honest now, the employers we work for sub out to some other employer, but the truthful bottom line is they own you, they allow you to keep some of it, but they come from a default they own all of it, so therefore they 0\/\/n j00. Don't believe it? this is a quote from you "I will never allow myself to be in a position where someone can extort money from me under penalty of losing my job if I don't pay it."
You aren't?
Here's another one of your quotes "As a FREE MAN, I know my value, and will never submit to the tyranny of others."
You don't? really?
What tax bracket you in again? How does that compare with some trifling union dues someone pays? Are the "services" you receive for the thousands ripped from you representative of your own free will wishes? No? Yes?
Try this --> I Dare ya to send the corporation called the IRS a signed legit letter and tell them to bite you, that the fruits of your own soverign labor are all your's to do with as you wish, that none of it is their's so buzz off and etc. make it as purty as ya please, just cover that basic ground. Go ahead, try. Report back what they say, if you are in truth a "free" man or not. Report back how long you stay employed and perhaps if your address has changed to some cellblock someplace. If not, please forward a copy of the magic formula you used in the letter. I'll reimburse for the postage, no probs.
* Look it up yourself, the irs is a private corporation, same as the "federal" reserve bank. You work for someone, they work for them. Use google, see if this isn't so.
I like macs, too, BTW. But I like "computers" in general better. They are all "neat stuff" to me.
Since he brought it up, I will air my grievences.
,000 members. And most people think, well it must be a lot of jobs at stake. They would be wrong. The estimates, by the union itself, is 200-250 jobs. 200 people cost the economy of the US something approaching US$1,000,000,000 per day! For over 10 days!
I work for a company that imports all manner of goods from overseas. The majority of the goods (~95%) come from China and Taiwan. Anything from that area of the world is shipped by boat directly across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of the US, Canada, and South America. Most container ships are too big (wide) to go through a canal, be it Suez, or Panama. Unfortunately, most companies are stuck shipping the goods to the W.C. and then using ground (rail, sometimes truck) transport to a major distribution center, such as Charlotte, NY, Kansas City, Chicago etc etc. From there, containers are seperated, ie your 4 pallets are taken out of container, put onto a truck, and shipped to the city (usually) of final destination. Before the container is stripped, it is time for the goods to clear customs. This is when all duties are paid. Some things are duty free (lawn mower parts), and others have insanely high duties (int/ext tooth lockwashers are ~40%). Oh, I hope those wooden pallets (metric pallets are now being made of steel) have papers certifying that they were treated for pests (beetles, termites etc). Then the items go to the end user (retailer, factory or whatever)!
Obviously, none of this can happen if the goods can not enter the country because they are still on a container ship in some harbor somewhere. And the time the goods spend on that ship are not free, and I am not referring to lost time to sell the item. The shipping companies have instituted extra charges, starting sometime in November, per container. Depending on the shipping line, it can be US$500 for a 20 foot container, and US$1000 for a 40 foot container! This is to make up for "lost revenue due to the longshoremen strike." The thing is, Taiwan and China never actually stopped shipping goods; it was rumored for a few days, but did not actually happen. And those empty containers that go back overseas (sometimes filled, but not usually)? The major center in the US stopped sending empties back to the W.C.
Small truckers had nothing to haul from the ports. Consumable goods (food etc) started to spoil. Factories that rely on JIT (Just In Time) delivery of supplies (screws, nuts, bolts etc) were forced to temporarily shut down, or worse yet, lay-off workers. Importers couldn't get stuff delivered, which means no money; which makes it hard to order stuff for next March.
Alaska imports nearly 65% of all things. They had to get an injuction stating that the ports in Alaska could not be closed, for fear of running out of supplies. After all, toilet paper isn't made up there. Hawaii, which imports over 90% (I think) did not get any such injuction, and people started hoarding things (toilet paper was ALWAYS mentioned).
All of this, because the ILWU is protecting the rights of the their workforce, of 10,500 people. The companies that run the ports want to modernize again. Every time they try, it is resisted in some major way by the unions. The port companies want to use scanners to do the inventory, similar to any grocery store when you 'check-out.' As of today, ALL tracking is done by hand. We are talking quantities, locations, destinations, everything! Each of these operations require a specialized worker. Electronic scanning would simplify, and streamline this entire process.
Problem? Well, it takes fewer workers to do it by electronic means, obviously. The union says, no can do. They have contracts guaranteeing jobs for all of their personnel.
So, all of the aforementioned infrastructure, that we so proudly hold up as a benefit of modern society to be awed and copied by all others, is brought to a stop by a union with less than 11
People now think, "the strike is over," but it is not over. There is a cooling off period of 80 days, after which the union can strike again. As of the end of last week, negotiations had not started again. The workers are not working at full capacity. They are not working with the normal preicision that they are known for. They are purposefuly recording a container being placed in Lot A, when in fact it's in Lot C, for example. Workers are calling in "sick" more, taking long lunches, more breaks etc.
Most of the longshoremen want to work. Some do not. Some think it is outrageous that this was allowed to happen, while others are glad that it did.
In the end, the union can do whatever they want. The government is powerless to stop it, within the current legal environment. The workers make to much money (US$80,000-100,00) to go elsewhere. The management is not willing to break to the pressure of the unions this time, for fear of "next time." And we all get screwed.
(As a side note, this is why most computers are shipped via air)
For the IT and related industries, I think unions are a bad idea. You HAVE to go by there rules, otherwise, "see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!" Not to mention that unions are run by normally by grumpy old men who would not understand the geek culture, and be all to willing to 'black list' any and all members who were not following the ideals of the union. Which might come into play seeming as how most geeks are seen as "anti-social", or "smelly", or "weird"...
RIAA is why you cannot find music published by smaller record labels in music shops.
Three words: Righteous Babe Records.
I was recently informed by a friend that Ani DiFranco's new record debuted on the Billboard charts a week or two ago at #26. Debuted. Highest debut that week. This is an artist who gets very little commercial radio play and owns her own publishing label (Righteous Babe) that houses a few like-minded musicians.
I'd say that if you can't find music from smaller record labels in your music shop, you're patronizing the wrong music shop. This is why I don't buy CDs from Sam Goody, Record Town, Fye, *Mart, or, when I'm traveling out of state, Tower or Virgin. Or anyone like them. In New England, we're lucky to have smaller chains that provide great prices and great selection of *all* types of music from *all* kinds of publishers including locals. Visit a Newbury Comics (USA, MA/NH/ME) or a Bull Moose Music (USA, ME and maybe NH) near you if you're ever in the area. If you're not, I'm sure there's a similar kind of store in your part of the world.
I'm not too familiar with unions, but from what I do know, a Tech union would NOT be a good idea. I saw it mentioned before, but can't find it again (or else I'd post it there), but a Guild would be more appropriate for us Geeks, similar to electricians or plummers. There's too many IT workers that free-lance or are consultants and don't work for a large organization where a union would make more sence. That's just my opinion, I may be off-base about it, but there it is.
My good sig is in the laundry
Dude, those were very selective analogies you chose.
Why did you choose car manufacturing as your analogy rather than, say, the legal profession?
Making cars may have been automated but making legal contracts has not been.
Why do you think that programming will go the same way as car manufacturing rather than, say, the legal profession.
If you disagree then please tell me why your comparison of professions is so great and mine is not.
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
I'm in a unionized IT environment (represented by the OPIEU). It has it's positives: good benefits, lots of time off, sane hours and overtime, but because of union contracts, we also get lower wages than our peers and less "personal recognition" rewards (i.e., performance bonuses or higher sallaries).
On the other hand, the work environment is a lot more stable.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
While waiting for the ecconomy to improve I took a construction job, and we just discussed this tonight:
In the union you start at $22.50 an hour, but after all your required deductions it works out to about not much more than you make in a non-union job. (accounting for similear benifits) Union workers work 8 hours a day, and go home. I often work 12 hour days, plus saterdays for overtime which means I take home more pay because union rarely gets overtime due to their high wages. (With a house payment to make I couldn't survive on those wages even though they appear higher)
Dress code is important. Union workers have to wear jeans even on the hottest summer days, long sleeves, hard hats. All roof work need at least a safety line if not a railing. All this safety sounds good, but in reality it gets in your way, and is uncomfortable. In computers this translates into no working from home unless your home office is inspected and approved by OSHA.
Unions are much more specalized, they have a crew for just floor plywood. (in general) Most of us consider that level of specalization boring. I don't know if there is a computer equivelent.
Pay is not merit, it is time. The second man on the crew knows nearly as much as the foreman, and in some ares is better. He gets paid nearly as much as the foreman despite only about a years expirence. There is another guy at the same company with two years expirence who makes about half as much, but it turns out he knows how to do most things, but he is very slow Both turn out good quality work. Unions pay the slow guy more than the fast guy despite getting less work from him because he has been there longer. (There is absolutely no reason to fire the slow guy, he knows what he is doing, and works hard, he is just slow) This is one of the biggest drawbacks. In the end unions do not encourage hard work.
Unions do not allow you to moonlight in any way. Non-union carpenders will help you finish your basement, union carpenders can be fired if they touch a hammer when not at work. (I think they are allowed to work on a house they own and live in, but that is all, they will be fired for helping a relative) In other words unions will not allow you to go home and write open source software if that is what you want to do.
Finially, unions have had ties to organized crime in the past. They will claim it is gone today, but is it really?
My boss often gets calls from union reps, and he flat says "Go ahead, talk to my guys".
Now that the ignorant have spoken...
BitGeek you ignorant slut - you're like the boy in the plastic bubble, you have an extremely narrow understanding of the employer/employee relationship and I suspect you have little experience dealing with multi-tiered management. I could say more about the baseless rhetoric that you are spewing but... you're an idiot!
As one enlightened reader pointed out, most of the negative views of labor unions are fabrications of big corporations and mainstream media. Labor unions are neither universally good nor universally bad nor universally corrupt - they are best utilized when the balance of power shifts too far to the management side of the scale. In my experience, the worst abuse of that power comes not from management but from the HR department but that's another topic.
As far as IT workers being "professionals", like it or not, all IT workers are "blue collar" not "professional". At best, IT workers could be classified as "skilled trade". Either way, you are a grunt; a skilled grunt but still a grunt.
After accumulating double-digit years of experience one might consider becoming a "consultant". Unfortunately, unless you are truly an "independent" consultant, you will likely be working for what is known as an "umbrella" organization which will likely cleave much more than %15 of the bill-rate for "administrative" purposes. Since these "umbrella" companies are effectively collective bargaining organizations, you are already are working for a union albeit one in which you have no say.
Being an independent consultant is not easy either. It's a business and the business of business is wrought with politics which most "techies" are notoriously abhorrent to. Also despite the elitist attitude of most "techies", most do not have the entrepreneurial skills to make it on their own.
Lastly, on the subject of unionizing:
I come from a long line of union rabble rousers and I have direct experience in organizing a union and it's not for the faint of heart. I was threatened several times with bodily harm mostly by workers who were opposed to unionizing. In the end the workers narrowly voted against unionization and although I was young I took the defeat with some sense of pride in doing what I thought was "right".
My experience taught me one valuable lesson: that risk is proportional to reward/loss. In my case the workers "reward" and the company's "loss" was probably less than seven figures and yet people were willing to risk their jobs and their freedom (assault & battery) to achieve those results.
thor
the corperate structure itself breeds mediocrity as was even aknowledged, NOT unions, corperations do not give a shit about you, the gap between rich and even middle class is at an all time high, people at the top don't know shit, we NEED unions to even begin to even it out a little bit. the only thing they understand is profit, if they are forced to lose profit because of how they treat their workers THEN they will change and only then. if it is on an individual basis everyone is replacable, they can divide and conquer, you don't like the job so they can your ass and hire someone who will put up with their bullshit. does this improve the situation? no, it just keeps the standard of living low for those in the low class and high for those in the high class. people do not acend in this business based on merit, anyone who works in one of these corperations can see that, they rise based on politics and who they know, and as was pointed out, seniority. unions get a bad rap because people associate them with some lazy sack of shit pushing a broom down a curb for $50 an hour for a construction company, which i'll admit is a definate problem, but comparing the problem of people at the bottom who don't deserve alot of money making a decent wage with the problem of people in the top %6 of this country controlling %90 of this countrys wealth and record layoff numbers, economy is in the toilet, and why is all this? because the inept top %6 of the country that controlls all the wealth are too fucking stupid to even run their companys well, so they squash the lower classes to prop themselves up. how many ceo's take a salary cut of say, 5 million dollars a year, leaving them at a mere 15-20 million a year in order to spare 500 jobs in a layoff? doesn't happen. fuck that. unionize now!
Arn't these the guys that file grievences against US when we move a users monitor? What kind of grievences can we file if we get unionized? Do I have to drink Miller High-Life and drop my i.q. 50 points? (they do caffinate beer, right?)
This debate is going the wrong way.
A "Teamsters" (or dockworkers) type union is not the way to go about it.
Rather, people, like your doctor, or your lawyer, are card carrying union members. This is the kind of union we need. Because in essense, that is what the "bar association", or the state medical association is. It controls the number of members that enters its
union, and makes it illegal for anyone to do that profession (doctor, lawyer), without being in their union (called an association). Usually, it is controlled by strict education requirements (ie. where you must go to an 'accredited' school, and a union entrance examination (bar exam..etc).. so no floods of H1B Indian doctors..or lawyers can enter. Number of lawyers/doctors who 'pass' the exam and enter the union each year is strictly limited by the existing lawyers/doctors, who control the union. This is why doctors and lawyers make so much.
We dont need the teamsters, what we need is the kind of union we need, like the doctors and lawyers have... then those who excel get more money, and be more successful, but then there isn't all the bs of H1Bs, lack of a voice on capitol hill..etc. The lawyers and doctors dont have any of these problems.. and that is why they make more, and keep their jobs in recessions.
As I scan over the replys to this fair and honest question, I see mostly the uneducated bias of the masses. I am an electritian, I spent five years in the non-union "merit" world, and then orginized. It was the best move I have yet made, not because I lack merit, but because I can earn it even within a labor pool that maintains a high level of merit within itself.
Yes, a labor can protect it's members to a point; however, if you lack the skills then you will not get into the union to start with. If you should be able to fool the local officers into thinking you have the skills, then you will not work long anyway. A union has no power to protect someone who truly should be laid-off/fired. Truth be told, any worker who is displaced/'retrained'/etc for reasons not of their own control can file the same complaints with the Department of Labor that unions often do, but do you have the money to hire your own labor lawyer? If you do then you don't have a complaint.
Strikes are a LAST RESORT and only come after months to years of conflict, and are the right of unions (and technically indiviuals) to use to compel a company the bargining table. This right has been upheld for about a century.
Union contract NEVER place a cap on a member's earnings due to merit. The contract is a minimum for services rendered. I have personally been pain over the 'scale' for my work.
Unions are not perfect, if you could see on the inside, you would see members debating on many things about the trade in the local market, such as what the min. standards for new members and new apprentices are.
I went to an apprentice's school that was paid for by the state with taxes, union schools are not paid for with taxes, but with dues from those who work in the union. Even if you are a union member, you do not have to pay unless you are actually working in the trade in a union position.
I hear many of these arguments when I joined from my own family. I was the first union member in a Republican family. Chose your own politics, don't let someone lead you to them.
Any further comments can be directed to creighto@spunge.org