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Should IT Unionize?
snydeq writes "Sixty-hour work weeks with no overtime or comp time, a BlackBerry hitched to your belt 24/7, mandates from managers who have no clue what you actually do — all for a job that could be outsourced tomorrow. 'Is it finally time for technology workers to form a union and demand better working conditions?' InfoWorld's Dan Tynan asks. To some, the odds against IT unions are long, in large part because the 'lone gunman' culture is pervasive. Diversity of skills and job objectives is another hurdle for rallying around common goals. But that has not dissuaded several union-minded groups from cropping up across the industry as of late, Tynan reports. In the end, the best bet for IT may be a professional organization modeled after the American Bar Association or the American Medical Association, one that could give IT professionals a single voice for speaking out on issues that affect everyone — such as H-1B visa limits or tax incentives to keep IT jobs onshore."
Unions aren't a good idea any more. When they first started up, employee's had very few rights. Now the rights unions fought for are enshrined in law.
A union won't save your job, and to be frank, if you're job is at a high risk of being outsourced, or management is being retarded then you need to get a new job, because just as you have the 'right' to walk out in protest, an employee has the right to save their business by dropping you as an employee for any reason and going elsewhere.
Unfair dismissal doesn't work if you put their business at risk by striking, even if you have a union telling you to do it, not any more.
There is also the fact that employers need not employ anyone who is in a union. Join/form one if you like, but after the first time you 'punish' a company, I'd bet actual English pounds that none of your members will work in the IT industry again.
I was a member of a union when I was a teenager. The damn thing nearly fucked me by saying we had to go on strike. I didn't want to, I had rent and a bike to pay for, and the last thing I needed was no pay for a week, or even a few days.
Luckily the strike was averted because the management pretty much said 'sure, go ahead and leave, but you won't get the pay rise anyway, and you put your jobs at risk if the factory closes for long'. Seemed fair to me.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Day 1: Really excited by my new development job, even though I have no seniority. Was trained by the person with second-least seniority, who told me my job was to access the bug database and make a graph in powerpoint of "severity x days open."
After about 5 minutes of this, I said You know, I could write a perl program to do this in less time than it would take to do it by hand.
He smiled, and said that's what he thought on the his first day. However, we were programmers and the IT people had the responsibility for the bug database and they were in a different union. Ergo, we weren't allowed to build programmatic interfaces to their tools.
Day 10: I've got building the chart down to taking only six hours a day, and have spent my other 30 minutes (minus union-mandated lunch and coffee breaks) a day looking at the code in read-only mode, trying to familiarize myself with it. Having worked on open-source projects, I knew how to use the SVN web-viewer.
Day 20: I noticed a quite-obvious buffer overflow in the code, and went to the developer who wrote it to point it out. She was quite upset that I had been looking at the code, and filed a union grievance about me exceeding my job responsibilities.
Day 22: Grievance day. The shop steward yelled at me for a while. Afterwards, Management took me aside and told me it was nice to see someone who had some initiative, and they'd see if they could find me something interesting to do...
Day 41: Time to build PPT charts now 7 hours. I had gotten it down to 5, but there have been a rash of bugs and features over the past few weeks.
Day 52: Management tells me there's a small feature they've wanted developed for years, but it never seems to get done. It's completely self-contained and sounds pretty simple. They give me the bug # for the requirements list, and caution that I can only work on it in my spare time, and not generate overtime.
Day 56: I've done a bit of looking into it, and now understand how to do the side project. The problem is, I'm already at 15 minutes of overtime a day because of making those stupid charts. I think I'll work on it at home.
Day 57: Tired at work today, since I stayed up until 3 AM working on the side project.
Day 58: Gave the completed side project to Management, along with all the source code. They thanked me profusely, saying it's nice to see people who can get things done.
Day 59: Called into a meeting with the shop steward and one of the senior developers. Apparently, the task that I did had done was assigned to the senior developer, and Management had given him my source and said "We got something off your plate for you." It turns out the task had been on his plate for a year, and he had never done it. I asked "I know it wasn't my responsibility, but isn't it good to have something off your plate so you don't have to deal with it?" He exploded and said he was saving it because it was a simple task, and if he ever had to raise his productivity to meet a quota, he could have done that.
The shop steward said that it didn't look as if I was going to fit in, and they terminated me on the last day of my probationary period.
What does the American Bar Association do? Primarily it sets standards for it's members, and enforces them.
As a member of the American Bar Association, I can assure you that it has absolutely no enforcement powers over me other than being able to theoretically revoke my membership. The ABA accredits law schools, acts as a lobbying arm for the legal profession, and provides advice to politicians regarding judicial candidates, but it is not equivalent to a state Bar and does not regulate lawyers.
Exactly. The only things in a code which the electrical engineer wouldn't be able to work out are things put there arbitrarily by state officials. Do we really need a new lot of self-important busybodies to protect us from another?
IAAEE.
I'm fully capable of figuring out how to safely wire my house up and, knowing about my somewhat unusual power demands, may do a much better job than a certified electrician. But, for major jobs, I'll certainly contract out. I do not know what the code specifications are about gas-line spacing, conduit demands, etc. And, even though I'd do a good, safe job, I want to be able to sell my house some day and want to be sure that I'm not violating any building codes.
Are some of those codes BS? Maybe. Are some of the hoops that the certified electrician has to jump through BS? Maybe. But when I look at a house that I'm considering buying and I ask who did the electrical work, I'd much rather hear "A certified electrician whose work has been inspected to ensure that it meets local building codes" than "I did it myself - I'm an EE and know what I'm doing - I'm not sure whether it meets code, but I assure you it's safe".
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I work for a large state university. All full-time professional jobs have the option of being part of the union. If you're not part of the union, you're required to pay them a fee for doing all your contract negotiation -- dues turn out to be about $15 a month higher, but they buy you great dental insurance and discounts on things like museum admission (actually, most are free), travel arrangments, cell phone service, and all sorts of other things.
Working under a union-negotiated contract, I'm also guaranteed a 40 hour work-week, reasonable vacation and sick leave, decent pay (I work for the state, so it'll never be great, but it's decent), and I can't easily be fired without cause.
Now, that said, I think the union has too much power here. There are people who can't be fired, even though everyone knows they're incompetent, simply because the paperwork is a pain. The amount of administrative overhead for dealing with the union is horrific; it mostly comes down on the university administration, so I don't have to deal with much, but there's a tremendous amount of it. There are a lot of other issues, as well. The examples other people have come up with -- states where union workers are required by law, where no one can do anything without the union's approval -- are all good examples. They're rediculous. The point of the union is to keep the company from taking advantage of the workers, not to allow the union to take advantage of everyone else.
But overall? I'm glad to be working a lower-paid union job. I've been offered higher pay in industry jobs (more than doubling my pay, actually), but you know what? I think it's unreasonable to be expected to work 80 hours a week and be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year. I'll take my moderate pay and pleasant working environment any day.
Not all unions are the same, you know.
Professional baseball players have a union. You think they're getting paid based on seniority?
Actors and writers have unions. You think they're not getting paid based on their performances?
A union is whatever the workers who form it make it. Those workers know the facts of their industries and form their unions accordingly. Just because some unions stress seniority doesn't mean yours has to.
Read my blog.