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Tech Firms Oppose Union Organizing
cedarhillbilly passes along a piece from TheHill.com on the chilly reception that tech firms and lobbying groups are giving to a bill promoting union formation, which has a chance of passing in a more strongly Democratic congress and with a Democratic president. "Up to now, large tech groups have been on the sidelines in what is likely to be one of the roughest fights in Congress next year. A few, however, are preparing to weigh in. That makes other tech lobbyists nervous that, by doing so, the industry could sacrifice relatively good relationships with Democrats and, therefore, jeopardize some of their other legislative priorities."
It's interesting that every single person in the article is against it except for a dnc congressman. The end of the article says he bemoans the lack of union growth. Why would he be concerned about union growth? Why would he be so concerned about union growth that he would try and take steps to lower the bar on organizing groups of people who probably don't even want it? Oh yeah - money. This is why I hate politics. This has nothing to do with serving people it is all about finding revenue streams to fund their next election. Maybe they can get the rest of the country to be like the state of Washington and force people into unions, fire the ones that wont join and rack up plenty of contributions that way.
I was a union member for a number of years. (UFCW) Fortunately it was in a right to work state and it was my choice. And fortunately it was possible to relatively private about joining or not joining. None of this harassment that can come in other environments. Unions are just like employers - they are good to keep in check against one another but I think it is a mistake to think they are purely for the employee. They quickly fall to Pournelle's Iron Law. This whole affair is a marked reminder of that fact.
I don't think the Republicans are any better for what it is worth - but I think at least the discussion on what this is all about out to be frank rather than draped in a bunch of spin. Being cautious about unions is not being anti employee.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Unions worked so well for factories and the car industry, why not extend them to a completely different TYPE of work, 60 years later in a completely different economic landscape? DUH.
Unions = FAIL.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
What we need instead is a professional guild association, much as the legal and medical professions have. Unions are more appropriate for low skilled industrial professions.
Corporatism != Free Market
It's another form of control.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Manufacturer certification (MCSE cough cough) is not a substitute for an organisation that takes care over assessing credentials. Here in the UK we have the BCS and the IAP, and perhaps others. My own feeling is that the main opposition to proper regulation of the software and IT industry comes from (a) managers who are unqualified and would not be able to get certification, (b) managements who want to cut corners on the job and (c) contractors who hop from one job to another without ever picking up a serious core competence.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Of course the owners of the corporations are against their labor organizing. The purpose of a union is to spend more of the corporation's profits on labor, leaving less for the owners.
What's interesting is how often the union's improved terms for labor increases labor's productivity. Which means a larger total profit, so even a smaller share of it to the owners can be a larger total amount than before the union, when worse working conditions produced less profit for everyone.
Which shows that sometimes, the owners are not maximizing profit, but just maximizing their power.
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make install -not war
The article speaks about people possibly being intimidated into signing a petition to unionize.
Let's see how many people already feel intimidated to the point where they have to post as AC if they want to say anything good about this idea.
And for all those that blame GMs' problems on the unions, wake up - GM makes crap cars nobody wants - THAT is the problem with GM.
Have I ever been a member of a union? Yes - the Steelworkers (they don't just organize steel plants, you know :-)
Would I ever again join a union? Sure, depending on the circumstances.
Do I think unions are practical for IT? Yes. The image of the code-worker who is "too independent-thinking" to join a union is a self-defeating myth. Get over yourselves already. If nurses and bus drivers can have unions, why not IT workers?
Connecting unions to workplace safety and general worker welfare in the present-day USA is a canard. Indeed the unions are the reason we have those things, but stringent laws were put in place between 1920 and 1980 that provide for safe workplaces and worker welfare that are now independent of union presence.
Do we owe unions thanks for that? Yes.
Do we owe them our money for that? No.
You know, you don't have to be a rabid Republican to say "hey wait a second..." when something like card check comes up. Eliminate the secret ballot? Are you nuts?
The core problem with the bill is the elimination of the secret vote. Experience has shown that secret votes are needed to avoid voter intimidation. Without them there is much more union corruption and abusive behavior. This is no minor matter. Intimidation and violence is well established in union history from both sides. A properly monitored secret vote is the only way to ensure that union decisions are safe from intimidation by both employers and unions.
In all the coverage of this issue, I have one question, "Where is the text of the law?" As independent, fairly bright people, show us the law ans we will make our own decisions.
"Second what is the purpose of Unions?" I am not being combative, I truly don't know. I thought they were to protect workers with a skill from control by an employer who has a monopoly on the machinery needed to use that skill (ex. no GM employee has the machinery to make a car in their basement.) If this is the primary reason for Unions, then the Tech industry does not need them because our skills are in our heads and are not dependent on machinery the employer owns, or a limited market the employer controls (ex. schools and schoolchildren.) Am I misunderstanding the Core purpose of Unions?
Jeez I've been listening to this for 20 years. IT workers resist unionization. Why? I don't know but I suspect it has something to do with believing that each of you is more capable and special than anyone else. Even in companies like IBM who in the early 90's laid off a quarter million people, still, the remaining workers resist unionization.
I can tell you it's not but a racket. The only ones who benefit are the union hierarchy, not the members.
I've mentioned before I work for state government. In my state, PA, anyone who works for the state and is not classified as management level MUST pay union dues though they are euphemistically called "fair share fees" because they represent your fair share of all the privileges and benefits the union supposedly bargains for you. Here's how well that system works.
Years ago when I initially worked for the state, I was in the temporary clerical pool. My sole benefit was I got paid. No vacation, no health insurance, no nothing else BUT, I still got the privilege of paying the union for all those benefits I got for working at the state.
I eventually got a permanent job in the state, based on my skills and the people around me wanting to keep me, so then I got those other benefits. Then governor Tom Ridge, who you remember from such classic films as, "We need a color-coded threat level to paralyze the nation into fear!", decided to eliminate the one state agency which was recognized as a leader in efficiency and responsiveness. In fact, the place I worked for instructed agencies from other states on how to become better.
What did the union do? Shrugged their shoulders and said, "Oh well. We're not going to fight it."
I left for the private industry rather than being shoved out the door.
Now, back with the state after several years, it appears for the second time in six years the contract the union negotiated with the state as far as COLAs and raises are concerned is being thrown out the window. But, I still get to pay the union for all those benefits.
If the union wants to unilaterally renegotiate the terms of the contract for which I'm supposedly paying them, then I should do the same. Why should I have to pay the union for all these benefits if they're not going to honor the contract?
Unions are bad news. They cause more troubles than they solve and yes, I have and do work with people who should have been fired long ago for not doing their job but because of the hoops that one has to jump through to fire someone, it's easier to just keep them and let them retire.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sure, but let's make it universal to all jobs. If we can apply generalities to politicians, then we can surely apply them to all job positions: all managers are sycophantic ladder climbers, all software engineers are fungible, all union workers are lazy and incompetent, etc.
Only in America can Congress take away the secret ballot and call it "Employee Free Choice Act". Ever notice how often a law's name is exactly opposite of what the law actually says?
If you have spent any amount of time in the tech field you will find that 3/4th of the people in the field are substandard and the other 1/4th carry the weight.
There are so many mediocre, short-sighted developers and designers in the field that it is nauseating.
I personally am against unionization in the tech field, because it would make lives easier for the majority who don't deserve it, and make lives harder for the 1/4 that actually know what the hell they are doing.
Also, the pace that the tech field moves at is obscene compared to many other fields. I wonder what sort of hindrance that unions would put on that.
I know - just look at the UAW! That's what the entire US economy needs right now.
First off, I recognize that there are times that a union is necessary. Some employers are just dicks.
Having said that, I far prefer -not- being in a union. Most unions take money from the employees and give nothing back except false confidence. (Spare me the individual stories of how a union worked for you.)
As to the government giving special help to promote unions... Cripes. If the union is a good idea, it'll form. If it's not, it does -not- need help.
But I guess everything else has gotten a bailout, why not help unions, too?
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
infactdead yet again.
The AMA, bar associations and other "guilds" have their own serious problems. Mainly they restrict the supply of the professionals to the market, to keep prices propped up. Their certifications are designed to screen out numbers of people, and screen in the greediest. The process of getting certified is also marked by lots of hazing that breeds contempt for people outside, and callousness towards exploiting people inside, all for profit, and not for quality.
Besides, AMA doesn't certify "MD", bar associations don't certify lawyers, though they do act as gatekeepers on those certs by lobbying the orgs that do, and by running the orgs that train for the certs.
The certs must be issued by a government agency, as they are now for those truly professional certs. But the training for them must be open to anyone who wants to compete, so long as they meet educational standards, and produce a percentage (say 66% of each class) that gets certified.
There's a role for each of these orgs. Multiple kinds of orgs that compete to meet specs, but cooperate under an industrial policy to meet economic and workplace goals, are the way to produce the most productive and worthwhile workforce, especially a skilled one.
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make install -not war
I am really excited about Democrats abolishing the secret ballot for union organizing.
This way, more parts of the US economy can benefit from sound, productivity-enhancing organizations like the Teamsters and the UAW!
Hopefully, the president-elect can rapidly appoint a "card-check" Tsar to oversee the transfer of all US elections to a more community-oriented "card-check" model. "Secret ballots" after all, have turned out to frequently be an obstacle to Progress.
I picketed with the CWA at Ohio State when they went on strike. However, many unions do not have the legitimacy that CWA has because they're abusive, and the union leadership only takes care of the most senior members. The Atomic Workers Union in Piketon, OH, however, starved hundreds of people so that 5 (count them, 5) senior members could continue to switch jobs every single time they completed training for their new jobs, not working at all.
Card check is a very bad idea. Secret ballot is mandatory to ensure that unions have legitimacy. Otherwise, we get into problems like with the teamsters in Tennessee and the Coal Miners in W Va, which has destroyed the state.
When your workers have good pay and benefits, that takes away from profits, and in a plutocracy such as ours the profits always outstrip any consideration for human beings and their needs.
If WalMart was unionized, you wouldn't have to pay those taxes that go to food stamps. The poor are REQUIRED to work in the US under TANF (which ended AFDC welfare in 1996), so those food stamps are another government giveaway to the rich, like that 700 billion that went to the banks who still aren't making loans.
Unions are good for everyone except the corporates.
The head of a major non-union airline in the early 80s (I think it was Eastern, whatever company it was has since become union) said wisely "any company that gets a union deserves one". Your workers create your profits and your wealth. Bargain unfairly and they will come to bargain collectively.
You owe your workers, the generators of your wealth, a living. If your business is sound you owe them a decent living.
Want crime rates down? Raise wages. You'll find that most poor people are far more generous and honest than most rich people (not to say that many rich aren't honest or that all poor folks are).
I've been re-reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the story of a Republican who wakes up and finds that he's turned into a Democrat overnight.
Humbug to you too, Mr. Bush.
Free Martian Whores!
As I contemplate the idea of IT Unions I recall all the complaints I've heard through the years about outsourcing. With employers demanding that current employees train their foreign cheaper replacements else be fired and lose any possible unemployment benefits. In America this is perfectly legal. Or other situations where the "IT person" has been forced to work extended hours without additional pay. Time has value, and without being adequately reimbursed for that time, an employer can operate under the misconception that they own all of your time, even though they only pay for 8 hours of it. There's many situations where managers will do whatever they can get away with, and without any form of opposition the worker will always get screwed. At least with a Union, the workforce can operate with some protection. I'm all for it.
They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist; They came for the Socialists, and I didn'
Many Americans find the concept of monopolies offensive. Unlike Europeans, we don't tend to view capital as uniquely exploitative. If anything, many of us realize that a lot of workers will exploit their employers to demand pay and benefits well beyond what their productivity is worth. That's a critical part of the reason why the Big 3 are failing now. Say whatever you will about their cars not selling, part of the reason is that because of the amount of money the Big 3 have to spend on benefits for retirees AND current workers, American cars cost, on average, at least $1,000 more than the average Japanese car (most of which are now made in America when sold in America!)
We also tend to find it offensive when we are forced to join organizations against our will or interests. Why should a worker have to join a union to work at a particular company? There is no morally acceptable reason why this is so.
Period. They had a purpose in the era of "wild" capitalism, but those times are over. Also, in that times the workers didn't fight against their empolyer, but they fought against the government too (the government closed its eyes to the atrocities against workers). The "evil" capitalists used the help of the government to stump the workers' rights.
However, times changed and look who's striking? Mostly government employees. They basically blackmail the government to give them more money and benefits at the expense of all others.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
How can unions work in the era of the global market? Creating artificial scarcity of labor only results in pricing yourself out of the global market, right?
The only thing a union will do for workers is create less jobs. Unions are all about pumping money from the employers. I agree we should be paid fairly but unions are always extra greedy. Why do you think that most American car companies have started making cars over seas.
My mother worked in a sewing factory for a jeans company and was in a union. She was making $18 an hour (way too much for an easy skill to learn) in the early nineties to sew because the unions kept forcing the pay rate up. You know what happened? All of the textile factories in this area and most in the nation packed up and moved to Mexico.
Unions were great when dangerous jobs were causing people to get injured and killed. But now that this problem is taken care of, they no longer serve any other purpose than greed.
If you'd like to see more of our tech jobs going to India, then a union is a great idea.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
What's interesting is how often the union's improved terms for labor increases labor's productivity. Which means a larger total profit, so even a smaller share of it to the owners can be a larger total amount than before the union, when worse working conditions produced less profit for everyone.
So, when a railroad union demands that a railroad hire firemen and brakemen that site around all day, they are increasing productivity?
Or when a union demands a camera operator for robotic cameras in a television studio, they are increasing productivity?
Or how about the fact that the Japanese automakers here in the States can change a production line to make small cars from SUVs in a matter of hours; whereas, Detroit takes months? Yeah, management has to take a hit on that one too, I agree, but much of that delay is union rules.
Don't get me started on the pilot's union. $250,000 for a 777 captain? Yeah, I realize the career path of a commercial pilot and how they live in poverty while working up to that for years, but so do artists - it's their choice. I'd do it for $50,000 and be ecstatic! But, if airlines could reorganize and pay less (getting rid of the pilot seniority for one), we wouldn't be giving them tax payer handouts every few years. (There's going to be another next year - I guarantee it.)
I agree that in the past, unions did a great job for the health, safety, pay, and over all living standards of workers. I've read the business history and I read what those 19th and early 20th century industrial bastards did. But that before the labor laws and OSHA.
I think unions need to be reformed dramatically.
I can do better for myself on my own, thank you. We already have too many people in IT who aren't skilled enough to be here. Thankfully the Dot-bombs of the early part of this century weeded out quite a few. When I start hearing stories about the woefully oppressed, underpaid, dis-enfranchised IT workers then I'll say we have a need. Considering most IT jobs are far easier than being a ditch-digger, we don't need a union bureaucracy to take care of us.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
What exactly are you trying so clumsily to express?
sudo ergo sum
Where have you been for the last two years? Isn't unrestricted lending and a $50 billion Ponzi scheme operated from Wall Street, no less, evidence that wild capitalism is still going strong?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Or how about the fact that the Japanese automakers here in the States can change a production line to make small cars from SUVs in a matter of hours; whereas, Detroit takes months? Yeah, management has to take a hit on that one too, I agree, but much of that delay is union rules.
The problem with Detroit retooling to make smaller lower profit margin cars is the disadvantage they have in that market segment.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/politics/594283/gm_and_uaw_support_pensions_bill/index.html
Detroit needs a large market to sell high profit cars. Small cars is not high profit, and the maket is saturated limited the price you can charge and the volume you can sell.
There is no way to build a cheap car with enough quality to compete with Toyota, Subaru, VW, Honda, Kia, etc. to meet their obligation, so they stuck with only high profit margin SUV's until the gas price killed their goose. You can thank the Unions for protecting the workers wages, jobs, health benifits, and retirements. It only lasted while they could expand, but self implodes on any downsize.
Detroit can't donwnsize. It has to remain big of fail.
Ask me again why I don't want a Union.
The short answer is it will kill the golden goose by crippling it. When the food moves, it can't follow. When food is scarce, it can't diet.
The truth shall set you free!
This is a true story.
In the 1990s I worked for a Fortune 50 technology firm.
Our division's upper management had been working us hard for several years. We were paid well and out of professional pride we all worked as hard as our families and sanity would let us.
They tried to push us harder.
The very senior technical people worked closely with the rank and file programmers and knew this would never work. They also worked very closely with upper management. They put their foot down to management and mentioned the word "union."
It worked. Management backed off.
There probably was no real threat of an actual union forming but the fact that senior non-management people even used the word got management's attention, and they realized their employees really were on the company's and the customers' side and pushing them harder would be counter-productive.
I'm not sure this would work in every company: Not every big company has the camaraderie and "we, management and rank and file, are a team looking out for our customers" spirit that this company had and I assume still has.
I won't mention the company name but this company has and still ranks high on "best places to work" lists almost every year.
The IT industry is also known for salaried positioned with long (or just consistent "on call") hours. When the union finds that companies often keeping employees at 10+ hours a day they'll start putting the screws to employers.
i would only join a union if i could join another union that would police the first union.
my wife is a teacher, and you have to be a member of the teachers' union just to get protection from other teachers who are in the union. if budget cuts hit the school and they need to get rid of teachers, they will keep the union teachers and fire the non-union. it doesn't matter if the non-union teachers' scores are twice as good as the others'.
collective bargaining is completely necessary. but when unions exist for the sake of the existence of the union itself, then things go down the tank. the UAW is a key example of this.
i have been around government workers, and if you even think about checking their performance at all, you'll have a million union grievances filed against you.
i dont think that unions are necessary in today's world.
Good: Everyone is equal
Bad: Everyone is equal
Both: Depending on your area's representation in the union, some people are more "equal" than others
One thing to remember is that a union is more or less a led-by-majority concept. The majority votes in a leader, and the leader is generally more sympathetic (and/or knowlegable) to the issues of his/her originating area. So if your department is in the minority, your overall representation within the union is probably less.
As per everyone being equal, well it's generally a little harder to put the screws to any given employee or group, as an overall union backlash my result. But the other side is that similar positions tend to get similar pay grades, etc, and it's pretty hard to reward exceptional performance of individuals, or to deal with those that are consistent under-performers.
innovation that Detroit is, unionize! Because obviously what we need is another layer of bureaucracy to feed.
Resigning from your nitwit employer and starting your own company or working for a startup is scary. Just have your union jack up your wages and benefits. You'll have more money to spend at the bar to dull the pain of working there. What could go wrong?
BTW, anyone wanna buy some Michigan real estate?
BTW2: despite it all, American cars are much better than their reputations suggest. Just don't drive the stripped-down "fleet" cars that the rental agencies buy. Notice how many old Buicks are still on the road. They're a lot cheaper to fix when they do break than foreign brand cars too.
If you need protection to keep your job, you need to either find a new career, or find a new job.
When companies start to go under because they can't hire people fast enough to replace the people who leave, you'll see some changes in the tech industry. No unions needed.
think. you have produced complex code for accomplishing various tasks in a small business or a corporation. or, you have arranged a complex server setup to handle the load of the company. or, sorted and programmed their database. put in your examples.
hell, they are basically OBLIGED to you after that point and on. say you have done something in C. its more easier for you to change anything or add anything than a group of experts who spent their life solely on c. because when you do a code, code becomes more than the language its based on. it itself gains a structure and form.
many professions need unions or some kind of protection. but what i think is, apart from very low level entry jobs (tech support, entry sysadmin etc), i.t. doesnt need one.
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I watched labor unions in Michigan drive manufacturing out of this state into more friendly states like Tennessee. Unions have destroyed Michigan and given us the highest unemployment rate in the country.
Destroying one state isn't enough. Let's all drink the kool-aid and perish together.
its not 18th century anymore. its the tech era. GLOBAL.
say there is a union. it 'protects' your job. you get paid more for the stuff that global, overseas workers do for less. your company pays that to you. your company spends more on i.t. (and eventually of course any other kind of expenditure and wages due to rise of the unions), than the companies overseas.
the companies overseas can have more capital to do anything. can hire more developers to implement new things faster. and they sell ALL over the world.
their revenues rise, their market share rises, while your company's and all companies in your country, falls.
what happens after 5-10 years ? from WHERE is that company going to find cash to pay you ? do you think demand descends from heavens in fiery chariots ? do you think prices are stuff aliens descend down and decide ? market does those.
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Nothing can cause a sprint unemployment (and off shoring) like the overly inflated wages cause by modern day unions.
We already have federal wage restrictions (Though this should be localized, its not like the COL is constant across the land). And years of inflated wages, cause by various factors not the least of which is unionized industrial work forces (and you wonder why they were the first to get shipped over seas?), has caused a proportionately disproportional increase in the cost of living (Consumer based market is fine, when prices aren't based on the intangibles, but people just gotta have that 60 GB MP3 player ...).
We all need to be willing to spend less money, so that we can earn less money and still be fine... Seriously, 1 less bottle of whiskey a week is 50 cents an hour.
It will drive all non commodity based costs down! ...
Parts stay the same, labor goes down, prices go down. Life is good, and no one actually needs a 60 GB MP3 player. And has the added benefit of avoiding socialism
Trimming the fat should help too ... (management costs).
This is all a trade system, somethings only worth X when people are willing to pay X. This goes for everything from rent, insurance, through bananas and ipods.
Someone should remind the world that supply and demand are supposed to define prices, including wages. 250k technical graduates, annually to fill 100k technical jobs ... but by jove, we need those HP1Bs to fill out our workforce.
Don't get me started on our education system in this country, cause its a nice built up framework to help persist this travesty.
Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) - naming things for exactly what they are not? It was like the Travelers X act, where it codified the ability of border agents to keep your stuff for a few days when before it may not have been legal.
This act should be called "Employee Intimidation Act" because it means shops can now be unionized through simple intimidation. Hopefully if it ever passes the Supreme Court will get it fast and nuke it just as fast.
Why intimidation? Simple, the intent to form requires a signature,during which the people who want it can stand over you till you sign it, take note if you don't, and imply what they want. This is how the formation process works now. The safety net has always been the secret ballot (secret from both union and corporation) so that people who were intimidated one way or another (more so by the pro union people) can vote how they truly feel. Hence unions lose a majority of attempts and needed a "legal" way to circumvent freedom of choice that too them was "freely making the wrong choice"
Sorry, I know its PC to not like places like Wal-Mart and such; this bill is more targeted at them than anywhere but the simply fact is that the poor will suffer more from higher prices if such crap goes through. Worse you will see no benefit actually filter down to low wage employees because it is always the union leadership which benefits from unionizing a shop.
Been there, been through it, it wasn't pretty. Lost an hour wages per week to dues that got me no more benefit or safety, but did let me see our rep's nice Mercedes convertible
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The reason people are so against it is that its primary purpose is to take away the secret ballot from workers considering joining a union.
Currently if union wants to move in it has to get a certain number of workers to sign a petition and then a secret ballot is held. If the union wins, bam the company is unionized.
What the unions want to do is just collect 50% of the signatures and skip the secret ballot step. This is called the "Card Check" provision, because the workers just sign cards and hand them to the union boss. Why? Because there are an awful lot of people who are willing to sign when the union boss is at their door leaning on them but when the secret ballot comes around the union routinely doesnt get anywhere near the number of votes the thought they had.
This is all about pushing unions into workplaces where the union cant win a secret ballot. The country tilted too far right in the past few years and now we are about to see what kind of legislation gets enacted when the left controls things and wants to push their own agenda on people whether they like it or not. Virtually every democrat supports this because it was made a litmus test on getting the big union campaign funds during the election.
Neo-con bot is funny.
Blar.
The thing with unions is that, when protected by law in closed shop states, is that they become a monopoly on labor. As we know in other markets, a monopoly is able to extract rents and create deadweight losses in the economy. Classical economics looks at where unions are economically useful and dangerous, consider a few scenarios.
1. Highly specialized labor (single monopsony employer)... there is only one buyer for this labor... In this scenario, I have poor bargaining power. If my labor is worth $100/hour to the employer, I should be able to extract a wage of approximately $25/hour. However, if my skills are non transferrable, so if I leave my employer, I need a semi-skilled job at $12.50/hour, I have a poor bargaining position. The wage negotiation is between $12.50 (my BATNA - best alternative to a negotiated agreement) and $50, the value to the employer less fringe/overhead costs. In an open market, you'd expect the salaries to be around $25 (1/4 the gross value to the company), if labor is scarce with a bunch of employers (see a scenario like professional sports with free agency), the employee can extract more of the surplus, but if the employers are scarce (highly trained systems level Windows programmers), then I have difficulty extracting a good wage. In this scenario, which was the classical unionization scenario, unions help employees get fair compensation, because with only one buyer of labor, they have monopsony power, so union monopoly/employer monopsony can help the marketplace. Keep in mind, during the heavy unionization of Detroit and the growth of its benefits, we suspended the market economy in war time with all sorts of industrial boards to allow companies to collude during the Great Depression and WW II, so the automotive industry, steel industry, etc., were effectively a single employer.
So with unions, you fight over the surplus, without unions, the specialized employer is able to extract most of it... This scenario also played out in plenty of small "company towns" where a single mill, mine, factory, or plant was the primary employer in the town. Without employee protections, the employer was free to exploit the workers because there was
2. Scare labor, plentiful employers... Look at professional sports post free agency, pre salary caps. The supply of genuine game changing players is VERY small, there are only a handful of baseball pitchers and showy sluggers, basketball players (playmakers in any position dominate), quarterbacks, running backs, etc. that can dramatically influence a teams fortunes (success on the field, putting people in stands, selling merchandise). That's why the leagues attempt to skirt anti-trust by doing things as a league and claiming that their competition is other sports, and the players unions basically used their status as unions (with those anti-trust exemptions) to permit it. In the early days of free agency in baseball, you saw salaries for star players EXPLODE, while lots of players languished at or near the "league minimum," and most baseball teams lose money. The idea of salary caps in other sports was an attempt, in the name of "competitiveness and parity" to keep more of the profits for the owners... If there are only 5 amazing quarterbacks in the league, and teams had to pay fair market for them, they'd extract most of the profits from the team. Sports have some unique characteristics that make this arrangement reasonable... you aren't out to destroy your competition, just best them... the Yankees want to beat the Red Sox, they aren't trying to put them out of business to eliminate competition. But, the tighter the salary caps, the less the top players make, because it temper demand for them, but the most competitive the league is (to a point). The union is necessary if the league is allowed to collude to keep prices down, take out the collusion, and the "workers" would extract most of the profits from sports.
3. Common labor, scarce employers... Here the employer should be able to keep wages down... There is
Why the rotten politicians want unions is quite understandable — and Blagojevich is on tape explaining the top reason.
What's less obvious, is why did the techies, who are justifiably against joining unions themselves, have voted for the party, that's trying to make unions much harder to avoid for other workers. One of the top items on the Unions' wish-list is elimination of the secret-ballot voting, which an employer can currently demand, before a workplace is unionized. Called THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT (while promising the exact opposite of free choice) it has a high chance of passing, because Democrats owe unions quite a bit — and both need each other.
Having spent the better part of the last century trying in vain to make everyone equally rich, the two groups are now settling on making (almost) everyone equally poor — as long as large pools of money remain available for retiring politicians in exchange for favors such as Senate appointments.
So, why did techies, who, as a group, don't want unions, vote for people, who are trying to impose them?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
> cedarhillbilly passes along a piece from TheHill.com on the chilly reception
> that tech firms and lobbying groups are giving to a bill promoting union
> formation, which has a chance of passing in a more strongly Democratic
> congress and with a Democratic president.
Because it works so well in the auto industry, why not?
But I'd like to point out that, to professionals, it's grotesquely offensive. I have been programming professionally for over 20 years, have a 150 IQ, and absolutely adore what I do. I make Dilbert look like Jed Clampett. I do shit like clone Minesweeper in 4 hours from scratch just for the hell of it.
Sad. I thought I left "slow down! You're working too fast!" back at the factories in summer during college.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Having grown up in a union family, I see both sides of the fence. But, I'm strongly against getting rid of the secret ballot. Can you image what the presidential election voting process would be like if it was done with card-check?
The true purpose of a union is to bring equality and a safe work environment to a surplus of skilled workers in a particular job market. Yes, putting a bolt on a screw is a skill... it's just a more commonly available skill.
The reason why most US IT workers don't want to unionize is b/c in most markets in the US, there is not a surplus of skilled IT workers to availability of IT jobs.
Entitlement is just another form of vanity. A little bit of vanity is good for the self-esteem. A lot of it; eventually will all come crashing down. The UAW is the poster child of vanity.
I don't mean to sound arrogant or balloon-headed, but someone's touching my balls and I don't want it and I'm gonna fight.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
...as do writers, directors, and actors. All these professions have strong unions and all their members are rewarded for creativity and success, not just seniority. There is nothing stopping tech workers with big egos from forming an Elitist Assholes Union and making six, seven figure salaries.
Because it works so well in the auto industry, why not?
Yes, it does. Detroit did just fine with decades with unions. Amazing how it's the fault of worker bees who want a decent wage for their work, and not the CEO of GM, who's presided over a $70 billion loss for the company and not only still has his job, but is still getting paid $16 million a year.
But I'd like to point out that, to professionals, it's grotesquely offensive. I have been programming professionally for over 20 years, have a 150 IQ, and absolutely adore what I do. I make Dilbert look like Jed Clampett. I do shit like clone Minesweeper in 4 hours from scratch just for the hell of it.
There's a term that comes to mind: idiot savant. Professional athletes, writers, directors, and actors have unions are all rewarded for creativity and success, not just seniority.
Did I have a job where I felt the working conditions were unfair. It was the first job I could grab after a site shutdown. The pay was horrible and the expected responsibilities way out of line. I immediately said this was unacceptable, this did nothing. You know what I did? I quit and moved on with my life.
I have no delusion of future grandeur. I don't think zero regulation is a good thing. I simply know and have proven my individual bargaining capabilities and have achieved a very comfortable life, with a really low amount of BS to put up with.
Unions in practice are a good path to prosperity for those who come to lead the Unions . Other than that, it's not so clearcut. In other words, the problem with Unions isn't totally with theory, it's with the reality that only people who pursue power achieve power, that people who pursue power have a disproportionate amount of interest in using that power to their own ends, before the interests of those that bestowed that power.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
In general you are correct, but where I have seen staff associations be useful is where there is unfair treatment of an individual. In this case the unfair treatment has not been in the interest of the company but due to either stupidity or vindictiveness of a manager.
An example I can think of is someone who wasn't put forward for a pay increase, despite it being agreed that he was being underpaid for his skills. Basically the manager lost the paperwork and found it after the deadline - then tried to cover his error by saying that the guy did not deserver the increase! A decent HR department would have sorted this out but we don't have a decent HR department - I have since found that this is very common. They said "your manager says you don't deserver it, anyway its too late, you missed the deadline"
Anyway the staff association put the case forward, which instantly got the case heard at a higher level. The association is affiliated with a large union, and they let the company know that this could be pursued legally by the union's solicitors.
Instantly, the manager involved got a ticking off and the HR department discovered that they could make changes to salaries past the deadline and the whole thing was sorted.
I have several anecdotes I could share about how unions seem to protect incompetent or lazy employees. My wife's uncle is an alcoholic - has been for years. He was able to work as a mechanic in a unionized dealership's shop for years. He was drunk on the job all the time.
My wife is a member of a nurses union. She's had coworkers that refuse to work weekends so they call in sick every time they are scheduled for a weekend shift. They never get punished. Also, she works relatively few hours now that we have children. Last year she made less than 10k. The union still shook her down for about $800 in dues. She was taxed at a higher percentage by the union that either the federal or state government.
I agree with the author of Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt. Unions essentially provide higher wages for those within their ranks, but they reduce the overall number of people who can work in that industry. Great book - I highly recommend it. He also has great insight into the false appeal of a minimum wage.
its like this, they are in a ship sailing the ocean, and youre the navigator who knows the local waters best.
Read radical news here
I watched southern states throw hundreds of millions in subsidies to foreign manufacturers to set up shop in southern states like Tennessee
Fixed that for you.
The big three executives have destroyed Michigan by making the same mistakes they did in the 70's: they kept building high margin gas guzzlers in the face of skyrocketing gas prices, only to have their lunch eaten by the Japanese. Again. And WTF is Rick Wagoner, the CEO of GM that's presided over a $70 billion loss still doing at the company, much less continue to make $16 million a year?
Fixed that too.
Being against unions is in your self interest if you are a business owner or top executive, because they might get in the way of the 15% increase in your annual compensation. If you're a worker, you are a liar AND and total moron. A worker opposing unions makes as much sense as blacks opposing the Civil Rights Act or women opposing the 19th Amendment: it makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
Is the issues of Unionizing relevant to that? It's a different type of 'Wild'. It is and was clear that the financial companies were going overboard, but no hypothetical Unions would have been incentivized to stand up and fight it.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'm not going to say that unions didn't play a role in their collapse but to point at them as the only reason for the collapse is to ignore a bigger picture that must be understood completely in order to fix what's broken at those companies.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Notice how many old Buicks are still on the road. They're a lot cheaper to fix when they do break than foreign brand cars too.
Actually, it's just the fact that all older cars are cheaper to fix than newer cars. Newer cars are pretty similar to one another, regardless of official heritage.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Your argument seems to be based on irreplaceability - once you've made yourself valuable enough to the company, you can get better wages and compensation because the company can't afford to lose you. But that's bad for business - no one individual should be irreplaceable, because people die/move/get different jobs all the time.
What's being proposed for the US is similar to what Canada already has. About 25% of Canadian workers belong to a union, compared to about 12% for the US. The US and Canada had about an equal percentage of unionized workers in the 1950s, when changes in US law made it harder for workers to unionize.
There are successful unions for professionals. Check out The Animation Guild, which is part of IATSE. If it came from Hollywood and was animated, an Animation Guild member probably did it. In Redwood City, Dreamworks and EA have facilities in the same building complex, with many people doing similar jobs. Dreamworks is unionized, but EA is not. The Dreamworks people have reasonable hours, unlike the EA peons.
Here's the Animation Guild standard contract. A few key points:
Unionization is about being jerked around less.
If your boss is screwing you by making you work long hours you are letting them do so. Take some responsibility for it.
If you don't want to just cowboy up and deal with it to his face, do it the "correct' way. Find out from HR won't the appropriate "working hours" are. Tell your boss you'll be dilligently working the required hours. If there is more work to be done than in the required time, tell him you know a variety of skilled employees that can be hired to make up for their obvious resource issues. Recommend contractors and temp workers. Email his boss and CC him on the email that you know of some more resources that will happily round out the team. Email HR and CC your boss and ask if there are any open positions that can be used to bulk up the team.
The point of this ISN'T to be one of those "talk to HR and sit down and voice your opinions...blah...blah...blah..." The point is to act fully and completely rationally insane. Ignore your boss when he requests you stop emailing people about it. Bring it up in meetings with everyone as well. Not in a whining way, but in the "I want to help our team and increase profits" kind of psychotic way. You know, just like the sperm slurping executives do.
Continue to act like a sociopath in this manner, and the problem will work itself out. Roaches like these bosses tend to scurry away when light is shown on them.
It's not like your boss can actually fire you any longer in any real sized company, and it's doubtful he/she even has the authority to do so if they wanted to.
If that doesn't work, try keeping an issue or two of "Guns & Ammo" on your desk.
I'm a satanic clam.
My musician friends once had to join the union because one club they worked at had a union contract. The union took their money, and threatened to fine them if they worked non-union venues. Sometimes, when you are a musician, that's all there is.
Unions also tend to enforce specialization. They insist that you hire an electrician here, a carpenter there etc. I have always been a generalist. There is no union for a guy that can do everything. In fact, they are actively hostile to us.
I personally have no use for unions. I have done very well in my career because of my intelligence, skill, honesty and discipline. In many cases, unions exist to help the average, or below average worker. The excellent generally have no need for them.
But I'd like to point out that, to professionals, it's grotesquely offensive.
As a professional myself, it's not offensive at all. The IEEE and the ACM are professional organizations lots of computer professionals are member of. A union is just another professional organization. Now, I'd be offended at one that put time-in-grade above merit, but there's nothing in any law anywhere that says a union must give seniority precedence over everything else. Only the contracts the union negotiates say that, and the union can negotiate contracts that say otherwise just as easily. And the members get to vote on what contract offers the union will make, and vote on the officers who run the union. It's just a matter of the union members standing up to their own union and saying "No. You will do things our way, or we'll replace you with someone who will.". It's just dealing with another set of PHBs, not like we don't have plenty of experience with that except that this time it's us who hold the big "We can fire you." club.
Gone are the days where you can pick and choose based on which issue you support and don't support. We're already in a union of sorts as Americans. We vote a two party system where both parties may have positions we support but we're force to accept the party line based on how we vote. Most Americans oppose unions, I'd venture to guess, but most Americans wanted the Democrats in control. Sorry, can't have one without the other it would seem. Such is the great paradox of our political system.
that times are changing. With India and China having their money tied to the dollar, it is designed to drain our economy. That esp. includes our tech jobs. I have lost 2 jobs in a row to them going to India. Yet, India is upset about the high prices of drugs to them because many of them are still made in USA or EU. So, they (and now china) are simply disregarding the patents and simply producing them in their country. Most union would work to prevent the jobs from being shifted overseas for these reasons. Sadly, many unions do not have a clue about how to retain the jobs. Instead of ignoring the overseas workers, they should insist that they have similar working condition AND that they get close to the same pay. Once the overseas are getting good money, they will thank the unions and be a member.
Bad: Everyone is equal
Alex Rodriguez is a member of a union. He makes more than some other teams in professional baseball with older players in the same union.
You were saying?
n/t
Shocking news! Senior executives who rely for their lavish compensation on the wealth generated by software engineering labor do not want labor to organize! Film at 11!
I'm not saying software engineering labor unionization would be a good thing for the economy, or even for software engineers (frankly, I think the UAW paints a dire picture of what unionization would do to our industry). But the fact that software engineering management wants to prevent software engineering labor from organizing should come as no surprise.
Here's a better idea though - stop the freight train of lowering the taxes above and below the income range of software engineers, while increasing the taxes on the income range of software engineers. The 90th to 95th percentile of income (the range most senior software engineers occupy) has seen its effective taxation increase by 16% since 1970 while the two party system has pandered by turns, lowering taxes on the 0th to 70th percentile, and the 99th to 100th percentile.
You want to derail this train? Stop the government interference in our ability to share in the wealth we create. You claim to believe that the beauty of the free market is that those who create wealth are rewarded with income. Fine - put your money where your mouth is. Our income range has seen a massive explosion in productivity, but has seen its wages sit flat relative to GDP (11% of GDP net, same since 1970). Meanwhile senior executive compensation has risen by a factor of 6. That is not because of a free market in labor optimizing, it is because tax policy has been screwing my income range for my entire life. You want to derail this train? Let us participate in the GDP growth in our sector.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
A good friend of mine worked construction back when we were in our 20's. He talked about the task of setting up scaffolding:
* General Labourers had to carry the parts of the scaffolding from the truck to the side of the building;
* Pipefitters had to put the scaffolding together;
* Carpenters had to add the boards and level the structure;
* Electricians had to install any required extension cords; and
* there was a fifth union that had to do something else before the scaffolding was deemed complete -- I wish I could remember what it was.
Can you imagine the disaster that would follow if the same plan was followed in IT? SysAdmins wouldn't be able to write any scripts -- they'd have to wait for the Developers; web guys wouldn't be able to do any database work; and project leaders wouldn't be able to touch any running system.
At my current employer, we moved an office of close to 150 people over a weekend, and some of us volunteered to come in over the weekend to hook up the office networks -- connecting about six dozen switches (one for data, one for VoIP for each five person pod) and connect CPUs and flat screens at the various pods. About 95% of the systems were wired up and ready to be powered on the following Monday. I can't imagine what a union would have cost us in time and money for that project.
Finally, I sing in a men's chorus. A few years back we did our annual show (a matinee and evening show) at a union hall. We had to pay a fully licensed electrician $1000 for the day. His only job? To plug in a guitar amplifier for one of the performers when it was on stage. Insanity.
And most folks here probably aren't for unions.
I just *love* how the libertarians babble on and on about "enlightened self-interest". If such a thing existed, there'd already be a national computer professionals' union, or more than one.
But I guess folks self-image is that they must be REALLY IMPORTANT, and that's why they've spent weeks and months working 10, 12 and more hour days. That's why so many are hot on contracts... never mind that they can be cancelled at any time (like I, and a number of my co-workers at AT&T recently - thanks to corporate HR's *incredible* lack of professionalism). And so many consulting firms don't offer benefits.
Oh, yes, and when you're between positions, you have to put up with abysmally ignorant asshole recruiters and HR types who tell you that you've been out of work too long, and so you're not "fresh" (as though we're some kind of fruit that spoils).
Yes, I *have* had a few tell me that. One, I got mad at, and asked her if she were to take a year off to have a kid, if she would never be hirable again, since she then wouldn't be "fresh'. I kid you not, she responded by saying that she'd "never thought of it that way".
Give me a union card, and a hiring hall, so that I *DO* get the next job I'm qualified for, not passed over as a rotten vegetable.
mark
I agree with you that "The Big Three" have been mismanaged. I also agree with you that the executives there are way over-paid. But that is off-topic for this story.
Michigan has also tried to lure manufacturing companies here with incentives. It won't work because the abuse by labor unions in this state is just too great.
The issue is that the union represent the majority. It is a direct mirror image of the majority's mentality in a given field. If the majority really care about excellence, the union promotes excellence.
IT is plagued with a vast majority being lazy idiot bozos who get off at the idea of screwing over their boss, even in the best of companies. So an IT union would probably be the worse amongst the worses.
Hey, get used to it. The Chicago way is going national baby!
Swedish state unions can go on a strike. The nurses have done so several times. The problem is that the employer is run via a budget, and does not really have "clients" in any real sense.
Hence, local government benefits economically from a union calling a strike. Meanwhile, public support tends to drop off pretty quickly when essential services are disrupted. As long as local government just sits pretty letting their budget go into the black, they usually end up the winner in the end.
As you can see from my four-digit ID, I've been hanging out on Slashdot for a long time. Whenever the union issue comes up here, I notice that there are an awful lot of negative comments against unions, more than there are favoring them. Since I'm firmly on the pro-union side, it's incumbent on me to chime in.
First, regarding the Employee Free Choice Act, there is a lot of misinformation about this that is being unchallenged by the mainstream media. One myth is that this act will eliminate the secret ballot for union organizing. That is NOT true. The employees will still be able to request that a secret ballot election be held. It will eliminate the employer's right to demand a secret ballot for the purpose of delaying union certification, and in the interim, intimidate employees to reject the union.
Now regarding the attitude generally displayed here toward organized labor, anecdotes prove nothing. Tired old tales about your uncle's friend's co-worker who showed up to work drunk, and caused your uncle's friend to lose his thumb, but couldn't be fired because of his union, may convince lots of people that unions are a bad thing, but they are largely apocryphal. Even where they are true in isolated cases, it is an indicator of incompetent management, not a necessary impact of the union. If you are managing a unionized work-force, and you are too lazy to even read their contract (which would tell you how to dismiss such an employee), then you are the problem, not the union.
Fair analysis of data (e.g. http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/datazone_rtw_index) indicates that unions have a positive impact upon the distribution of wealth, and general level of prosperity. Moreover, as unions decline in influence nationally, living standards decline both in the unionized and non-unionized sectors. Median real wages among those of you who live in so-called "right to work" states are lower than for those who live in states that don't interfere in the membership requirement that is written into union contracts. Yes, I'm sure that you may have read some report from the Heritage Foundation, or Cato Institute that said otherwise. But if you believe those sources of information, you may as well watch Fox news. If you must rely so heavily on anecdotes, talk to older members of your family, and ask them about whether or not there was ever such a thing as a "stay-at-home" mom. Ask them how could anyone afford to live that way.
I was raised in the '60s and '70s. When I was a kid, my father went to work in a factory every weekday. My mother did not work outside the home. This was typical among most of the families that I knew. Forty man-hours a week, for a family of four (six in our case), performed by a man without a college education, (in fact my dad didn't even have a high school diploma), was sufficient to maintain middle class living standards in typical American families at that time. We had health insurance, owned our homes, had leisure time, vacations, and typically, a full time mother. When my dad's company laid off workers temporarily during a lull, my father's seniority was honored. He felt bad for dismissed coworkers, but he didn't cut back spending, or miss any house payments. My father retired with a pension that kept him from falling into abject poverty for the rest of his days. That pension was bargained for by his union. It was not provided by his employer out of the goodness of their hearts.
As for myself, as a young man, I joined a trade union, served an apprenticeship and became a journeyman. But recognizing the direction of the political viability of unions, I decided to go to college part time later in life, and become an engineer. I paid my own way, and graduated nine years ago without the debt of a college loan. That was one of the benefits of a union wage. Today, though, working as a college educated professional, I barely approach the living standards that my family had in my childhood.
I'm not sure what to think of this...
On the one hand, obviously the companies oppose this, it would lose them control. Many companies like to treat highly trained IT people as replaceable cogs, pay low wages, expect them to be always "on call" (in some cases, the guy getting $100,000 agreed to be on call, they replace him with a $30,000 guy and still expect him to be on call...) and so on. A union would whip these guys into shape.
On the other hand, some unions get corrupt, they take (some of) your money, they can cause stricter rules in a casual workplace (at the extreme end, having to sign off to change lightbulbs and power cords), and as the companies threaten they could close and move overseas (maybe.) They also try to avoid firings at all cost, which is the big reason I think IT guys oppose unions; they like to feel they are still working in IT (no matter how bad the conditions) because they are the IT elite, not because a union blocked layoffs.
To be honest, I would probably go for the union. But I (along with many potential IT workers I'm sure, the way the US companies keep whining about worker shortages...) steadfastly refuse to work in a traditional IT shop, until they at least give the IT guys the respect of the building maintenance. I work now refurbishing thousands of surplus Dells a year the local university and hospital, putting Ubuntu on them, and selling them. All the computer-related work I can stand (and then some), none of the "oh, it's 4AM Sunday, the server's down please come in and fix it"
The arguments I read here go like this: "Blue collar workers belong to unions. IT workers aren't blue collar workers, therefore IT workers don't belong to Unions".
I'd like to compare IT workers with film industry workers. Production designers, casting directors, location managers, writers and directors.
Are you aware that those actors, directors, writers who get paid millions of dollars are also union members? So much for the "you can't advance to your full potential if you are in a union" argument.
But I wanted to talk more about the average film industry worker who makes $70,000-$150,000 working 100-200 days a year. I'm one of these people. I've worked for a total of 20 years. 15 years non union and five years union after we organized our sector.
We are still freelancers. We may work for 5-20 different employers every year. There is no seniority. Each party chooses to work with whoever they want for whatever amount they want. There is a "minimum" pay scale but 90% earn above the minimum.
Except on shooting days when we have to be on set a certain time we choose how we spend the day, how many hours and what type of work. Sure we have to complete a given task but it's up to us how we go about it. If it takes too long or we don't do it right we get laid off or we don't get hired again.
This is how it was before we became union and this is how it continues to be after we became union. Nothing has changed.
The only thing that changed is now we have health and pension benefits with one of the best health plans in the country.
Couldn't I afford to buy my own health insurance? Yes, I could but with insurance companies repeatedly wiggling out of their obligations when you need them the most I wouldn't want to. One person vs Huge Insurance company = FAIL
BTW when we were collecting cards to unionize the only people that refused to sign where those who were already receiving union health benefits through a spouse or a second job.
I'm actually a community organizer who, until very recently, actually worked on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Having talked to literally thousands of average people day in and day out for 18, the vast majority of people given the chance would join a union (studies have backed this up- a full 86% of people would join a union given a chance).
Granted, as an organizer I was actually in management and sometimes the union contract got in the way of removing a problematic employee; but at the same time it serves as a deterent to unfair practices by management.
I'm seeing a lot of opposition to the removal of the secret ballot. Let me clarify. Under the present system people need to sign union cards- until you hit 50%+1 to say 'We'd like to vote on the issue of whether or not we have a union.' The company then knows exactly who has expressed interest in a union and usually target those folks with intimidation/firing/coersion up until the election... which is held on the employer's home turf.
Furthermore, EFCA also greatly increases the fines for union busting activities. Right now, someone is fired in America every few minutes for union activity; Wal-Mart has a whole corporate department dedicated to union busting. Violations usually cost a company about 5,000 bucks- and when you're Wal-Mart that's nothing; but under EFCA- those penalties rise to as much as $250,000 per incident. Something tells me Wal-Mart might actually play by the law now.
As for me, my dad was a union guy, I'm a professional, couple of advanced degrees, yet I worked in organizing and did management there. I've seen how a union paycheck allows people to live at a decent level (we weren't rich- but we didn't have to choose between getting the car fixed and only buying the store brand cookies rather than Chips Ahoy. And for me its a little personal. My dad worked at UPS- when I was in high school I developed a very severe case of scoliosis- without a major surgery I wouldn't be able to walk today. Because the union fought for better health benefits during the 1997 labor dispute with UPS I had the surgery (keeping track of the bills that came home during a 4 month recovery the sticker price is a little more than $300,000) and I can still walk.
Of course there is always that free market arguement. If any of the free-market apologetics have ever actually read Adam Smith- they'd notice he calls for a self-imposed limit to the hours and excesses of large business- that clearly hasn't happened. Also, he was writing in a time where labor relations played out in a small shop- sure it was easy to go to the cobbler across the street if the one you were working for was treating you poorly. These days (and especially with what has been going down lately) that is no longer possible. Companies have all the leverage to make the average employees life a living hell.
Also, while unions do protect crappy and lazy employees, studies have suggested the quality of work from union employees is much higher in union made products than in non-union ones. If anyone would like the stats and citations... I'll be happy to get them for you- just not in front of me right now.
Although I will probably be back in academia by the time EFCA passes (which I have little doubt it will) I am proud to have worked on this campaign- it is high time workers are treated as humans and not tools of excessive corporate profit.
I'm reminded of a T-shirt I saw once for one of the local unions, "United we bargain- alone we beg."
Full disclosure: I served as the Assistant Canvass Director of Working America, AFL-CIO, Cleveland from June 07- November 08.
Ah, unions. Keeping stupid people employed.
Just make it voluntary. Don't make me join a union, and don't make me still pay dues if I don't. Also allow firms to fire employees "for cause" when they repeatedly fail to show up for work because of a strike. As long I I retain my right to associate or not associate with people on a purely voluntary manner, I don't have the slightest problem with unions.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I've been a software developer for 20 years (or more if you count jobs when I was in my teens) and while I ridiculed the thought of engineering unions for most of that time, I've recently come around to the completely opposing view. I am an unqualified supporter of union organization in the software and IT industry.
Professional white collar unions work well and are present in almost every type of professional situation. Airline pilots and flight attendants are unionized. University faculty and staff are unionized. Doctors are unionized. A limited number of software professionals are unionized, mostly in Washington state (thanks, Microsoft, for inspiring this!).
I've changed my mind about unionizing because as the industry has "progressed," software engineers, even (especially) exempt employees whose work is not closely overseen, have become units of resource to management. They - we - are no longer individuals with a recognized continuum of expertise and intelligence. Instead, we are "Java programmers," "familiar with LAMP stack," "experienced with Scrum and XP." We are defined by acronyms (misspelled like PERL), and not our experience, creativity, and problem solving skills. And as much as people like to say "we are looking for a good team member who will fit in," and give us detailed personal interviews, we don't get to that point without passing through the dehumanizing hoops that recruiters and managers use.
The past 25 years of development methodologies have focused almost exclusively on predictability. Management wants to quantify us, to be able to say that X programmers * Y skill level * Z days = 1 product. Quality and creativity are secondary unless they can also be quantified. *Reviewers*, not management, are the people who wind up saying "This is an AWESOME product."
It's dehumanizing, and three decades after "The Mythical Man-Month," the treatment of programmers as numerical resources on Gantt charts still doesn't work. You don't write a certain number of lines of good code each day, or a certain number of subroutines or tests, the same way that you pour a certain number of yards of concrete per day. And yet that's how we are treated.
We shouldn't have a working environment that corresponds to our fantasy of how we should be treated. We should have a working environment that corresponds to how we *are* treated. When we are functionally equated with people whose work is interchangeable and quantifiable, we should have the same benefits that those developed over the past century that *PROTECT* them from the impersonal abuse that naturally follows.
We need job security, because we have none.
We need work rules, because we have none.
We need protection from vendor and offshore outsourcing, because we have none. Nor do the vendor (contractor) temps have protection from the whims of management.
We need people to speak for us and our rights and dignity and who can do it with force and authority.
I'm sick of being treated like a number and increasingly sick of it as I've gained experience and flexibility over the years.
I could argue that unionization is good for companies too, in that it imposes a longer-term view and responsibility on them. But frankly I don't care. I care about my workplace, my livelihood, and the same for my fellow employees and all software professionals.
I'm not familiar with this practice of "[firing] incompetent employees." I am familiar with the practice of "firing expensive employees."
*American unions are the antithesis of a meritocracy - they make it absolutely impossible to fire incompetent employees, and negotiate for pay based on time served as opposed to skill. Both tend to rankle Americans (such as myself) who believe in working hard to make something of yourself.
"...but back then you could DEFINATELY live the "Leave it to Beaver" life without having a union job."
Absolutely true. But the only reason that the Ward Cleavers, who didn't join unions, got decent paychecks was because the unions had raised expectations for everyone. Ward would only become a professional, if professionals made significantly better money than carpenters. And carpenters, both union and non-union, were doing well because of unions, thus Ward was able to command upper middle class living standards as a professional.
You would think people would learn from EA's horrific and sustained mistreatment of its formerly OT-exempt creative people. EA subjected employees to tens of hours of required overtime per week, continuously, for months and even years. Following years of litigation, California found this to be a violation of labor law and required them to be reclassified as hourly employees. Whether they make more money now, who knows, but at least EA's employees are treated in accordance with the way they are managed.
Don't think the same horror can't happen to you, because it can and will.
There was a time, and I lived during it, when hiring people was a sign of corporate success. Today, a company's success is measured by how many people they can lay off, how many plants they can close. It doesn't take a genius (which means the above commenters have a chance here) to see that this is a recipe for a very bad situation.
And this is why I'm for a Constitutional Amendment adding "2 term" term limits for all electable positions. We all know the old saying about power corrupting. Let's not give ANY politician of ANY stripe the amount of time in office needed to consolidate his or her power into anything approaching "absolute". We all know what happens then.
Term limits merely externalize institutional expertise. In other words, it removes all the skilled statesmen and places the knowledge (and thus power) in lobbyists. Who knows how to write the bills? The lobbyists. Who knows how to get people on board with the same plan? Lobbyists. Who knows how to raise funding for elections? Lobbyists, with no politician being able to know how to stand on their own.
Worse, you get nothing but people looking to advance short-term solutions for short-term political gain. Why look for a 10-20 year solution when you'll be out in 4? Why learn to make sensible compromises when the after effects of ideological legislation won't be felt until long after you're gone?
Mandatory term limits are a terrible idea in general. All they do is discourage any kind of personal investment in the future on behalf of politicians. The only place term limits make sense is in very small institutional bodies where there isn't enough natural churn to introduce new ideas, like the Presidency or some independent regulatory agencies.
Politicians don't just oppose term limits out of self-interest (though that *is* a major factor). They also oppose them because they are closer to the problem and know from experience how long it took *them* to get their feet under them.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Boeing Aerospace has an engineering union. Perhaps we should ask them whether they feel it has been worthwhile or not?
I had a good friend go to work for Boeing 20 years ago fresh out of college and join the union. His starting salary was a few $k higher than mine, but he only received a 3% raise every 18 months. I got 10-20% annual raises for the first 5 years based on performance. He's a team leader at Boeing now. I'm semi-retired after being a consultant the last 10 years.
BTW, he had a 4.0 GPA and didn't work in college. I had a 2.8GPA but worked 30+ hours a week putting myself through engineering school.
Unions are good for "average and below average" workers. They are not good for high performers (whatever that means), since performance usually doesn't lead to greater pay when you are in a union. Rather, time on the job does, even if you suck.
There is no place in this country where you are forced to work any longer than you choose, or in hazardous conditions.
I used to believe that too. Then they took "Underdog" off the air and I was forced to venture outside.
My goodness, what a precious and sheltered little life you must have led up to now. OK, 'scuse us, but the grownups are talking here. Go back to your tinker toys until you've seen enough of the world to understand there are unspeakable horrors out here that would make Sinclair Lewis faint.
Better yet, find a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter to volunteer at, and for goodness sake, keep your mouth closed and your eyes and ears open. You'll find life isn't quite what the Young Republicans Club told you it was.
I know I did.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
The problem is that techies don't want to organize themselves.
Unions in other industries are a political force that influence decisions and have real political power.
Techies still think that are primadona artists and that they are above all the rest.
The current situation should be a rude awakening, specially for those foolish enough to have put years of unsocial hours and weekend work without getting proper compensation for it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is historically documented that unions brought these changes into place.
The laws were not born in a vacuum, it was pressure by unions what brought them to be (in the UK and Mexico, the two countries I am most familiar with, unions were key in bringing these changes. For bunnies sakes, the name of the current party in government, Labour, should give you a clue).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Buddy, where are you? Mumbai?
The onslaught of jobs being outsourced (or as I have commented previously, assigned to remote workers) is of epic proportions.
I know of companies that have moved full teams to cheaper locations, first in Eastern Europe, and when even their salaries probed too expensive, to India, Singapore and other localities in Asia and Latin America.
The workers replaced include programmers, System Administrators (Solaris and other flavours of UNIX, Windows, Linux, you name it), Network Administrators, CISCO certification and all. Some companies are even moving Engineering positions (the people that design the guts of companies' IT) to cheaper locations.
Anybody in the IT industry thinking that is irreplaceable is *fooling* himself.
Here in London certainly you can get a job, the rub is that the downward pressure in salaries is tremendous and most people are settling for much lower wages (those are the lucky ones).
So allow me to opt out of your rosy view of our irrepleceability in the industry.
The people that can set conditions in a job negotiation are perhaps only the top 1%, for the rest it is a game of big fish eats small fish, people not unionised are the smallest fish of them all, specially now.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If the big SUVs hadn't been Detroit's sole focus the past 10 years, the big three would have gone bankrupt 10 years ago.
The margin on an SUV is enough to pay the bloated union labor costs. The margin on a sedan is not.
It's not being able to sell SUVs anymore that is the last straw in a bad business model.
paintball
I voted straight democrat this time around. Gave a bunch of money to the cause to.
But Card-Check is the ONE major item of the Democratic platform that really bothers me. Card-Check is bullshit. If workers want to organize, let them have their secret ballot and organize. But if the union can't win the secret ballot, we shouldn't let the union FORCE workers to give union bosses their money.
Card Check = Wage Theft.
paintball
And you think the last 8 years was full of fucking compromise? Do you think Bush and friends were willing to "compromise" on their little war thing? No, they are the poster child of your dream. They would fire people who wanted to compromise. Look how much they fucked up our country.
No. You are 100% wrong. The biggest problem is nobody is willing to comprise at all. We are too interested in fighting over distractions like gun-control or abortion rights. The republican party and to some degree the democrats have been all about non-compromise. Nixon won the election by polarizing us on useless social issues. Bush forced us into non-compromise with clever use of language ('either you are with us, or against us').
We need more compromise, not less. You sir, are very, very wrong.
You haven't read Obama's "Audacity of Hope" have you? He is all about compromise. His courage is comes not from his "courage of conviction" but his courage to tell it like it is and to verbalize both sides of an issue. Has Bush *ever* stated the valid points that are raised by those who disagree? Nope--after all that would be un-patriotic, Bush is always right, he has the courage of conviction!
Obama has the courage to actually go on camera and say "here is where I might be wrong... these other guys might be right instead". He even does so when it would piss off his own base.
I suggest you read his book. I have. That is why I voted for the guy. He would never agree with what you just wrote.
Oh, and before you hang me. If you mean "compromise" as in "DLC style cave in to the republicans just enough to get 51% of the vote", then I agree with you. But I dont consider that compromise, I consider that being a coward. You can compromise and still not be a coward--that is what I disagree on.
Some times you got to make the job have enough perks so you dont get tempted to go corrupt. If you cut a politicans pay, it just makes them more likely to take people up on bribes and kickbacks. If you pay a politican a lot, it won't be worth their while (as much) to rake in the dough with such nonsense.
The less money a politician makes, the easier they are to bribe. The more they make, the less they "need" to take the risks of going corrupt. The same holds true for cops, people who print money, and probably people who make drugs like morphine. Gotta pay them so they don't start creating their own private "benefits package".
If it weren't for giving the small states a handicap in presidential elections, a candidate would only spend time in cities like New York, LA or states like Florida. Basically anywhere with density. They'd completely ignore spending their resources in small states because it wouldn't affect their outcomes.
The electoral college sounds like a scam on the surface, but when you think hard about what would happen if we didn't have it, you might change your mind.
If Wall-Mart, a non union shop started asking for goverment money, they'd get laughed out of the room. The *only* reason we are even talking about bailing these fools out is because of the UAW. Make no mistake, the parent poster is right, this a union bailout.
Unionize and watch your job go overseas. This is a global economy (even if it is in the toilet right now). Hear that sucking sound?
The fear is that they won't.
The biggest problem with unions from my perspective is that in many fields they curtail my ability to earn good wages, rather than help it, by prohibiting people with in-demand skills from being offered wages or salaries outside of a rigidly specified pay structure.
For example, in a free market I could earn much more money as a computer-science schoolteacher than the union will allow me to make---because most teachers' union contracts require that all subjects be paid the same. Even though science, math, and CS teachers are much more in demand than social-studies teachers, the district cannot offer higher salaries to attract them. This directly harms science/math/CS teachers, who to add insult to injury, are still required to join the union (though I know several who have forced the union to take them to court rather than join willingly).
If the unions don't make outright efforts to harm workers, they might encounter less resistance.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I know this isn't likely to be a problem and I hope that I'm preaching to the converted, but please, for the love of all that is awesome, do not unionize tech jobs.
Unions = expensive to employers. Your job is mostly network based, they have networks in India. You want to press the gas on that problem?
Anyone heard anything in the news recently about all of the big union industries, like GM, Ford, Chrysler?
Goodyear shut down plants a year or so ago because they couldn't afford union labor.
Unions get greedy because they're composed of humans. Think about it, you have a vote on whether you A) demand more money like everyone around you or B) argue that you might hurt the bottom line and end up with your own job vanishing. Long term/empathetic to administration thinking? Might as well paint a target on your back. Corporations suck but when they hit hard times and have unions, they're almost guaranteed to fail.
The problem with outrageously expensive IT is that IT is like the power company. If the lights are on, who gives a crap how it happens. Damn that bill is high though. Nobody notices until the power goes out, and then you cuss those expensive bastards that can't maintain 100% uptime.
Want to move your job to India? Unionize!
Working in Tech Firms without ESOPs is same as Wage Slavery.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Socio-economic collusion of IT Workers.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
ESOPs + Employee Union = Oxymoron
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Unions didn't do anything for anybody. The only reason employers were able to increase compensation for anybody is because of increasing productivity due to capital investments. Yes, that's right, capitalists gave the workers higher pay, more time off, and greater safety, not unions. Capitalists didn't WANT to do this, it's just a matter of how free markets work. Workers get paid for their productivity, EVEN IF that productivity is the result of better tools.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Why does there need to be legislation around unions? Why have unions become these behemoth power legalistic power dealers? What happened to a group of workers getting together, holding meetings, and agreeing to all work together to achieve a common goal? Unions seem to me to have gotten out of control.
unions are a ridiculously well protected bureaucracy with no real downside/feedback for the officials/bureaucrats.
And I have a friggin Masters in Public Administration, so i'm not some agitated MBA or PHB. Though if my beard gets any longer i might have to wax it into a point...does that count as a PHB??
They want more cheap foreign labor "such as expanding broadband access or raising visa limits for 'highly' skilled foreign workers" AND they want no unions?
My but they're arrogant.
If Computer and Software Progressed like the unionized auto industry, I don't even think we would have the Apple2 for at least 25 more years...
I take it you're also wholly principally against software company policies forcing their workers to "meet deadlines", (either with or without paying overtime)?
And you also believe that companies would've of their own accord stopped laying off anyone even considering going on strike (for higher pay or working conditions) if the unions had never been established when they were?
If it weren't for the adversarial nature of union-busting, we'd not have as much heel-digging. Thank the fine Pinkerton thugs of Colorado and the Security Forces of Ford for doing their part to make the UAW a part of the automotive landscape.
BTW2: despite it all, American cars are much better than their reputations suggest. Just don't drive the stripped-down "fleet" cars that the rental agencies buy. Notice how many old Buicks are still on the road. They're a lot cheaper to fix when they do break than foreign brand cars too.
Depends on what level of rental cars - as some aren't that stripped down. I've driven a couple of Cadillac DTS's and a Ford Mustang; the only thing that may have been left out of the latter is a couple of cylinders.
That, and if you have a W-body Buick, you also get a decent 'sleeper' car with regards to performance. Never mind that some of those can accept Northstar V8's. Who needs an oversized exhaust when you have a low-cost, high-output engine to deliver the right exhaust note?
Try that with your average "4-cylinder du jour" import.
BTW, anyone wanna buy some Michigan real estate?
Upper or Lower Peninsula? Upper Peninsula's quite fine and nothing like the rest of the state. Lots of forest, open land and lakes.
Lower Peninsula, not so much when you get further south from the bridge. Detroit is quite hellish and would require one to be well-armed and fortified to live there.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Having grown up in a union family, I see both sides of the fence. But, I'm strongly against getting rid of the secret ballot
It's only there in name. I believe you know of the various firms (The Burke Group, Jackson Lewis, Grigsby & Cohen, et al) that specialize in targeted intimidation of pro-union individuals.
If they didn't fight tooth and nail to keep them away, they wouldn't fight tooth and nail to keep it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
NDAs can and do prevent you from working for a competitor. Have you ever signed one? I've signed a few. I've even drafted some.
Check this out: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN0743124420081108
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 5 (Reuters) - A U.S. District Court judge in New York ordered a newly hired Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) executive to stop work immediately because he might be violating an agreement with his former employer, IBM (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
Federal District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains ordered that Mark Papermaster "immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc until further order of this court."
BTW, non-disclosures and non-competes often go hand in hand for programming jobs. They're usually combined into one document.