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Tech Workers of the World Unite?
okidokedork writes "Wired News reports on the lack of unions in the IT workplace. If you could join a union in your workplace, would you?" From the article: "The rich get richer, the shareholder is valued more than the employee, jobs are eliminated in the name of bottom-line efficiency (remember when they called firing people 'right-sizing'?) and the gulf between the rich and the working class grows wider every year. You see this libertarian ethos everywhere, but nowhere more clearly than in the technology sector, where the number of union jobs can be counted on one hand. Tech is the Wild West as far as the job market goes and the robber barons on top of the pile aim to keep it that way. They'll offshore your job to save a few bucks or lay you off at the first sign of a slump, but they're the first to scream, 'You're stifling innovation!' at any attempt to control the industry or provide job security for the people who do the actual work."
Laid off for three years.... that stinks. The longest I have been without a job since completing college was 2 months. Even through the bubble and through 4 layoffs. Perhaps it is because I don't go through life with the same chip on my shoulder. Perhaps it is because I am a hard worker that people enjoy being around. Truthfully, I think it is because I don't believe I have a right to a job and am thankful to come to work each day... and by you name and attitude, I bet that is foreign to you.
The name and attitude came *after* 2001. Until then, I was the same as you. Now I refuse to even apply for non-union work- and think that anybody who "doesn't believe they have a right to a job" either has never heard of the social contract or is so irresponsible in their personal life that they don't have any money-sucking responsibilities (such as wife, kids, etc). Such people are failures to me.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
So? Your investment and choices in life are not your company's responsibility to deal with.
Exactly why a non-union shop no longer deserves my loyalty or my resume. If they can't be bothered to support the basic social contract, they don't deserve my support- or the support of my tax money in the form of incorporation papers.
It's better to loose *some* jobs than to have the entire company collapse like the auto industry is collapsing to foreign competition. Which would you have? A small lay off, or a complete plant closing? pick your poison.
How about cutting managment jobs first? Since after all, it's their fault that they can't keep up with foreign competition with their million-dollar-a-year salaries.
I choose opportunity over communism.
And in return, they've chosen to give you neither.
If you can't remain employeed, then you shouldn't be digging yourself into massive debt and expecting someone else to deal with your poor choices.
And if you tell me I have a PERMANENT position, then it'd better be permanent- or you can expect me to come to your house and fill your head full of lead.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
business has one responsibility: to make profit for their shareholders.
Bullshit. Bull FUCKING shit.
bascially do nothing about and pray your boss doesn't hear you being 'ungrateful'
I don't have a boss. If I did, I would wipe my ass with his face if he heard me being "ungrateful." If he complained I would tell him to suck my crotch.
shipping jobs overseas and reaping the profit
Can't make a profit employing people at a living wage. Sounds like management has a problem of insufficient huevos.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
You're wrong. That's the whole point of having an employee. The whole point of being an employee is to accrue benefits to yourself, otherwise we'd all have employees and not be employees, which is where robots, not needing to accrue benefits to themeselves, come in.
I have been completely shut out of it and am currently on disability with no end in sight and no opportunity for it to be brought to an end in sight. Voc Rehab and the Mental Health 'profession' is a huge, obscene, lawsuitproof, joke.