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Ask Slashdot: What Would It Take For Developers To Start Their Own Union?
juicegg writes "TechCrunch contributor Klint Finley writes that developers have shunned unions because traditional workplace demands like higher pay are not important to us while traditional unions are incapable of advocating for what developers care about most while at work: autonomy and self-management. Is this how most developers feel? What about overtime, benefits, conditions for contractors and outsourcing concerns? Are there any issues big enough to get developers and techies to make collective demands or is it not worth the risk? Do existing unions offer advantages or is it better to start from scratch?"
In my lifetime, I don't recall a single industry that that has started a successful union in the U.S. (not in ANY field). All the unions that still have any real power are the ones still around from the Roosevelt New Deal and postwar days (the Teamsters, UAW, etc.).
So it's hardly fair to single out developers. There are very few fields that are significantly unionized anymore, and most of the ones that are are represented by older unions that go way back. When you look around and see that there are no unions with any real power that have been founded in your lifetime, it's pretty easy to be skeptical and pretty hard to volunteer to be the sacrificial lamb (by being the first voice in your field supporting a union) and endanger your career in the process.
It probably also doesn't help that political support for unions, even among many Democrats, pretty much dried up a long time ago.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
"because traditional workplace demands like higher pay are not important to us"
Since when is higher pay simply "not important"?
TK
The second a union starts, the company closes the local shop and outsources all development to a place where unions are illegal.
Manufacturers at least have a direct cost associated with moving a factory; most costs attributed to outsourcing are intangible in development and are thus usually ignored by PHBs.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Most labor unions are led by communists and care for the wages of the bosses only. The run of the mill membe is only expected to provide dues so the bosses can give it to their political candidates.
Unions? No way. I'd rather be jobless and homeless than to belong to a thug-run labor union.
Before the Internet, and before the common man had access to rally others, communicate to the masses, and see others' opinions, unions had value.
They kept child labor in the mines but made more money for the children's parents and for the union bosses.
Today unions are obsolete. The only people who advocate unions are the unions themselves, and those who've already joined that now want to "haze" everyone else because "they got hazed."
Sorry, jack. No unions.
E
Why would you want a Union? My observation is that Unions drag everything to the mediocre. It drags down the top performers and brings up the dead wood. If i'm a top performer I can do better for myself on my own. I guess if I'm a bottom feeder I'm interested, but probably too lazy to to care.
It would be a hard sell to the development community these days. Especially when we're facing overseas competition, and domestic competition from overseas labor. A union would make American developers un-competitive, and force businesses over the edge of insisting they can't afford american labor, even further. Sure, it would be nice if congress fixed that, but they haven't in the twelve years I've been watching. So, it's probably not feasible any time soon.
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What about overtime, benefits, conditions for contractors and outsourcing concerns?
Disclaimer: I am pro unions for services that are needed but cannot operate in the manner of a traditional capitalistic model like teaching and nursing. I am anti-union when it comes to goods and services that are not a critical need for society and should survive by their own objective merit and quality.
As a software developer myself, wouldn't unions exacerbate outsourcing concerns? I mean the whole point of what a picket line and a scab was centered around the fact that unionized workers that went on strike would have to physically stop workers from accessing the factory floor to work for less than the unionized workers. I would think that if developers did this, the picket line would be virtual and foreign or even out of state developers would find it easy to work remotely to fulfill the customer's needs. So could someone explain to me how a union could address outsourcing concerns? I think a union would make a potential development house shy away from going local for fear that they would have to deal with a union and then once in that position would not be able to go elsewhere for development work.
My work here is dung.
while traditional unions are incapable of advocating for what developers care about most while at work: autonomy and self-management
They missed one other one: Unions are also incapable of supporting performance-based rewards and promotion, something tech sector workers appreciate. The notion that seniority trumps all else would not go over well in my workplace, nor former workplaces.
I can't think of a faster way to send more development jobs to China/India than to unionize. Globalization largely blocks the benefit of unionizing in our industry, whether you are for or against unions is beside the point.
Companies that hire here value a level of service and language skill as a cost of doing business. You start reducing the cost-benefit of that relationship, and they will start shipping more jobs overseas.
Unions have been attempted in the past for IT personel. There is a reason they always fail. That reason is the general Union mentality that a degree is required to do anything high level. Many high level people in IT currently have no degree, or got the degree while already in the workplace.
That is just one reason. There are many others. Myself, yes I know I am posting anonymous, I do not support unions in IT. As the only degree I have is a G.E.D. and 21 years experience.
yuck - i've worked places with unions (not as a developer but as a system administrator) and it was positively the worst experience. the best jobs go to those with the most seniority instead of the most talented and your pay is well defined ahead of time by a schedule based again on your seniority. also the most senior people are the people who haven't minded working under these parameters and therefore were all terrible. it was the most demotivating place I've ever worked. no thanks.
I am paid well, have a decent benefit package, and have had this through multiple different jobs. I can tell employers I'm not interested if they don't have a good benefit package, and will have employers knocking at my door in a few days.
If someone approached me asking me to unionize, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves. I like working with competent people, thank you very much. Unions always attract the incompetent.
I know programmers who work for my county that are unionized. Imagine a process where seniority and not coding ability determines who works on a project.
Imagine a union that helped get the best workers on a project and making the most. A union that helped weed out the lazy, the incompetent, and the criminals. That would be a union that most people would not oppose.. unfortunately the opposite is true: seniority rules, criminals are coddled, lawsuits are filed, work slowdowns are part of the union bag of tricks.
Unions have no place for the programming industry.. except in government where we expect cost overruns and shoddy results. To start a programming union would be to hasten the outsourcing of your job. Besides, programming jobs are one of the most in-demand careers out there. If you can't make good money without a union, you should bone up on your skills.
I reject the idea of unions for IT professionals. I wholeheartedly agree with belonging to professional groups (they seem to be pretty rare) for sharing information and organizing informally. I don't see lawyer's unions or doctor's unions and don't see the need for IT unions.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Sure I want higher pay. I'll earn that pay thanks. Work environment and coworkers are huge factors to me. And I don't think those would be maximized in a union environment. At all. Please don't drag us down to mediocrity.
In C, it's pretty simple, though of course if you want a discriminated union you'll probably end up stuffing it into a struct along with a field that tells you how to interpret the union.
Why would I want to belong to a union when the most of the power is on the developer's side? There's not enough developers to go around and thus plenty of job availability. Unions are meant to solidify workers rights in a situation where labor is plentiful, but that's nowhere near the case. Companies fight over us. I just made a decision between 3 offers this week to accept a new job. The power was in my hand.
Traditional manufacturing had huge barriers to entry. You needed to buy millions of dollars worth of equipment before your factory could actually produce anything. That meant the labor market was captive, creating a pressure for labor to unionize.
Software development has almost no barriers to entry. You need a computer, some development tools, and network access. These are easily within reach of any developer (and in fact any developer who loves what they do will already own these for "recreational coding" at home). If you're in software development and are unhappy with the level of autonomy and self-management your employer gives you, simply quit and start your own company.
Think software has a larger block of Libertarians than most other office workers. /. had a poll last week showing Dems and Libertarians in a neck-and-neck race for the biggest political block. Libertarians and Unions don't line up terribly neatly. That's going to be a quick roadblock to any attempt to unionize.
Implicit Evaluation with PHP
Today, unions exist to protect jobs - meaning that a poorly performing worker is protected and cannot be fired.
Technical people admire knowledge, ability and competence above anything else. And they are disgusted by incompetence, which makes everybody's work more difficult.
The idea of actually protecting incompetence (via unions) goes against the whole technical culture. No, unions are not coming to the development community.
As a slightly less than mediocre software developer I am tired of my more skilled and harder working colleagues getting better raises and quicker promotions than I do. I've even been here longer than most of them.
I haven't heard of any either, but I could clearly see a white collar information technology union. The need for one is quite apparent.
Odd, I have not seen a need to have my paycheck garnished in order to pay the wages of a bunch of executives who do nothing for me. You already get enough of that with company management as it is.
As financial conditions deteriorate, and simultaneously the need for more IT labor increases, the more management is pressured to "get more for less."
As the need for IT labor increases so does the amount you can ask to be paid, and the greater the opportunity to switch jobs for higher pay.
Eventually there has to be a breaking point.
We reached it a while ago. Unions are broken, and developers are way too rational to bring long term harm on themselves for short term gain.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sell your soul.
Kidding aside, im not saying unions are bad, as they do have their value in some situations, but they dont need to be in every industry. They raise costs and complexity for companies, governments, consumers as well as the employees. Often times they run small companies out of business due to the overhead, and can easily price a 'contract programer' on his own right out of the market.
"coding" is one of those industries that i feel is best left alone. ( and no, i no longer do it for a living, so i dont have a vested interest )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Unions exist in situations where management is negotiating from a place of power and replacement workers are easy to find. They allow the collective workforce to get a better deal than they would individually.
Meanwhile, there is a shortage of capable developers and we have the power in most negotiations. Why do we need a union if we can just demand what we want and get it? In our industry, companies have even been caught uniting against workers.
Unions are a tool and developers are taught to us the right tool for the job. When the situation demands a union, we'll unionize, but there's no point in doing that until there are a ton more capable developers to compete with for jobs.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
The reason to join a union is because it will give you real benefit. I absolutely support unions and am grateful for all the hard work they've done in the past, but it's something to be practical about. You don't join a union because of some ideological theory, you join because you want some benefit.
My grandpa joined a union because he got something like a 20% pay increase and more benefits. Would I join a union to achieve that? Yes, I would, and I would happily pay dues because they would be worth it to me.
Am I going to join a union that only takes my dues, and doesn't even fight for me when I get wrongfully fired (hello, AT&T union)? No, I am not.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I only see a Developers Union as working as a Guild Style Union where you could maintain your skills and receive a status, like Journeyman, so the union would have a right to argue for or against hiring. However, this function is being served with "certifications". I don't particular like the certification process but it is serving the function that the a union used to fill prior to it just being just about wages and benefits. If a union could maintain it's members skills better and had a better reputation than the current certification process then a "kind" of Union could be established. This kind of union would be where Employers would go to find skilled workers, and would be better for it not to call itself a Union since that tends to scare employers.
Union jobs are set in contract
you sign a contract to work for X number of days per year, you have to work that number of days. in the office.
you sign a contract to arrive at a specific time? you arrive.
if your kids get sick a lot during the year? too bad, hire a baby sitter or take vacation day. no working from home. contract says in the office.
hurricane hit NYC? too bad, get in the office.
kids' school schedule changes? too bad, hire a sitter.
the union negotiated a low copay health plan but the doctors suck or no one takes it? too bad. most people only care what they see in front of them so no good doctor for you. people don't like paying copays
i much prefer a lower pay job with the luxury of telecommuting if my kids get sick or when i have to pick them up at 3PM from school. and i like my kids doctor who just happens to be chief of pediatrics at the local hospital and calls in to the ER to hurry the process up
Home schooling, charter schools, private schools - all these things operate well and better than public schools, all without unions.
Unions are decimating the performance and respect for public schools. Time to get them out of the way if you want to really improve educations for the millions that cannot afford private school, or live an an area too backwards to support charter schools.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Communism may have failed, but class warfare is alive and well. A worldwide depression, or even that of a few nations like the USA, India China or Europe would probably kick start a move to unions. I have no doubt that even if wages were to drop to Bangladesh levels, that prices on most items in these countries wouldn't budge downward very much. Price structure and wage structure are increasingly out of sync. At a certain point, when nobody in IT is making enough to live on, unionization will occur, along with a the sharpening of some makerbot printed guillotines. The speed with which "libertarians" become socialists will be quite amusing.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
this may mean licensing or journeyman boards, but jesus. take some responsibility. right now you can just shit code out and put the words "rock star" on your resume. Stop with the entitlement shit until you stand behind your work.
Right... Given that the schedule is usually set by marketing, and stuff ships regardless of whether the devs think it's ready or not, I can't blame them for washing their hands of it.
A civil engineer isn't going to sign off on an unfinished bridge just because the city promised to have it open by today. A developer shouldn't have to, either.
Well, Anonymous Coward is on board. Great.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Why would developers need unions? We have fantastic work conditions, we get paid very well in comparison to the people around us, and we can pick between a plethora of jobs. Furthermore, we are not tied to a geographic location, as farctory workers are. I fear that my own quality of life would go down as a function of union creation. Why would one want to push this 19th century concept into the 21st century work place. If I don't like the work conditions where I am, I quit and I have another job as soon as I want one. Take your union corruption and stick it somewhere obscure please.
The lousy developers who think their skills are worth dramatically more than they are want the unions. Unions lower everyone to the lowest common denominator. They protect the incompetent at the expense of the competent.
I think a vast number of developers would benefit, if they could get shops unionized. Most developers are well south of competent at their jobs. That said, the ones who are good have the clout -- they'd be promoted into development management positions (avoiding the unions), and a smart company would fire the rest and outsource at the first hint of it.
The simple fact that you seem to miss in understanding his statement, tells all.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
On one hand, I could imagine that some developers may want to unionize, if there are way too many of them and if they feel like they are being easily replaced. Like, say, HTML, PHP, JavaScript and perhaps even Java... code monkeys whose jobs are being outsourced to India (no offense please). On the other hand, I can't imagine specialized and highly specialized developers whose skills are in high demand to unionize. That would effectively reduce their marketability.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Please skip all the unions-are-evil vs owners-are-evil arguments. They're irrelevant.
Unions work -and are generally necessary - when everybody does the same thing. If everybody is an interchangeable part of (typically) an assembly line or repetitive job like resource extraction, then anybody can be replaced, and people get treated like machines. And unions can strike for compensation and conditions that are the same - or at least, based on the same formula - for all those doing comparable work.
But while large bureaucracies invariably attempt to bring in assembly-line "development methodologies", development just isn't coal-mining. There's a much larger dynamic range in the amount of (good, productive) code a developer can produce in a day vs the amount of coal you can mine, so narrow pay ranges are inappropriate. And developers are not so interchangeable - a good one threatening to quit gets more than a shrug from the boss.
What you need is not a union, but a pressure group aimed at shutting down H-1B abuses. That's quite a straightforward goal.
Disclaimer: I'm live and work in Europe
...where you already have 4+ weeks vacation, sane working hours, protection from dismissal without cause, guaranteed health care if you do lose your job, and so on and so forth. Understandable that you don't see the appeal of a better contract.
0 1 - just my two bits
A confederation is a more loose alliance among independent knowledge professionals. Bargaining would be left up to the individual, but the organization would offer unemployment assurance through Union dues. The best off all possible worlds. Highly Optimal Opportunity Topology. H.O.O.T!
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
We need a better set of qualifications for the job. Engineers don't have a union but they won't let you design a bridge unless you are an engineer. The current "Computer Science" major does not make a qualified developer. Reading c++ or java in a weekend does not make a good developer. Yet companies hire these people and allow them to create big balls of mud that don't work. We need apprenticeships and a way to communicate what level a developer is to the "lay" community. Sr Developer and Web Guru are not the same thing to you and I, but from the outside it sounds like that Guru is the guy to go with. I'm not sure how we do this, but the profession really needs it. As a consultant I've worked with a number of companies that when I got there didn't even have reasonable source control, and the developers were didn't have any knowledge of "SOP" in the industry. We need a way to differentiate in the business community between professional programmer and somebody who can type into an IDE.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
So no unions in IT.
Outriders welcome! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHAWWW! Down with the MBA Yankee boys!
Last one to meet me at the Death Star trench programs in PASCAL!
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
Some baseball bats, ice picks, the occasional incendiary device.
And it will be all for naught, because as soon as you unionize, you will be outsourced. And the people still doing the job who are still in this country will be the ones who have programming, organization, and communication skills not found in offshore development. And don't belong to a union. In the current business environment, unions only work for people who must be on-site, or are adequately politically connected. Or both.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Unions exist to cartelize the work force, limiting its numbers, which artificially inflates pay. That's why unions have been against child labor, female labor, non-union labor, etc.
In the software engineering field, we already have a very limited workforce, so no need for a union.
What tech talent needs are agents, not unions. That is people to represent them in negotiations who are skilled at negotiating, and motivated to get a good deal. Very much like entertainers (actors, singers, sports stars). The agents focus on the "business" while the talent focuses on delivering value. This is especially true in job interviewing situations, especially when interviewing with a company that has a HR department. They have advantages in that interaction that are unbalanced. I personally would love to have an agent. The idea has it's hurdles, but no more so than the idea of starting a union.
Reading through the comments I realize that the views on unions on slashdot is very very different from my perception of what the views are here in Sweden.
I've been working for a long time in this industry and in almost all large companies in Sweden unions are pretty much the default, and I think most people think they provide a valuable service (that said, no one feels forced to join a union, at least not in the tech industry). I've had some bosses that where against unions, but almost all of them where bosses in quite small companies.
So I wonder if the anti-union stance is mainly north american, or if the rest of europe has the same thoughts.
The benefits, as I see them, among others, are that unions (most of the time) helps keep the playing field level, and makes sure that a certain level of workplace safety etc is maintained. Most of them also organize networking (within your working field), educational conferences and not least, extra income insurance if you get laid off (albeit at a price).
... which, of course already exists
If we're honest with ourselves, developers are paid very well for something most of us like doing. We don't have to destroy our lungs in coal mines nor do we have to do back breaking labor. If we don't like the conditions at our job there is plenty of demand for good developers at other jobs (or even consulting or independent work). The reason we're not unionized is because there would be benefit to doing so.
They should form a guild or professional society. That said, developers are so non-unified that if they did have a union, they would have more scans than a biker with roadburn.
It's VERY difficult to READ YOUR posts WHEN you CAPITALIZE random words AND PHRASES. PLEASE stop.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Has anyone who's posted so far actually ever been in a union? They don't just try to protect incompetence or continually raise pay rates (though, yes, they do tend traditionally tend to try to do that as well). They also enforce worker protection laws. They provide legal protection and legal insurance. They provide workplace representation, worker representation.
Seems like a bunch of turkeys voting for [Thanksgiving|Christmas]...
I wouldn't join a union because I've worked with unions before. I've seen how effective their members are 10 minutes before one of their mandatory breaks, or when you ask them a favor that might not be strictly inline with what's on their "job card", or when you ask them to give you a hand with something and it might mean staying a little later than usual.
They actually did try to unionize the IT folks at a place I worked at once. They wanted to lump us all in with the admin clerks and secretaries, and if the union vote passed you got no say in whether you wanted to be part of it or not. So it was basically a money grab. They'd remove 3% of your paycheck and give you the same "benefits" as someone earning 1/3 as much as you. Of course, you could get your money back, as long as you sent them a certified letter every month asking for it back. And then three months later they'd send you what they took from you -- without interest, of course. Yeah, no thanks.
If I need to negotiate my working conditions, pay, etc with management, then I'll do so. I need no help from a pack of thieves like union organizers. Sure, my employer can fire me for pretty much any reason, but I can also vote with my feet.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Very well, mentally replace "a place where unions are illegal" with "non-unionized contract labor, most likely overseas and in a marked with lower development costs". The point is the same.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
And nearly as bad as corporations for stifling individual choice.
When people were just willing to not put up with horrible working conditions and horrible pay on a individual level we would not need unions.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
At least the union can demand the takedown of IE.
Let M$ base their webbrowser on webkit if they cannot follow the standard.
Imagine the time and frustration we'd collectively save.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
market*
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
yet here's my sad overly generalized conclusion: Those with an Engineering degree tend to be too conservative and have swallowed a bunch of malarkey about unions being Communist (see comments on this very page); whereas those with a PhD are somehow too elitist to think they need this sort of low-prole protection. I hope i'm wrong, and it'll just take a new generation to see the long-range benefits of getting organized, but i certainly have my doubts.
First, build up the organizational infrastructure with something like a skilled trades program for IT apprenticeship, journeymen, masters. Its more like "data-" plumbing than anything else, right down to the plumbers crack when pulling cable under the desks.
You may find with an organized training and licensing and certification system, you don't need the overhead of a workplace union. Or maybe you will after all. Regardless, don't put the cart before the horse, do the pre-reqs first.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I have legacy green-screen skills that are valuable only because the people that have my skill are retired and/or rapidly dying off, yet these systems are still in common use all over the world. Why should my skills be valued the same as some dime-a-dozen Java union hack when I can pull down extortionate wages on my own?
- Pithy comment goes here.
A Union for IT would be completely disastrous locking in people who haven't adapted to technology. Get this: A lot of people who work in IT aren't in their 20s or 30s. Talk to anyone who works in IT security and you'll see that a vast majority of people there have NO clue what they are doing...and you want a Union to make it harder to fire these people while giving them a pension that takes away from people who come in and actually know the new technology? Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.
The fact GGP's post makes no sense at all tells all.
There might be some companies who can't identify good (or 'rock star') programmers. But programmers that vent like the GGP are always air thieves who are convinced they are unrecognized rock stars themselves.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Unions are worker organizations, developers would IMHO be better to have a professional organization. As mentioned previously this would start with some type of professional certification. As a group you could arrange group insurances/benefits administered through the group. The first goal I see would be to start certifying software "Developed by certified professionals (name of organization)". If you can create brand recognition for this certification you will gain some leverage against outsourcing etc. since those developers would not be certified. The organization would also share job and working condition information which would help in individual negotiation and relocation if necessary. The biggest hurdle I see would be if the 1%ers founded a competeing organization that they could control.
Groups geared towards IT pros are "rare"? In what universe? Off the top of my head I can think of the IEEE Computer Society, the Association of Computing Machinery, SAGE, User Groups (most large technology platforms have one), etc.
If you think they are rare, you haven't been looking very hard.
And yes, there are practically unions for lawyers and doctors. Almost every lawyer is a member of their local Bar Association, and most doctors belong to the AMA. Architects and Civil Engineers have the NSPE, Realtors have the NAR, etc. Those groups have immense influence over public policy regarding their professions. (Far more so than say the IEEE or ACM anyway...)
In pursuing school and deciding on which direction to go, I had decided to choose accounting as it seems to provide a stable field, while still allowing me the personal time to follow my interests with technology. I've been reading here at /. for a few years, and with the many complaints I see about the way the software industry or field of systems administration are treated and abused, along with the non-industry related troubles, has been a big turn off from choosing either of those fields as my primary skill.
However, I do love computers and networks and exploring code and programming and intend to follow with an education in one of the related fields. But whether or not I choose that for my employment is another issue. So during the day I shall be Justin the programmer-accountant and by night I shall defend the universe of light from the forces of darkness.
The OTHER big problem with white collar workers is that your job performance and satisfaction are far more likely to be influenced by the performance of your coworkers.
If a guy on the factory floor is slacking, the company's production goes down.
If a guy on your software team is slacking, it can quickly become a pain in your ass.
A tech union would just open the door for workers who can't perform to vote themselves protections that limit the compensation and satisfaction of the workers who do perform well.
paintball
There are companies and organizations that are horrible to developers. Locally, I've heard that Cerner is terrible to employees from just about everyone I know who works there. Large scale, I've heard EA is terrible and that seems to be reflected in their products. Making people work 50-60 hours regularly with no overtime seems pretty horrible (I'm not talking about on-call, I mean actual active work) for a regular position. I did work a job that had a seasonal 70-80 hour schedule, but at the worst that was maybe only a few weeks at that rate.
I imagine you're getting crappier output from apathetic employees if that's situation normal.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
This question about unions for IT people comes up about once a year on Slashdot. Every single time you see the same damn bullshit from people who have no fucking clue what a union is or how it works.
1) The members (workers) have to vote on the contract. Don't like it? Don't vote for it. And you don't pay any dues until the first contract is negotiated.
2) Think performance bonuses are a good idea? Fine. Keep 'em. It's your contract. You can make the contract read whatever you'd like.
3) All the contract is is a legally binding document that spells out the work rules so management can't arbitrarily change them. If they do break the rules, you've got a legally binding contract to back you up. Imagine, you can keep all the same rules and procedures you have in place now except they could actually be enforced.
Take deep breaths people. If unions get the support and input from their members, they can be one of the best ways to empower workers and and make the company a better and more profitable place.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
From Vulcanite Dentures
I greatly enjoy 99% Invisible. Some people might have heard about through their recent (and highly successful) Kickstarter campaign. Worth checking out.
Another approach is to form a certification society. I know a person who was involved in the politics to set this up:
Get certified by the Editors' Association of Canada!
Next you have to convince business that anyone lacking your shiny credential is a contagious scab. Internally, you need to wield the threat against your membership to revoke certification if anyone appears to be setting too low a price on their labours.
There also tends to be a lot of pressure for members to confirm prior judgments and not embarrass each other.
I know of cases where Professional Agrologists (P.Ag.) are involved in the decision process of whether to take land out of a land reserve. One can imagine the moral hazard here. The politician hires his friend, the friend (P.Ag.) writes a favourable view, opponents object, a "neutral" agrologist is summoned whose heart is in the right place, but one who nevertheless won't remain a P.Ag. for long unless wording any difference with the politician's friend (P.Ag.) very carefully.
Gatekeeper organizations tend to acquire an ugly face as a corrupt private-sector nanny state. They might also be good for your profession, but it's no free lunch.
This is a long, but compelling read (for the most part).
Lance Armstrong Case: Dr. Michael Ashenden on EPO
This is the problem with unions, professional associations, and certifications. There are always more people out there who aspire to take on power within these organizations with the purpose to abuse it. It might only be 25% of the people involved in responsible positions, but it changes the dynamics for everyone involved. And you can't simply bust them out, because they breed like flies.
...not unions. Most other technical professions have some sort of centralized professional organization (Chemists, Engineers in various fields, Doctors, Dentists, etc). IT professions are lacking this and it's past time one existed. There are some attempts out there but it's scattered and weak. Granted it is not a cure all for the IT labor market (as any chemist) but it's a start in the right direction.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Yes, I'd estimate unions are a 10% drag on school performance. Why do you find that acceptable? Why do you want to pay more for a 10% loss over baseline?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And show us how awesome they would be if they were run the way unions think they should be run.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
What developers really need is a well-financed PAC with the money and teeth to make the US Chamber of Commerce look like Pollyanna.
I view a union as having a monopoly on the commodity of workers. If the company annoys the union, that resource dries up. But the workers are indeed a commodity... no differentiation.
I have a monopoly on my skillset and hours. If I am more valuable and flexible than another worker, I negotiate for suitable compensation or I shop around for another employer. Unfettered by a system that considers all developers to just be another widget. We have radically different skills, speeds, flexibilities. Why would I want to be lumped in with someone who has checked out already?
It is genuinely scary how many bright people (I assume most people who post on /. are bright.) are willing to believe the propaganda about Unions that have been spread by right wing billionaires over the last thirty or more years.
Almost every comment denigrating Unions is either an exaggeration or a flat out lie. There are many Unions that support staggered pay scales for the same job description. They simply require metrics that are impartial rather than the opinion of the supervisor.
Developers as a group are extremely susceptible to feelings of superiority and self aggrandizement. They are sure that they will be held down by having to share their glory with others.
In fact, anyone who joins a Union immediately earns more money and receives better benefits. That is why companies fight so hard to prevent unions from being formed. Only collective negotiating can force companies and corporations to share their increased income from improvement in productivity with the work force.
Exhibit one: where do you fall on this graph?
Regards, Chris
Because its chinese division will be dead within a week.
Rethinking email
It seems there are two camps of people that are anti-union:
1) Those who currently make a lot of money and have other jobs lined up for them
2) Those who work for companies that would immediately outsource at the sign of unionization
If I was working at workplace 2, I would defiantly be looking for a job offered to the people at workplace 1, because its only a matter of time before the job outsourced. Union wages aren't what's driving outsourcing, its American wages.
A hole in my head.
Competent software developers are a rare commodity. Companies are the ones competing to attract the talent. We are not the dime-a-dozen crowd that can be treated poorly and compensated minimally. If we're not happy with our employer there are 50 waiting in the wings to snatch us up. If we leave our employer they lose the significant investment in both time and money that they made in us to be productive with their environment.
In 2011 software developers ranked number one for having the "best" job in both 2011 and 2012. Why the hell would any of us want to slap our employers in the face for treating us well? To suggest that we should form a union is about as stupid and counter productive as trying to suggest that every pub in Ireland should replace the Guinness taps with Bud Lite.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
I believe the OP was presenting the idea of people more readily forming small businesses, whose bargaining would be with customers (sometimes equals) rather than with large businesses.
It'll be dead on arrival with much of the Southern US. Call it a Confederation. Southerners can get behind those.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
They're sometimes called "guilds".
The AMA and the Bar Association are union-like in many ways even if they don't form picket lines or directly set pay scales.
The Screen Actor's Guild clearly allows spectacular pay for outstanding actors.
The Boeing Company's engineers, programmers and IT specialists in the Seattle region have been unionized since 1946 (SPEEA - IFPTE Local 2001). However, the notable difference is that this is a large engineering base (~22,000 members) dealing with a single employer; there's no way Boeing would be able to replace that many engineers in the event of a strike. So yes, unionization is possible for large companies where the sheer size and specialization prohibits easy replacement. However, if I'm understanding what the OP is arguing, it would be much harder to set something up in a geographical region like Silicon Valley; unlike a factory, a startup or small development shop could easily pick up and move to another area like Austin or RTP in North Carolina. You would also have to be extremely aggressive in breaking a lot of different parties that normally pride themselves on their independence to ensure that ONLY unionized developers are hired: new college hires, startup companies, venture capitalists, etc. I'm not sure if the tech industry is ready to turn on itself like that. You may be able to do it for highly specialized skillsets, say, a union of senior database administrators or something, but again, this would require a complete culture change that would essentially box out and even blacklist anyone who tries to take up a "union" job without being a member. Not sure if the tech world can handle that.
Check out The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839, AFL-CIO. The Animation Guild represents artists and computer graphics workers in Southern California. Computer graphics people at Cartoon Network, Dreamworks, Fox, Hasbro, Marvel, Nicolodeon, Sony, Disney, and Warner are all in that union local.
What do they get for it? Here's a summary of current contracts. First, there's a union wage scale, but it's a minimum. Most workers are paid more than "scale". Second, hours worked and overtime pay are strictly enforced. More than 8 hours per day, overtime pay. More than 40 hours per week, overtime pay. More than 5 days per week, overtime pay. These multiply, so that if you work 14 hours on a Sunday, the hourly rate is huge. Movie projects have "crunches" too, and when they do, the employees get paid a lot of money. This is why production scheduling and budgeting are taken very seriously in Hollywood. So seriously that there are completion bond companies which, if a project gets too far behind, have the authority to fire the director and producer and put in their own people.
The Animation Guild also runs a pension fund. They point out that the Guild has been around longer than all but two animation studios. Hanna-Barbera (Flintstones, Jetsons, etc. and Walter Lanz (Woody Woodpecker), once big names in animation, are long gone; the Animation Guild is still there.
I've run into an IATSE organizer at SIGGRAPH meetings. They've tried to organize the video game industry, but so far, without success. In Redwood City, Electronic Arts and Dreamworks have adjacent buildings. Dreamworks is union; EA is not. The working conditions at EA are much worse.
>Why do we need a union if we can just demand what we want and get it? In our industry, companies have even been caught uniting against workers [techcrunch.com].
If companies are uniting against workers, workers need to unite to match them.
In my lifetime, I don't recall a single industry that that has started a successful union in the U.S. (not in ANY field).
Pardon me for asking, "in your lifetime" without giving any indication of your age is a non-starter for this kind of remark.
If your 2,598,719 user ID is any indicator, and assuming most slashdot users create an account when they're in their mid- or late teens, you were born during the Reagan or Bush administration.
If correct: News flash! The only thing the US economy has ever known since the 1970s were periods of stagflation, recession, and bubble growth, with a political background that saw the rise of ultra-libertarian economic doctrine (think Thatcher/Reagan), and a job market that saw a major shift from factory jobs towards services. This isn't exactly a healthy breeding ground for new unions...
The current economy and political context (an economic depression with currency wars and the seeds for rampant extremism to make a comeback) may very well see the rise of new unions, or the reinvention of existing ones...
Why don't we try to strengthen laws for individuals....and make things easier for people to self employ, self incorporate and contract themselves.
Who is this "we" you speak of?
I like your ideas, fwiw. Sounds like something a union might productively work on.
Connecting your ideas back to The Fine Article, maybe one answer to "What might it take to start a programmer union" is a clear political policy goal like you described. While perhaps not a noble and selfless cause, it does appeals to my sense of enlightened self interest.
(btw, I would be really interested to see which, if any, companies or candidates endorsed the policies you describe).
Petroleum Engineer here, working with research.
I can tell for myself, engineers don't have much reason to strike. Why? Because it's usually pointless, there's no short-term damage to the employer. If an engineer doesn't show up, work simply goes on.
An engineer on the field has to strike for a few weeks/months to even begin to be noticed. In my case, working with research, I would have to strike for at least one year to do some real harm to my employer.
Engineers aren't useless; the most I know are well worth what they earn. But they influence mainly the future profits of the company, while blue-collar works have a direct influence on the daily profits, not to mention the quarter results.
Striking just isn't a nice strategy for white-collar workers. Threatening to go to a competitor is.
Now if people could threaten to move entire work groups to a competitor... that would be a negotiation I would like to see.
So, here's the deal, there are strength in numbers. Have you ever rowed a boat by yourself? Have you ever rowed a boat by yourself against a full team of rowers? That team of rowers will pass you by ever single time. That's the power of working together in unity.
Union members earn about 30% better wages and benefits than non-unionized employees.
If you want to join a union, I suggest the IBEW. They are the biggest electrical union in North America. They represent more than just electrical workers. 55% percent of their workers are professional or technical.
You can read more about IBEW at the following link. http://www.ibew.org/union/index.htm
You can also read more about the how and why join a union at http://www.ibew37.com/join_ibew37
of attrition and lowered wages.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Mild to severe mental retardation.
Seriously, software development is probably the most meritocratic sector in the world. Can you do the job? Then you're hired, irrespective of the bullshit you can pad your resume with. Don't like what's asked of you? Show off your Github/website coding portfolio and jump shop to another one.
Unionization here just doesn't make sense: it would introduce a credentialism and seniority system completely foreign to how coding works. "Oh, sorry, your job description is Java, not Python, you can't take work away from the Python team."
Please don't kill this with unionization.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Management tends to not look long term enough to care.
Why don't we try to strengthen laws for individuals....and make things easier for people to self employ, self incorporate and contract themselves.
Let each person be responsible for negotiating their own pay rates, etc. .
This is a nice idea but remember that the purpose of a union has been traditionally to offer the labor more power to deal with capitol. Because there is generally less capitol than labor in the economy, capitol has the power. Your suggestions sound noble in theory, but they all fail to address the problem that a single worker is working from weak position in an economy where capitol is scarce and labor is common.
Skilled senior developers are a relatively rare resource in the economy, so getting capitol to treat us well isn't really a problem. We are more scarce than capitol, so we have the power in the relationship. Why do we need a union?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Like time to spend with Facebook and pr0n.
As long as there is job mobility Unions are a waste. Developers have long voted for better wages with their feet. If your working conditions suck, use the feet. Now if situations change Unions become an option. At that point I will be finding the next vocation that lets me use my feet instead.
Tell that to my friend who has a small business that is not union. He's gotten threats to his family and rocks through the window. I don't care if you are a corporate titan or a union member, you are no better than a common terrorist if you resort to such measures.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So let me get this straight... Just about the best, highest paying jobs, you work in (usually) a plush office or cubicle, work on interesting stuff in nice places (trust me - I do contracting and have worked with many, many clients) and you get this without a union??? And you're trying to convince me that I should let a union come in and "fight for my rights" and take a bunch of the money I'd otherwise have in my pocket so they can go on their fat cat European vacations?!? Thanks but NO THANKS!
Sorry but I already have autonomy and self-management - in fact I run my own corp. What about overtime? I get paid straight time for overtime. I'm not forced to work overtime either as a self employed owner of a company I make the rules for my employees. How about benefits, conditions for contractors and outsourcing concerns? I make enough in my rate structure to provide myself for my own benefits. If you work for yourself and you haven't built such costs into your rate structure then you're a poor businessman! Conditions for Contractors? Yeah, dang the A/C only cools this building down to 74 degrees! I need 70 degrees!!! Outsourcing's only a concern with getting the initial contract. If you're good at what you do you or in demand.
"What Would It Take For Developers To Start Their Own Union?"
Abject stupidity.
Speaking as a musician, the union is considerably more in the way of musicians than it is helpful. I don't want anything to do with it; but you'd be amazed at how my avoiding the union negatively affects what jobs I can get, etc. "We only hire union bands" (because if they DO hire a non-union band, they may never get another union band in there.) And I'm perfectly capable of setting my own wage limits.
Extending that to the programming world... oh, brother. I think I'd take up something else, much as I love programming.
Looking at it from the other side: One time my company was setting up a display at a Chicago show. We had a burned out light bulb along the top; a matter of unscrewing the old bulb and replacing it with the new one by screwing it in. We had the spare bulb. I reached for it, and the "floor steward" was there, he informed me the replacement had to be done by a licensed electrician -- at a cost of $60/hour (this was in the late 1980's) with a one-hour minimum. I expressed my opinion that this was ridiculous (which it of course is), and he informed me that my options were either have the licensed electrician do it, or have our company ejected from the show. So we paid the extortion, but I *never* forgot that, and I will *never* join or otherwise encourage these gangsters.
I like how being treated like an actual person makes someone "uncompetitive".
I'm sure if you called up the Communications Workers of America, they'd be happy to talk with you about this subject in detail. (warning: I am not responsible for what happens to your employment status if you click that link from work and it shows up in your company's webserver logs).
A decade ago I worked at a Lockheed Martin site (in Camden, NJ) that had all its software engineers unionized under the CWA. I was on loan (yes, a scab), but I never witnessed any of the common horror stories you typically hear about unions while there. It was almost exactly like working anywhere else. The only real difference I saw was that when we got sold to Lockheed, the union at that one site was single-handedly responsible for the old company being forced to fork over our saved pension funds to the new company.
Unions work best when the workers are more or less interchangeable. In development, individual productivity differs widely; there's a far greater difference between a barely competent developer and a great developer than between a barely competent steelworker and a great steelworker. Skill sets and the market value for those skill sets also differ widely--there's no steelworker equivalent to "COBOL developer vs. Java developer". Unions getting into this would make a complete mess.
Not to mention that development is a changing industry and unions might not be able to keep up just because any large organization gets bureaucratic. Unions may very well have standard pay rates based on how popular languages were 10 years ago.
Also, unions are best at bargaining when there are large numbers of workers employed by a company. Often a company may employ a single digit number of developers. 100 people threatening to strike at once because they are made to work 80 hour weeks are a lot harder to replace than 4.
Sounds nice in theory, but in reality it doesn't really work like that. Most employers won't give a shit if one guy leaves; they'll just overwork the rest of the staff while the guy struggles to find work.
Because a 10% loss over baseline is quite little to pay to ensure that everyone has public education in this country
Public schools can exist just fine without unions, and in fact will have more funds for teaching.
I have nothing against public schools. I just would like it to be possible for them to work more often than they do now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Also, please do not lump developers into "IT workers" which could include helpdesk/call centre workers, technical support or sys admins. None of those people write code as the main part of their job.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The problem is that Unions have a bad reputation at this point of being self serving and generally unrealistic demands. Especially lately. A perfect example is the TTC in Toronto. The last strike they had was because cleaners didn't want to have to work night shift. I assume it was actually more than that, but that's what filtered to the public. So what happened? Legislation was rammed through to make them an essential service and eliminate their bargaining rights. And the collective public were all, "Booyah!" cause they were sick of it.
And then a few months ago I overheard someone talking to someone else about how they were new to a union, and the bosses told him that he had to slow down because he was doing too good of a job and making others look bad. Say WHAT? The idea of being required to slow down and do a poorer job than I'm doing now is counter to every impulse that drove me to a technology career in the first place. I suspect most other techs feel the same way, and this would go far to explaining why there arn't any tech unions.
There needs to be a balance between a union that enforces *reasonable* compensation to all members, while still permitting individuals to excel.
I would advocate for starting a new union, from the aspect that it would allow the members to build their contracts based on lessons learned not only in their profession, but also from other labor organizations - good and bad. Many unions do good for the members, a few do not, which of course are the ones you always hear about. Starting fresh allows you to set up proper checks and balances for a fair and functional union negotiating unit.
:)
Unions like the AFL-CIO often support non-union workers in many different fields, and assist organizing efforts to ensure employers don't break the law or retaliate. This assistance comes without requirement of joining their union, the underlying feeling being "an injury to one is an injury to all."
Myself a member of IATSE, the union for film and television workers, i know that my union covers 3d computer artists and animators, traditional cubicle/office environment work, a similar vein to software developers, in addition to workers in many varied crafts like construction and camera operators. All of our contracts only set minimums for pay, you can always negotiate higher
Point being, it is possible to start a union that -works- for you and your coworkers. Not easy, but not extremely hard. Just need some good ideas and a hefty set of balls to stand up for yourself
For software developers to unionize, it would take a combination of several things:
1) An enormous rise in the population of developers in lower cost of living countries than the U.S.
Imagine that India and China produce software engineers at the same rate as the U.S. That means over time, there will eventually be 6 times as many software developers in India and China compared to the U.S.
2) Offshoring jobs becomes more and more popular with U.S. corporations due to legal changes (aggressive corporate lobbying to allow more non-citizen hiring, to rollback various other restrictions), infrastructure improvements especially networking and power related, etc.
Corporate America would flip out when they have access to X U.S. developers and 6X India+China developers.
The combination of these two factors would create massive downward pressure on salaries - simple supply and demand. Over time, salaries freefall and U.S. developers flee the professions. At that point, the remaining U.S. software developers unionize to attempt to protect their profession.
And yeah, that means you, the rock-star programmer reading this. I get it, you're so awesome you create your own salary physics in your local vicinity. Excellent for you. The reality is most developers, including most who *think* they are awesome rock-star programmers, honestly aren't (they may be good but not orders of magnitude better than average) and face outsourcing/outshoring and so on. When corporations have the ability to literally employ 5-10 people to your one lone awesome self, all except the Linus Torvaldses of the software development world are gone.
That's what it'll take to unionize. Even the right-wingiest free-marketiest anarcho-capitalistic Randian liberterian zealot would unionize. They'd be force to choose between swallowing their anti-union rhetoric, leaving the profession, barely ekeing out a living in a job considered blue-collar along with a newly revised lower salary scale, or leaving the U.S. and punting all the rights they wouldn't have a prayer of retaining elsewhere.
IT needs apprenticeships not CS / college.
Now CS does very college to college But it more of a developer track with lots of theroy and a big block of time (tech moves fast and 4 years class room is to long)
Now the tech schools do get a bad rap and in some ways are tied down to the old college system.
Now for all parts of IT a mixed tech school / apprenticeship system with on going education can work good and cut down to say 1-2 yeas max starting out in the class room.
I already see idiot comments about an individual "allowing" themselves to being abuse, or "negotiating" with the company.... They wouldn't know their own "enlightened self-interest" if it bit them in the bum.
Right.
Anyone happen to notice we're in a slight downturn, and there's one or two more folks than usual out of work? What negotiating power does an individual have in a buyers' market? A *HUGE* buyers' market?
New unions? Like the Farmworkers (starting in the sixties and seventies)? Or the reinvigorated SEIU? And why aren't unions growing in private industry? Duh, maybe because the Republicans have created an anti-union environment that companies use (why not the check off for union elections?)? Or allowing that scumbag who sent out a letter, on official letterhead, to all the employees to tell them that if they vote for Obama, their jobs will be endangered... and that's *legal*?!?!?!
And all most of you suckers* know about unoins is money. Ever wonder when weekend, and paid vacation, and paid holiday, and paid medical care came from? I mean, money taken out of the employers ROI? Unions, dolts.
Too many folks *love* feeling important... and so they accept 50, 60, and 70 hour weeks as demonstrating that (when your parents and grandparents fought, sometimes literally, for a 40 hour week). I'm sure that those of you who have families, or even a life outside of work, adore this.
I have to put up with being allegedly salaried, and yet when the client is closed, like for Sandy, *I* have to eithe rmake up the time, or burn my earned vacation time, or not get paid. "Salaried" used to mean fixed, guaranteed income, y'know.... Oh, and all expenses paid, none of this contribue to health care, etc.
Oh, and we used to get *paid* lunch breaks.
There are also already formed unions: , *hah* - in the Phillipines , and I know another one started about 6-8 years ago, here in the States.
Stupid brainwashed gits. Afraid of Big Brother... while Bigger Boss wants you to give your life for him.
mark
If the thing he's developing is likely to have similar consequences when it fails then I'd agree.
For the other 99.999999% slapping together VB/J2EE/PHP stock control systems or Objective-C fart apps that attitude would get you fired and blacklisted in short order. Fucking prima donnas, we don't want them here.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
One of the first lessons to be learned in a unionized shop is that doing the absolute minimum gets paid exactly as much as working really hard and trying to excel.
Second lesson to be learned is what is the absolute minimum necessary to avoid getting fired?
Third lesson is how to suck up to the union bosses so that, even when you drop below the minimum work level, they'll still protect you.
Why IT doesn't have state licensure is bizarre to me. Engineers, nurses, doctors, architects, accountants, lawyers, actuaries, etc. all have licensing that gives some protections why don't we? I know my mom, aunt, and ex wife have all had instances (on a weekly basis) where they have been asked/demanded/bullied to risk patient lives in the name of cutting a few corners (they are all nurses) and the only thing they could fall back on was the law and the risk they would lose their license.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Speak for yourself. I've worked with tons of managers who love turnover, it gives them something to do and they get to continually search for cheaper and cheaper people which shows trimmed budgets which looks like budget savings/efficiencies that get them big raises and promotions by their managers.
After reading the above posts it seems that What it Would Take For Developers To Start Their Own Union, is cooperation and agreement among tech-savvy nerds on economics and politics. Considering that most hackers hold the same views in both instances you'd think this possible, but under further examination the views they haver most in common are anti-authoritarian... That's the antithesis of a union.
Although I was raised on a farm and am now a coder in eight languages (nine if you count wiring electronics), My brother was born and raised in the 4th largest US city and is a CountryBoy... He works on the Railroad and is a member of their union. If someone his senior gets bumpped from their job they could bump him from his, and he'd end up taking someone else's job, based on seniority. Before I decided that it was a waste of my brainpower to do manual labor I was an Electrician, and a member of their union. My first encounter with Union work ethics was to install all the switches and outlets in a given room of an office building. I told my foreman, "What?! That'll take me 30 minues." He told me: "It better take you eight hours, or else we'll run out of work" So, I took eight hours -- I turned a screw 1/2 a turn, then took a break. Turned it another half spin, and took another break. At the end of the day I told my boss to sit on my middle finger and spin. Fuck That!
Life is too damn short to waste at all. I'd be willing to spend my time doing something -- ANYTHING -- constructive, even digging ditches, or picking up cigarette butts, but being in a union? HELL NO. I'd rather kill myself to save society the financial drain.
Most industrialized nations can manage to provide healthcare of very similar quality to what insured Americans enjoy to their entire populace, and the total bill comes in at ~40% less than what Americans pay. Under single-payer, it is entirely plausible your bills will go *down* (and I can prove that possibility with more than a dozen real world examples).
I hold that America does not need to be uniquely incompetent at providing affordable healthcare forever.
If not a Union at least a professional organization where employer abuses are discussed and notices sent to members not to work for them OR work for them at a premium.
I present to you EA as an example. Where more and more people are thinking twice about working for them if they have a choice.
This has to be a truly global/international organization, since the unit of work and the work environment have been virtualized.
We need to setup international chapters/branches for all the countries where this work can be off-shored and contracted, this way we keep the membership informed on work conditions, remuneration and decisions made by the organization.
If this works, there wouldn't be a need for Anonymous, a simple alert bulletin to all affected members could render any offending employer without any professional services at a global scale.
Talking Union Blues
Pete Seeger
Now, if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you.
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong,
But if you all stick together, boys, it won't be long.
You get shorter hours, better working conditions,
Vacations with pay. Take your kids to the seashore.
It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain
Just why you got to ride on the union train.
'Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay,
We'll all be a-waitin' 'til Judgment Day.
We'll all be buried, gone to heaven,
St. Peter'll be the straw boss then.
Now you know you're underpaid but the boss says you ain't;
He speeds up the work 'til you're 'bout to faint.
You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten,
You can pass out a leaflet and call a meetin'.
Talk it over, speak your mind,
Decide to do somethin' about it.
Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool
To go to your meetin' and act like a stool.
But you can always tell a stool, though, that's a fact,
He's got a yaller streak a-runnin' down his back.
He doesn't have to stool, he'll always get along
On what he takes out of blind men's cups.
You got a union now, and you're sittin' pretty,
Put some of the boys on the steering committee.
The boss won't listen when one guy squawks,
But he's got to listen when the union talks.
He'd better, be mighty lonely
Everybody decide to walk out on him.
Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous
And they're paying you all starvation wages.
You go to the boss and the boss would yell,
"Before I raise your pay I'd see you all in hell."
Well, he's puffing a big seegar, feeling mighty slick
'Cause he thinks he's got your union licked.
Well, he looks out the window and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree:
He's a bastard, unfair, slavedriver,
Bet he beats his wife!
Now, boys, you've come to the hardest time.
The boss will try to bust your picket line.
He'll call out the police, the National Guard,
They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card.
They'll raid your meetin', they'll hit you on the head,
They'll call every one of you a goddam red,
Unpatriotic, Japanese spies, sabotaging national defense!
But out at Ford, here's what they found,
And out at Vultee, here's what they found,
And out at Allis-Chalmers, here's what they found,
And down at Bethlehem, here's what they found:
That if you don't let red-baiting break you up,
And if you don't let stoolpigeons break you up,
And if you don't let vigilantes break you up,
And if you don't let race hatred break you up,
You'll win. What I mean, take it easy, but take it!
Amen!
Professional association is the answer.
You know, upon reading the title of the thread I was thinking 'Wouldn't a guild like structure be better'? And a guild is pretty much a professional association.
A union structure doesn't work as well when a member can work solo or even be a owner of a company in addition to being an employee.
Note: Some guilds are 'misnamed' as unions today.
I don't read AC A human right
In the US and UK unions are formed by workers for their special set of tasks/jobs, which results in a vast set of unions one for secretaries, one for metal workers, one for the administration staff etc. In continental Europe unions are formed for special business sectors. For example, all employees of car, machinery industry are in one union. The new payments are negotiated by the union and an organisation which represents the companies. This results in an balanced situation where the union and that business organisation can negotiate on the same level, which makes strikes mostly obsolete. Sometimes the still occur, but only to show the companies, that the union is backed by its workers. Also, breaking our unions, like Thatcher did in the UK, did not work that well in the rest of Europe. So it would be a great idea to reinvent unions in the US and UK along that promising union concept.
The whole point of a union is to decrease the economic power of those that have skills and good work ethics so that those that don't have advantage in the skills department can take advantage of it. It's just another way to redistribute wealth .. keep the ones that work the hardest and smartest down so those that can't keep up don't get left behind. Especially those that were just hired and do a better job than the slackers that have been around for several years and learned early how to game the system.
.. or did you miss ECON 101 class too many times??? Or maybe you want to automate your job so that you aren't even needed anymore?? Drive up software costs and I'll bet businesses will find a way.
... the US is fast becoming a service based economy because no one can afford to make things here in union shops because of the higher wages and benefits,
I have yet to see any smart and capable person that was been better off in a union, only the average and below-average. A union would 'help' the masses by making fairness based on years of service instead of skills and ability. Creating less product for more pay and benefits means prices have to go up or costs have to be cut elsewhere
So before you go there, look around at how many union trades have gone completely away in the US because of the abusive demands unions placed on employers. Textile, steel, shoes
Bringing unions into the IT community will outsource jobs to India faster than any corporation ever did..... It's difficult to compete with the kid making $1/day in China.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
I feel that a union would highly stifle creativity and capability. Unions work well where a general skillset out of a cookie cutter can get you a job. Anybody can drive a truck, or operate machinery with training. Unions help people keep jobs that pretty much anybody can do where the length of time at the company defines how much you are paid, not really how good you are at your job. Being a software engineer for me is all about the thrill of success and the gratification of a finished project. Success is what gets you paid more. Do you really want to work in an IT environment where your project manager tells the product owners "Sorry, we're late with delivery, we still want our bonuses, and if you don't like it we'll strike and you get nothing" That really sounds like a satisfying place to work to me.
It's a little disconcerting to see talk of a Union where it'd make more sense to have a Professional body.
I, for one, would prefer to have a model like Engineers, Doctors, Accountants, than a model that supports factory workers. Make it a whole lot harder for "just anyone" to call themselves "a programming rock star", and a level of respect for the profession will rise as the acknowledged skill set of the group is better (Even if some individuals are still just as bad).
Unfortunately this will only happen when developers and companies get sued for their truly abysmal software, and lawsuits become common. (After all, this is why doctors and engineers are controlled by their professional organizations).
You do know that half of the businesses mentioned in the last stanza are now out of business. Steel is hardly made in the US anymore, and the other three industries aren't hanging around waiting for wages to go down. KIA, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota .. all have taken a big bite out of Ford, Chevy, and GM.
.. I once ran a fork truck for a month 30 years ago, working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, double and triple overtime because some idiots wanted an extra 50 cents an hour. Made a crapload of money, and I took great pride in the letters we received from our customers asking what had changed to improve the product.
So go ahead and form your union. Too bad your children won't be able to be programmers when all the companies either pack up or move their development off shore. You thought saving a few bucks on existing wages was enough to make them do it?? Wait until you negotiate higher wages, fewer hours, cheaper insurance, and lifetime pensions.
There are a lot of companies that went out of business because of those things, what makes you think it won't happen to you???
If you are so bad at your job that your company can make do with anyone else, fine. Form a union. I hope spending months at a time on strike help feed your family while I'm doing scab work and raking in big bucks. Because I'll be the at the front of the line making more than you did, working harder, and create better quality product while you are out. It's something that happens time and time again when idiots form unions and decide to strike over unreasonably and uneconomical demands. I know
Just because you think you are overpaid doesn't mean there isn't some guy waiting for you to quit so he can have your job.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Unionized German workers are making industrial products and doing better than American workers.
First off, actors, directors, and screenwriters are not all alike, don't do the same work, etc. etc. etc.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/
Frederick E. Allen
12/21/2011 @ 5:42PM |60,178 views
How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much
In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germany’s big three car companies—BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), and Volkswagen—are very profitable.
How can that be? The question is explored in a new article from Remapping Debate, a public policy e-journal. Its author, Kevin C. Brown, writes that “the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.”
There are “two overlapping sets of institutions” in Germany that guarantee high wages and good working conditions for autoworkers. The first is IG Metall, the country’s equivalent of the United Automobile Workers. Virtually all Germany’s car workers are members, and though they have the right to strike, they “hardly use it, because there is an elaborate system of conflict resolution that regularly is used to come to some sort of compromise that is acceptable to all parties,” according to Horst Mund, an IG Metall executive. The second institution is the German constitution, which allows for “works councils” in every factory, where management and employees work together on matters like shop floor conditions and work life. Mund says this guarantees cooperation, “where you don’t always wear your management pin or your union pin.”
Mund points out that this goes
against all mainstream wisdom of the neo-liberals. We have strong unions, we have strong social security systems, we have high wages. So, if I believed what the neo-liberals are arguing, we would have to be bankrupt, but apparently this is not the case. Despite high wages . . . despite our possibility to influence companies, the economy is working well in Germany.
At Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, the nonunionized new employees get $14.50 an hour, which rises to $19.50 after three years.
http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/tale-two-systems
A tale of two systems
By Kevin C. Brown
Remapping Debate
Dec. 21, 2011
American autoworkers are constantly told that high-wage work is an unsustainable relic in the face of a hyper-competitive, globalized marketplace. Apostles of neo-liberal economic theory — both in the public and private sectors — have stressed the message that worker adaptation is necessary to survive....
But the case of German automakers — BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen — tells a different story. Each company produces vehicles not only in Germany, but also in “transplant” factories in the U.S. The former are characterized by high wages and high union membership; the U.S. plants pay lower wages and are located in so-called “right-to-work” (anti-union) states.
The union will help to look after you, and protect you from being fired at the worst possible moment
I don't want to be part of a union that drags a company down by helping to keep around dead weight that really should not be working just then. What good is that? It just spreads misery around.
If I ever got to such a state it would not be a union that saved me, but the simple good practice of building a large amount of savings, and furthermore having good disability insurance. All of which software developers can easily afford.
There is no good a union can do that cannot be done better by an individual.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Personal Liberty. #CombatVeteransForRonPaul2012
I want to be retired when I grow up.
Oh, so you want to get rid of management? You're a socialist?
No, just he middle layer. You need to keep in place an upper layer of management to keep a company on track.
The thing is that unions are like the ultimate in middle managers, providing no value whatsoever to the company.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Programmers and other I.T. professionals shun unions for one major reason: they are illogical, and make no sense, with no real purpose, value or function in a modern society with strong civil rights and a functioning legal system that will enforce the relevant laws that prevent the worst abuses and excesses. No one in the U.S. is compelled to work anywhere they do not want to, and all are free to leave their jobs for better ones, or to simply choose not to work for a bad one. The consequences of that action is purely their own, but you're still free to make the choice and determine that the pay is not worth the hardship. For us, already saddled with excess requirements, inefficient bureaucracies, non-IT literate management or corporate leadership, and everything else, this would just be intentionally putting more roadblocks and inefficiencies in the way of the very people whose job it is to leverage technology to make people more efficient, and Q.E.D., unions make no sense.
I'll be damned if I'm going to put myself in a position where I have to call someone at a union before I'm allowed to open up my PC or server case to add some more RAM, or before I can comment in some code, lest I inspire someone else's wrath or ire because I'm "threatening their job" by doing something that the union says only one person can do.
No one with the basic logic and reasoning skills necessary to pursue a successful career in computing--or any other scientific endeavor--who is not also blinded by some philosophical, religious or political propaganda could possibly perform an analysis of unions, both modern and historic, and come to the conclusion that they would be of any real benefit to themselves or their industry. Unions are just like licensing and regulation schemes that serve only as a form of protectionism from healthy competition in a free market, as well as protection from their own negligence and failure, making it difficult or outright impossible to hold them responsible for their own actions. Unions are in no way necessary to "protect workers' rights", as that is what the law is for, and what the law does,no to mention our system of political representation, whose job it is to change or introduce legislation that protects citizens. Add on top the modern advantages of educatoin for all who want it (and even for those who don't), and instantaneous communications / mass media, and the kinds of gross abuses that necessitated the rise of the first modern unions in the 30's are functionally impossible for a company to get away with these days: even Foxconn, in China of all places, finds itself unable to get away with such abuses unnoticed, yet it is exactly this kind of forced socialism that defines labor unions where such abuse becomes more possible. Let's also not forget that modern labor unions are almost indistinguishable from medieval European "Guilds" that were so reviled by the end of their time, and whose demise was in no small part responsible for the rise of modern industrialism.
Unions--membership in which, in states that support them, is generally compulsory... if you want to work, that is--have no place, benefit, or value in free market capitalism and a free and liberty-loving society. In the 30's and 40's, maybe, but those days are long since gone, and this is a different country today than it was then. They help no one but themselves, and too often are determined to be the parasite that kills the host. I simply cannot see how anyone with the capacity to work in computing for living could come to a different conclusion after an honest examination of the facts.
Oh, and in reply to Animats above... there's nothing there that shows that union as being of any tangible benefit to society at large, much less the field of animation, in a free society where people can choose their own employment at will: the guild outlived those other studios for one
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
At which time, you should still leave, because staying generally causes animosity from management. They become annoyed that you were uppity enough to think about leaving and had to offer you a huge raise to stay. I've seen that happen to a few people already, and they still end up leaving afterwards. I have yet to see any success stories happen when you are offered a raise just to stay, so I'm generally inclined to believe that I should always leave, even if I'm offered a raise to stay.
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I don't believe that either the ABA or the AMA can be considered as union-like in preserving "benefits" or "minimum salaries" or "right to overtime pay", etc., anymore than a general interest looking out for their welfare in regards to laws at the federal and state levels.
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The other thing to notice is that lawyers/ABA and physicians/AMA are professionals who do work based upon their learned and professional opinion and knowledge. They tend to be "salaried" rather than hourly-pay employees. I notice that a lot of comments on this topic talk about programmers/developers wanting autonomy and self-management since they are professionals. Well, being a professional means probably not being part of a union or represented by a union. I think they've tried to unionize medical students / medical residents / surgical residents and fellows at various medical schools and hospitals around the country. I've also heard about the graduate students and teaching assistants trying to be union represented at UCSD.
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The academic world tends to try to beat down and bat at these unionization attempts with two conflicting/contradictory approaches: when they want to say that these people ought not to be union-represented or get an hourly wage or be paid for overtime, the university/academic argument is these are not employees, these are students who are learning in an educational environment and that this educational environment forces these "students" to work insanely long hours without compensation for excess labor or even adequate time to sleep for med/surgical residents in hospital training programs.
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If, however, these people are requesting certain benefits that ought to accrue to them as students, the universities go out of their way to fight that "no no no, you're really employees, and as such must do this as employees would and you do not have those specific rights that students might have while you are doing those duties." I apologize for not knowing off the top of my head what the ludicrious example is that I heard about that the UCSD uses this in, or even what the search term is. perhaps medical student unionization, perhps michigan? Rant over. almost time to procrastinate on a paper and sleep.
Just an old fashioned guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen organised in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artisan
An artisan is a person engaged in or occupied by the practice of a craft, who may through experience and talent reach the expressive levels of an art in their work and what they create.
Companies hiring contract programmers might baulk at union membership.
A guild of artisans is different, it is a proud group of self employed members,
which collectively control the flow of trade for the members.
Go well
One of the first lessons to be learned in a unionized shop is that doing the absolute minimum gets paid exactly as much as working really hard and trying to excel.
Second lesson to be learned is what is the absolute minimum necessary to avoid getting fired?
Third lesson is how to suck up to the union bosses so that, even when you drop below the minimum work level, they'll still protect you.
On second thought, you've sold me. Where can I sign up?
Tell that to my friend who has a small business that is not union. He's gotten threats to his family and rocks through the window. I don't care if you are a corporate titan or a union member, you are no better than a common terrorist if you resort to such measures.
When you say he is "not union", do you mean he has refused his workers the ability to join a union, sacked people who have joined a union, or he just happens to employ people who aren't in a union?
There is a big difference, and morally (I don't know about legally in the US) if you are denying your employees basic human rights, it serves you right if people get annoyed with you.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Sucks, but this is the market we live in. If you want to be treated like a human being, there's always entrepreneurialism.
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he just happens to employ people who aren't in a union?
He runs a tiny shop with under a dozen guys. They have never expressed any interest in being in a union. The same guys have worked at the shop for decades. It's so bad that he has to remove the identification from his trucks when he does jobs inside the city. When he's going to be doing a long-term job where the union will get wise to non-union work occurring, he just hires a union guy to stand next to the truck so that they lay off of him.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I think http://www.lietaer.com/2010/03/the-worgl-experiment/ is better
Casteism
For me, a far more useful entity for developers than a union would be a guild. An organization for any developer doing independent work (many, even employed developers), through which we could get things like health insurance and other benefits. Now that would be helpful.
The fact is developers trend heavily (relative to the general population) towards free market is all and everything type thinking. They hate unions by instinct and they aren't herd animals by conceit- they think they're better than any herd.
Unless things have changed lately, you have a major personality problem in your way. Unless developers have grown up lately.
I think the first key to unionizing developers would have to be some kind of end to the competition between developers of different nations. When devs come from countries like Malaysia or Brazil, they tend to settle for less pay than those who grew up and were trained in G8 countries. The first chance to get a successful union in this industry without developers bawking at it would have to guarantee that workers from other countries are with them, and not the ones who will get their jobs on day one of the strike.
In addition to not suffering from the above posted concerns of scabs and outsourcing, there will have to be a large quantity of democracy in the union local, with regard to deadlines and demands of employers. Decisions of the union will have to be very fast in the pace of the environment their members work within; a new form of organizing will be required. There must be complete unification through the internet of all developers or face strikebreaking. They might as well be the company to which outsourcing contracts are awarded.
The union must also have not only the ability to but the responsibility to set wage tiers for developers of differing skill and quality, and to suspend for training or to fire completely any worker which is not pulling their weight. I advocate this for all unions; if an employee is making the union look bad, the union must get its house in order. Either train the deficient worker better, or get rid of them. Anything less is a reason to fire the whole union.
So, with wage standards across the board, differing standards of living and costs of living in different countries, and a requirement to end competition between devs who can live anywhere and do their work over the internet with ease, there might as well be no national borders for these workers. I think this is yet another prerequisite for unions in software development. And before there will be erased borders we'll definitely have an economy which runs without a form of currency or scarcity.
So in short, the only way to get a successful software developer's union will be to remove all of the reasons to have a union in the first place. This is like saying I'm going to lift the world above my head, which is impossible on principle simply because once the world is "above" my head down is up and up is down and the world is again beneath my feet.
I think it will be far more likely to see a movement such as this come from organizations which advocate free and/or open sourced software and not from anywhere in the corporate world. The sharks of the development world don't want the remora of unionized laborers to take what difficult-to-get pay they can acquire on their own, and companies don't want to deal with terrible employees that need the protection of what is thought of as unions today.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
Unions are for people who can't really negotiate individually, because the skills they have to offer are commodity-level services.
Few software devs or other tech heads would classify themselves that way.
In Reason We Trust
Why would anyone in their right mind want to join a union. Over the years I've been a member but thankfully most of the time I wasn't and when I became a professional I didn't have to join. As states become "Right to Work" workers are electing to not join, and are leaving unions in droves which tells me I am not alone in my opinion. Back in the early days they served their purpose. Now the big unions are in the government where they should not be allowed as they are a monopoly.
The opinions of people who have not dealt with private or public sector unions personally, who have this glorious utopian ideal of the people's collective power being represented by the benevolent, helpful union, who is allied with them to fight the evil greedy corporate masters... Are living in a fantasy world. In reality, the unions turn out to be just as greedy, just as corrupt, and just as evil as the evil corporations they are supposed to be protecting you from. That's because they are run by humans, just like corporations. Who are these wonderful benevolent people who toil for the greater good? Where do we find them? There are a few, sure, but they are in the minority. If you want to educate yourself about how Unions in America really operate, there's a great book out called "Shadowbosses" - look it up on Amazon. Not a conspiracy book at all, just a fact based analysis of where the money goes and how it is used.
Murphy was an optimist
Employee ownership is, or at least should be, the next evolutionary step for the Yin and Yang of management and unions. Check out the writings of Gar Alparovitz or the Mondragon movement in Spain. Employee ownership is getting a lot of active discussion in the UK today. Companies like W.L.Gore and Valve are leading the way. Here in Chicago, we've had half-hearted and failed attempts by some big companies like United Airlines and the Tribune Co. Those should serve as counter-examples of how not to do it.