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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
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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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 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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
While everyone would love to run their own business, there are profound inefficiencies associated with having a large numbers of small businesses, mainly losses caused by competition and misallocations of labor. Having a large proportion of small businesses is actually a symptom of a backward or developing economy; Egypt has more self-employed per capita than the US, for example.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
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.