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Does Silicon Valley Need More Labor Unions? (salon.com)
Salon recently talked to Jeffrey Buchanan, who two years ago co-founded a labor rights group "that highlights the plight of security officers, food-service workers, janitors and shuttle-bus drivers in the region." An anonymous reader quotes their report:
The situation among Silicon Valley's low-wage contract workers has become so perilous that in January, thousands of security guards working at immensely profitable companies like Facebook and Cisco followed the shuttle-bus drivers and voted to unionize in an effort to collectively bargain for higher wages and better benefits. The upcoming labor contract negotiations between the roughly 3,000 security guards (represented by SEIU United Service Workers West) and their employers is one of the biggest developments in Silicon Valley labor organizing to happen this year. Buchanan says there's also a broader push this year to get tech companies to be proactive in ensuring these workers can make ends meet, even if these companies have to pay more for the services they procure...
A paper published last year by University of California at Santa Cruz researchers Chris Brenner and Kyle Neering estimates between 19,000 and 39,000 contracted service workers are employed in the Valley at any given time... An additional 78,000 workers are at risk of becoming contract employees, according to the study, a number which includes administrative assistants, sales representatives and medium-wage computer programmers. This is part of a larger societal shift in which salaried workers are converted to contractors -- a transition that benefits business owners, in that they don't have to pay benefits and can hire and fire contractors at will.
Buchanan's group represents contractors typically earning "as little as $20,000 a year." But Salon's headline argues that "programmers may be next" in the drive to organize contractors.
A paper published last year by University of California at Santa Cruz researchers Chris Brenner and Kyle Neering estimates between 19,000 and 39,000 contracted service workers are employed in the Valley at any given time... An additional 78,000 workers are at risk of becoming contract employees, according to the study, a number which includes administrative assistants, sales representatives and medium-wage computer programmers. This is part of a larger societal shift in which salaried workers are converted to contractors -- a transition that benefits business owners, in that they don't have to pay benefits and can hire and fire contractors at will.
Buchanan's group represents contractors typically earning "as little as $20,000 a year." But Salon's headline argues that "programmers may be next" in the drive to organize contractors.
Is more housing projects so that prices sink to a bearable level.
The headline asked a question, the answer is obviously "No".
In the employers favor there are endless new people fresh willing to get sucked in to replace those that figure out that a lot of silicon valley these days is a venture capitalist money laundering scheme. The recent book Chaos Monkeys draws the argument out in stark detail. Convince IT and Dev folks that they are wolves and only that sheep need collectivism. Keep up the illusion and that way you can keep fleecing them.
Anyone who is not senior management needs to be in a union. Don't expect your bosses to be concerned about what is in your best interest - the sole function of a private business in a capitalist society is to return the maximum amount of money to the company's investors (stockholders). You, as a mere worker drone, are just fodder
Imagine if actors couldn't live in Beverly Hills, that's what's happened. Greedy landlords think x% of someone's salary belongs to them as rent. If programmers can't live in Silicon Valley, what's the point of Silicon Valley?
Unions put their effort into supporting their members, not the general populace. They spend a trifling amount of time and money campaigning to increase the minimum wage, and that only because in some cases union wages are tied to it. If it weren't for that, they would not give one tenth of one shit about it.
Unions were a necessary step in workers' rights, but now it is time to protect the rights of all workers, without expecting them to unionize piecemeal.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You've swallowed the purple flavor-aid. Union members don't like slackers any more than anyone else. Nobody wants to have to work harder to make up for lazy turds riding on their coat-tails. Union members are no exception.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
No wonder Canadian taxes are so high.
Love sees no species.
Maybe it's time to consider that proto-companies that generate no profitability shouldn't have to be established in some of the most expensive cities in the world.
Maybe it's time to consider that mid-sized companies that are in pretty strong competition in order to remain profitable don't need to be located in some of the most expensive cities in the world.
Maybe it's time to consider that large companies that are continually looking for ways to reduce costs don't need to retain the vast majority of their operations in some of the most expensive cities in the world.
There seems to be a point where a city has gotten so expensive that it is not possible for workers in the service jobs needed to afford to live there, or to even live within reasonable commuter distances. In theory this should lead to a natural cap on the cost of living or a natural floor to wages simply because cities need workers in these jobs, but as has been pointed out in this thread that doesn't mean that landlords won't look for ways to increase their profits, or that the numbers of people that need these unskilled jobs can readily find work closer to where they can easily afford to live.
If the service workers decide to unionize, fine. Good for them.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Coming from a decidedly not communist country where labor unions are de rigueur, no it isn't.
What is more capitalist than negotiating a fair and equitable price for a service? Individuals negotiating with companies are almost always at a massive disadvantage: they generally need the job more than the company needs them; they don't usually have information on what other people at the company or in the industry make; they aren't aware of the future plans that their management might have; they have no real say in corporate direction. All of these are ameliorated by collective bargaining.
We have our share of bad employees here too, and a lot of them are in unions. The union makes sure the company follows the law and its own disciplinary procedures - that's it. If the company is doing something harmful in the long term for short term gain (like off-shoring IT to a developing nation) the union will make a fuss and maybe call a strike. The union has no interest in destroying the company; if anything they have more at stake in the long-term health of the firm than the managers, who may come and go within a few years.
It seems to be that Americans in skilled jobs almost all believe that they are irreplaceable superstars and will receive above average treatment from their employers. It doesn't phase you that your colleagues are getting screwed, but when it happens to you it's a ridiculous injustice that will surely doom the company.