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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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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
I beg to differ.
I support immigration, but not indentured servants. I think that a lot of immigrants have a tough road, and they are always the ones who take it on the chin when anything goes bad (The war on terrorism is a great example). I've had friends who had to wait years for their spouses to be legally admitted to the US.
On another note, I think that there is a hypocrisy on the side of big business: when times are bad (e.g. now), your job is on the line, and there are layoffs, pay cuts, etc. Fine, I accept that as a the current environment. However, when times are good, rather than pony up and pay the going rate, they endevour to change the laws (more H1b visas) so that they don't have to deal with the ramifications. That is why I am against H1b visas.
The purpose that H1b visas exist for is to get technical talent not available in the US. I have not seen that as the case - the company I work at hired an H1b, at 30% less than the going rate for similar employees. To top it off, that person only had skills that were obsolete.
I resent the ad hominem attack - playing the racist card is bogus. I agree that if someone can do my job better than me, then they should have the option. However, if someone can only do a shitty emulation of my job, but has the job only because he is cheap, don't pretend he is doing my job.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.