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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
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.
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."
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.
You'll work for scale, and give a (large) percent of your income to the union
I know dozens of people in unions. Union dues are typically 0.5% of your base pay. That's hardly a 'large percent'.
"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