Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
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
Too bad you can't think for yourself.
RIAA is the antithesis of free market. RIAA is an organization of media companies who band together to fix prices and shutout competition. RIAA is why you cannot find music published by smaller record labels in music shops.
A companies actions are not necessarily capitalist just because a company is a private enterprise. In the past, meat packers, oil companies and steel companies banded into trusts and exerted monopoly influence over the markets. Coalitions of organized labor and progressive reform movements defeated the trusts, who are now re-emerging today. A great example of this is ExxonMobil. When Rockeffeler's Standard Oil Trust was broken up, the two largest parts were Standard Oil of Pennsylvania (Exxon) and Standard Oil of New Jersey (Mobil).
Whine about the ineptitude of organized labor all you want. When you find yourself paying $4.00 a gallon for gasoline to a giant oil conglomorate, you will be doing so because there was no powerful force like organized labor to counterbalance the power of oil company campaign contributions.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
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."
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