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The Microsoft Salary and Review System
f1055man writes "If you can make it through the obvious bias, Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WASHTECH) has put together a revealing article on Microsoft's salary and review system. 'Internal Microsoft documents obtained by WashTech News show that Microsoft salaries have been stagnant or nudged only slightly higher over the past two years. Comments from current and former employees about the company's compensation and performance review system suggest a growing level of frustration among rank-and-file workers.'"
Does using "M$" to describe Microsoft make you feel more important? Jesus, I'm sick of you fucking kids thinking you're smart or witty. You aren't. It is annoying. Please stop.
Those of you in the automotive industry, you know what I'm talking about. Down on the floor, you look at someone the wrong way, they file a report. You catch someone not doing their job, no hope firing them on the spot, because the union steps in, and that's it. It's become part of the culture there. Not everyone is that way, of course, but the slackers are taking advantage of the system.
Read your fucking history. While I am relatively ignorant of the current situation in the automotive industry, I do know that before the unions came along workers were treated like shit. Here are an assortment of quotes from former workers in Ford's factories and witnesses to strikes against other companies during the 30's:
"I made the mistake of telling the foreman I had enrolled at Northwestern University night school. He said, 'Mr. Ford isn't paying people to go to college. You're through.'"
It certainly was easy enough to fire him. So what happened when they tried to organize?
"The life of a Ford worker was quite miserable. These service men were everywhere.... If they caught some of our people on the street, they slapped 'em around. When some of our boys first wore union buttons or UAW baseball caps, they were given the works."
Of course when beating workers was ineffective they could always just be shot.
"A few days before Memorial Day, 1937, some steel workers picketed Republic Steel on the Far South Side.... The men who picketed that day got clobbered. There were a few split skulls and a few fractures. Everybody got mad and then decided to try it again on Memorial Day.... The police were standing in line in front of Republic Steel, quite a distance from the others.... The people began wandering out. A long line. This was a mixed bunch. Some of them may have been planning to use the sticks they were holding on for other purposes, for clobbering somebody. Nobody was armed. But the police got the idea these people were armed.... All of a sudden, I heard some popping going on and a blue haze began rising. I said: My God, tear gas.... About three minutes later, they started bringing in the wounded, shot. There were about fifty shot. Ten of them died.... They were lying there, bleeding bullet wounds in the belly, in the leg and all over. All sorts of fractures, lacerations...."
taken from Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York: New Press, 1986.
Problems with certain members of certain unions today does not justify your statement that,
The big problem with unionizing is that what happened to the other industries will happen to high tech.... I'm not talking about layoffs, strikes, or anything like that. I'm talking about people that don't do their job.
On the contrary a new industry such as "high tech" presents a perfect opportunity to have a union that functions without the problems you mention. You don't have to affiliate with an already established union, you could start your own, a new one that balances the rights of the workers with the need to accomplish an agreed upon task. Instead of looking backwards into the dregs of the past, look forward! Fix current problems and prevent future ones. Find a way to make it work. -rhin