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GEEK Unions?
Aaron Scott writes that he's the "Head Geek" at his high school, which means that he works for the tech administrator doing IT work and coordinating the other work study nerds.
"As you may imagine, we catch a lot of flack from other students because we spend so much time and energy on the computers at school, not to mention our own machines at home," he explains.
When this happens, he says, "one of the things we do to shrug it off is to joke that if they didn't have us to keep their computers running, the school would cease to function." This belief, he says, is not altogether untrue.
Aaron says he was watching the movie "Dune" one light last week "It occurred to me that what is true of my school is also true of other organizations, from small businesses to the federal government. Just like the Freemen in the movie stopped the universe by stopping the export of Spice, if computer geeks stopped working en masse, the whole country, and even the world, would grind to a halt." Aaron was thinking in particular of how geek politicization might help fight actions like the recent Australian government efforts to censor websites in that country.
How would this work, wondered Aaron? Could some Teamster-like union arise to work on matters of importance to geeks?
Aaron's fantasy, as it happens, is widely shared. When geek began to become a positive rather than negative term in the 90's, geeks and nerds alike began to talk about some form of Geek Union to battle the various corporations thundering onto the Internet, the blockheads in Congress with a penchant who passed the Communications Decency Acts to curb free speech, (or who, more recently wanted to post the Ten Commandments in schools to ward off Geek Evil).
There was talk, too, of a Geek Truth Squad to combat phobic media reporting about the Net, from mis-representations about what hackers really do and are to the alleged perils of game-playing, to the supposed ubiquity of perverts and pornographers online.
One manifestation of that early movement - geekforce.org - surfaced again during the post-Littleton hysteria.
Efforts to organize geeks have proven difficult. The Net population is idiosyncratic, wildly diverse. Many find the very idea of a geek organization too similar to the posturing and rule-making of the offline world. Efforts to form broad-based political communities online have all been quickly done in by epidemic online hostility. Anybody's who's tried to participate in public discussion of online issues knows to expect flamers swarming like fire ants.
But Aaron has a point, and it's significant one, particularly timely around the Fourth of July. Geeks are increasingly becoming a separate entity. They are no longer on the margins of life; they are at its epicenter, running the systems that run the world. Few corporate, political, governmental or educational institutions could function for long without them. And many, like Aaron, yearn for some sort of political community.
Aaron is definitely in the vanguard of a social revolution. There are "Head Geeks" at every school, college, modern company and organization in every technologically - advanced country in the world. They are now among the world's only truly indispensable workers. Nobody would have paid much attention to them a decade ago. Now, people mutter at their special privileges (they never, ever have to wear ties, and can wander school hallways at will) and at the fact that they are increasingly relied on to operate the system - whatever it is - that governs work and business.
If they ever did band together, they would constitute a powerful, communicative and influential political force, especially as Presidential elections edge closer. It might even make the increasingly-persistent efforts to corporatize, profit from, politically exploit fears of, and censor the Net politically untenable. If even a small number of geeks around the country were to call in sick, for example, the next time Congress passes some noxious law curbing free speech, or journalism promoted unthinking hysteria as it did post- Littleton, our political and journalistic institutions might, however briefly, be forced to act rationally and sanely. Idiocy and hypocrisy would become dangerous instead of politically advantageous: they'd cost money and disrupt business.
Maybe Aaron's idea could work this way: Geeks could form a Union. They could agree upon a narrow, simple agenda: freedom, the sharing of technology and the advancement of neat stuff.
It might work, as long as the geeks don't ever meet in person, ask for or pay dues, adopt by-laws or regulations, or even think about choosing leaders.
The revolution has already happened on www.freerepublic.com , www.worldnetdaily.com , and www.newsmax.com , and the Jewish Review. Don't have a link for the last, but if you're half as hip as you claim to be, you'll find it.
Where have you been? I'll bet you've been listening to NPR, ABCNBCCBSCNN, and reading the Washington ComPost, and NewYorkNitwitTimes.
You're late, and maybe too late to catch up, Mr. Katz. The world hasn't missed you.
These are all great demands, but what about something (dare I say) a little more important, like...
...sane hours?
As long as geeks can command salaries as high as $100K without union pressures, why would we want to give union dues to some dunderheaded organization?
I sure as hell am not going on strike for any other programmers, and I would assume you all feel the same.
Times are just way to good to even consider anything this silly.
No football player has ever picked on me, and no one in the workplace has picked on me. To whom should I stand up for my rights against?
if it were, then the indigenous peoples of the resource rich areas of the world
would 'have the power to control the universe'
they dont, of course. they have been slaughtered by the millions
as more powerful groups went in search of oil (oklahoma, nigeria...), coal, water (every river in the western US), uranium, etc.
i believe a better analogy is between geeks and factory workers of the early 20th century.. not as far as the work goes but
as far as their position in society and the power they have. sure they can all walk off the line but they can easily be fired
(remember when the entire air traffic controllers union was fired and banned from ever working in the field again by ronald reagan?),
imprisoned (if they decide to 'make an example' of you like they did to kevin mitnick), or god knows what. if you had a 15 billion dollar
business would you let some kid try to hold you hostage to his political cause? no, youd lock him up. and thats what they will do to you.
anyways, im not saying geeks couldnt do it, im just saying it will be alot harder than i care to deal with.
Actually, no. Many unions are formed for Highly skilled workers(do you have any idea what some welders make these days) Unions were formed to prevent large corporations from exploiting their employees since its harder to force employees to do something ( like work longer hours for less pay) when you have to deal with them as a collective whole. Take a look at the TAs on Californias campuses. TAs perform an indespensible task for the school for barely above minumim wage. Many times a good TA can explain concepts better than the prof can. Not to mention they grade all the papers and pretty much allow a prof to teach a class of 40+ students. They Unionized to get better pay and benefits since on an individual basis they couldn't get them but if they all walk out for a day or more the whole school would shutdown.
you know, unions arent the greatest thing in the world
but alot of them formed because the people in factories
were working in near slavery conditions. as any reader of Frederick Douglass knows,
slave owners have no respect for individual skill or effort. they have respect only for
obedience and submissions. smarter ideas, hard work, and constant self improvement dont mean much if you
or your family are threatened with death for wanting
to quit work and find a better job across town.
I have a friend who is the current Unix admin of our organization and he is constantly tethered to the office by two pagers and a cell phone. You wouldn't believe the holy hell people raise when the news server doesn't respond within a nano-second of opening the reader.
Geeks excel on an individual basis and can get a head through hard work, smarter ideas and constant self improvment.
/. so much.
Boy, I'd love to live in your world. In mine, hard work gets me... more work! Coming up with a smarter idea means I get to implement it all by myself!
As for "constant self improvement"... I've always wondered something... what happens when you run out of hours in the day to "improve" yourself? Do you sleep less and less and work harder and harder until you finally go mad and leap off a cliff?
Sorry, sorry... I'm just a bit sick of all these "work harder and smarter and you'll rule the world" concepts that get tossed around
Really, if you're going to start choosing political systems out of fictional games, movies, or books, why not go all-out? Robert Anton Wilson's Libertarian Immortalist party (an end to death and taxes!) is by far the best political party we could implement that has no bearing on the real world.
My experience in the work place is that Geeks tend to be libertarian, not socialist is nature. A lot of geeks are being paid very well for their work, something that often (not always) works against forming a union.
A friend of mine recently saved me from interviewing with a sucky company. I told him the company and he gave me a heads-up and some facts to check. I called the company back, asked a few indirect questions about their work environment, pegged it as a sucky company, and cancelled the interview.
When it comes to getting a job, the deck is still stacked in favor of the the employer. They check references, call previous employers, possibly even check your credit history. Meanwhile, the candidate has little chance of finding out what kind of company he/she is considering. Their only technique is to ask questions about the company from the interviewer. How honest do you think the interviewer will be? If a candidate is lucky (as I was), they may know someone who either worked for or knows people who worked for the company.
The real irony of this is that the demand for technical skills outweighs the supply today. Companies should be going out of their way to be nice to qualified candidates. Sucky companies should die due to their poor work environment.
Is a union really necessary to correct this imbalance? It seems to me that the solution could be as simple as a web site. With all of the "get a job" web sites, has anyone considered a "which companies suck" web site?
With such a site, technical employees could post comments on current/former employers. Candidates could check the site to see if their prospective employer is listed. Basically, we could get the dirt on the bad companies before wasting our time with lengthy interviews.
Perhaps the liability risks of such a site would be too great. I would love to see it, though.
I suggested there be an IT union months ago.
All the replies I had were flames.
With a union, maybe we can make money like the laborers do.
*laugh*
:)
My esteemed colleague of the AC,
I must agree with you on all points.
It's a good day on Slashdot when an AC post and a reply by another AC get moderated up!
I think a PAC could work, but we would need sane leadership. I'm not sure who to nominate here, probably not me! I think we could find some reasonably level-headed people to run things for us. Problem is, like anything else, it would get corrupted. I'm not sure about the soultion for this problem, but I think as a community we could come up with one. I think it would have to be a very narrow subset of things we look at though. Stick to political stuff regarding freedom of technology and we might have a chance to unite enough people to make it work while minimizing the potential for abuse.
It's a long, bumpy road to make this work correctly. Is the community up to it?
I don't think a trade union, like the UAW, is what is called for here. A trade union protects the worker's rights in the workplace. I think most of us agree that, for the moment, geeks have a fair control of their workplace rights. Or at least as much as any other employee.
What would be more effective is something akin to a geek-savvy lobbying group or politically active "club". Being a motorcycle enthusiast, I would imagine something like the NMA (National Motorists Association) or AMA (American Motorcyclists Association) for geeks. The NMA and AMA have done tons to protect driver's and motorcyclist's rights against ignorant lawmakers. I choose to belong to these organizations and pay dues accordingly. Also, they represent a wide strata of groups. I certainly think they're are enough non-OS specific geek issues to support a "non-denominational" organization.
Also, I have often wondered if a social organization would be useful (and fun!) as well. Something along the lines of a modern day Moose, Elk or Shriner's type group. I don't believe that we "rule the world" as Katz proclaims, but we do hold a very specialized skill. Wouldn't it be a logical extension of free software to do charitable work (as a group) using our skills? A local chapter could provide (and design) a web site for some non-technical local group, for example. I know many do this on their own already, but an organization might bring some of our less social geeks "out of the closet". I also think back to the many "computer clubs" that brought a good deal of this culture into existance.
A youth segment of such an organization might do alot to offset some of the abuse geeks (sometimes) take in school.
This is a fairly old problem. I was reading a management book from the 70's in which the author was talking about the problem of promoting highly skilled professionals outside of management. He suggested a parallel ranking system where the professionals could rise in pay grade without turning into a manager of others (which many of us wouldn't do well even if we wanted to).
I don't know many companies that implement such a system, though, especially not small companies. Generally you have to leave and find a job in a larger company to reach that kind of level.
this head geek sounds like ayn rand reincarnated. ooh, real clever - let's stop working and show those people that we're really smart! maybe we can build a city with a big gold statue of the dollar sign too! thank god i associate with these original clever people.
Oh yes. At one time, it's leader ("Screaming Lord Sutch") even ran for PM...
MRL site
I suggest reading their possible Manifesto ideas.
a way for geeks to collectively change the world for the better. I have always been a geek, I was raised a geek, and will raise geeks. My never ending thirst for knowledge and understanding of the world around me (including other humans) has led me to believe that this can be a much friendlier world. I have noticed that most of us believe that the world could be made better and are willing to dissect the issue until our fingers are numb, or we fall asleep. Whatever our political or philosophical leanings; we can typically agree that many things need to change.
I think that we should unionize or politicize, not for our hourly wages or our number of days of vacation per year, but as a platform to insure that science and rational thought drive our industry. We should enforce the IEEE, IETF and W3C specifications in products and software. We could rally when companies promised vaporware or worse, attempted to lock customers in with products that make our lives hell. (Don t think that Microsoft is the only one that will do this, IBM, Sun and AOL would be in MS s shoes if they could.)
We could also support political initiatives that center on funding for research, education and training for all people. Many of us believe in a more environmentally-friendly world that our grandchildren can enjoy, not fear. If we organize, not only can we pioneer electronic democracy, but we can usher in a world that more resembles the relative idyllic life in Star Trek:TNG. (BTW, I hate Star Trek, it s cheesy, but it s a more perfect idea of society and civilization than we have)
Organizing can be done correctly, even among a chaotic and diverse group as tech workers, geeks, whatever. I would recommend that we follow a few ideals and proceed with caution.
1. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
2. We ought never be organized; but we may create service boards
or committees directly responsible to those they serve. This
means that we should not have rank amongst our membership but
we may appoint or elect people to carry out specific duties.
3. Any such group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
No contributions from industry, only
individuals, and only in meager amounts, so as not to imply
any favor or purchase of influence.
BTW, much of the commentary on the images conjured by the term union are from media soundbites, the same way images are created for the term hacker, save the children == ban everything offensive, and many of the things we whine about. If we were to form an group whose sole purpose was to combat this banter, promote rational and logical discussion and thinking and to preserve freedom in computing and science, then wouldn't we behave very differently?
GOD_ALMIGHTY at work
The name of the story is "The Roads Must Roll."
It's also available in the short story collection _The Man Who Sold The Moon_, which is also (according to Amazon) OOP. You should be able to find it in most used bookstores with a decent sci-fi section.
Some pertinent quotes from the story:
"The complete interdependence of modern economic life seemed to have escaped him entirely."
"With so many functions actually indispensable such self-persuasion (that your job is more indispensable than all others) was easy."
(Italic insertion mine)
Oh My GOD NO!!!!!!
We need a guild of one voice, and one mission thrust to unite, not a Union. Let me explain:
If we, the Geeks of the world wanted to be less productive whiney arses, we would be end-users! The Idea of ANY Labor Union appalls me! The ideal behind the initial unions during the "sweat shop years" at the turn of this century was a wonderful one indeed. Never the less it is an outdated and convoluted ideal that is better buried! The Idea that anyone should pay an organization a monthly fee for the privilege of mediating in contract negotiations is ridiculous! If you are not intelligent enough to know what you are worth, and do not have the skills to find a new IT shop willing to pay you what you are worth, then you have no business in this business!
I used to work as a consultant, fixing
servers and stuff for big fortune 100
type companys. The techinical staff at the company I worked for viewed us as a necessary
evil since the sales staff was not qualified to
do installs and fix things. They still made 5 or
6 times as much money though. We thought it would
be cool to have a union to get the money we deserved and make sure that they only hired new
techs that were actually qualified for the job.
But we came to the realization that anyone that
sttof up and said all of us geeks have a union and I am the spokesperson/leader would be able to measure their life expectancy in hours. There is
no way the feds or anyone else would allow this to happen. We have not only the keys to the castle but maps with all the hidden places highlighted
on them. I had root/admin on every server that I touched while I was working there. Since I was a drive around and make it work guy I got passwords to different companys all over town. The outside world would be scared stiff, becouse they know that they need us and they also know we collectivly know more about them than they know about themselves. So, needless to say the union
busting activities would be pretty hardcore.
Sign me up, I'm in. Let's
let the world know just how much power we wield.
On the other hand, if you think that your life and your family are important, then why not do what it takes to get more for yourself? And in this system we live in, that means getting organized. Yes, you can get decent pay, at the moment, because you are in high-demand, at the moment, but the industry is being restructured so that any perks we get now are temporary. The moment we are not in high-demand, expect to see the high salaries go away, the stock-options to be worthless, etc.
If we used the power we have now to get together and redefine basic working conditions (35 hour work week, anyone? Hell, 40 hour work week! Honest deadlines, whatever we see as important) then we can have those even when our bosses are no longer forced by temporary market conditions to pay us well and hold onto us.
If you're interested, WashTech is a new union based on democratic principles and bottom-up control. Yes, I know, a lot of high-tech workers are libertarian and inherently distrust unions, with their history of corruption and top-down control. Well, I'm an anarchist, myself (also a Wobbly), and I've been a member since the beginning. Not only is WashTech based on strict democratic principles, but we're also giving Bill Gates a good fight...
"Guild: A voluntary association of persons, pursuing the same trade, art, profession of bussiness, such as printers, goldsmiths, artists, wool merchants, etc., united under a distinct organization of their own, analogous to that of a corporation, regulating the affairs of their trade or business by their own laws and rules, and aiming, by cooperation and organization, to protect and promote the interests of their common vocation.
/. is a perfect example of the motivating force "slashdotters," for lack of a better term, have. We are rarely unanimous, but when we are, the effect is almost immediate. Almost instantaneous. /., and use that communication to motivate common and united action. Perhaps we might think of deputizing some individual for an interface with antiquity... like a Congressional hearing for example, but only when necessary.
/. effect!
In medieval history these fraternitites or guilds played an important part in the government of some states; as at Florence, in the thirteenth and following centuries, where they chose the council of government of the city. The word is said to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon "gild" or "geld," a tax or tribute, because each member of the society was required to pay a tax towards its support" Black's
Is this what we want? We certainly don't want our labors, efforts, etc. dictated by some centralized authority like a labor union. If we want to do something and give it away for free, we want to be able to do that as well.
However, organization does provide greater power to the views of the group, and the group we are talking about, Geeks in general, is growing in influence.
Some things we do not want:
Any effort to close the community or halt the flow of information.
Any effort to stratify the community and create initiations or raise costs of entry for Geeks.
Things we might want:
Protection of the community from government action. (small "g" - any government)
Elimination of inefficient barriers to the efficient flow of information. (be that free in a GPL sense, or at an economically efficient low price unaided by monopoly practice)
A Stronger Political Voice - to answer such foolishness as the CDA - and to beat back the various efforts of various governments to bring the Net to heel.
A body politic capable of resolving and preventing conflict within the community.
There have been references to the general libertarianism of the Net, and I tend to agree. We don't need more monopolies, and we don't really want to be limited in our voice. We want a more efficient, and faster vehicle for our voice. Perhaps a multiplicity of guilds, each organized around common ground. Say a distribution (Debian), a political view (libertarian, etc.) a philosophy (GPL), an OS (*BSD), a job description (net admins, programmers, to the extent there are distinctions) but in each case, limited to Geekdom.
Even such loose groups would reduce the transactions costs of acting, and would provide representatives with more voice and authority than we currently have.
However, such organizations might hinder rather than help. First, and most important, providing an organizational body provides governments with a target. If there is an organization, then membership can be attacked. (Not that Geeks aren't attacked now for being Geeks.)
Further, transaction costs of developing involvement in any given issue are already low.
Better to form modes of communication between persons of common interest, like
To close, don't raise transactions costs for the individual, lower them. And if there is something like the CDA, then lets talk about collective action. Think
everyone who's written a reply to this article seems to have a very narrow idea of what a union does.
a geek union would not concern itself with
1. pay regulation
2. contract negotiation
3. dues / monthly fees
it would prevent the government from making stupid laws about technology and free speech.
it would prevent the press from spreading unfounded rumors about the internet and etc.
this was all in the article... i wonder if anyone read it before they posted.
jes
I have no idea where people read "trade union" into the article; it's pretty clear to me what's meant is a professional association a la the AMA. You know what else that buys us? (Beyond a powerful lobby group.) That leads us to professional certification, which means professional standards; having seen some of the designs and code that get produced by so-called "programming professionals," I can't help but find that a good idea.
--
loiosh
(Not really an AC, I just play one on TV.)
Yikes! The stench of Heinlein. And it isn't just weak beer.
It doesn't sound like you have a world.
Maybe try breaking out of that cage, there.
Or are the banannas keeping you happy?
With regard to the teaching programs, you've apparently never seen the admission requirements for the teacher ed program at the University of Northern Colorado. As a former education major, I can assure you it's formidable, and I really wouldn't envy teachers their jobs.
On the union note, I will agree with the general sentiment: I do believe that geeks should be politically active in large groups, but I think a union as such is the wrong idea. I'm inclined to like the professional association idea suggested previously, as much as anything because creating our own standards and certifications would cut down on the seemingly-ubiquitous requirement of a bachelor's degree (not all people work well in a traditional educational structure for that kind of time frame), in favour of a more uniform certification.
-Drayke, who can't understand why the system persists in thinking she's an AC
Not only does the IWW still exist, but we're growing fast and organizing high-tech workers.
'nuff said.
...nor is a professional body "government interference".
why would it have to be mandatory? if you're rewiring your home you don't need to get an engineer to spec the work, but if you're building a transformer station you absolutely do. same thing with software: sometimes you'd require work to be done "to code" (and pay for the quality), other times you'd hire a student to bang something off.
and once people are accredited, it becomes a matter of their reputation to produce good (error-free, clean, maintainable) code. not to mention it becomes much harder for marketing to change the designs on you, because they'd have to arrange for someone to sign off on the design changes! these are not exactly bad things...
Unions are against my nature. But having a widely known and availalbe blacklist of sweatshops and underpayers would be nice. Perhaps even a whitelist of the best companies.
Tech support, of course! They're used to dealing with intractable problems, and God knows they're not averse to a few dead politicians fattening up their disintegrating tri-fold wallets. Besides, humping around a two-way pager all day puts quite a dip in your hip... "You gotta problem wit' the new patch for the Company contract? Hey, Deano, dis guy wants to submit his own little patch to da contract! Ha ha! Here's da deal, see....."
I can't wait until we get online voting in the US; we will truly demonstrate the Slashdot effect!
Kiss stock options and performance bonuses goodbye.
Since your goals are ones of advocacy and ...
ensuring rights/respect why not call it a "Guild" to reflect skill/craftsmanship
A union(designed to negotiate workers compensation) and a political interest
group(designed to advance political
agendas) are too specialized.
Also the term "geek" is now too ambigous and
has derogatory implications(which would limit
membership).
Also "techforce.org" is available!!!
Hmm, that's something I could add my water to.
Who is John Geek?
Sure, neither of them are US citizens, but even the feds shall fear the almighty /. effect.
Wrong - the facts are that academics have a very UNcomfortable existence these days. Basically universities are phasing out tenure and relying on adjunct professors - migrant, temporary labor - to do the teaching.
>>We need a guild of one voice, and one mission
>>thrust to unite, not a Union. Let me explain:
You just defined a Union.
>>If we, the Geeks of the world wanted to be less
>>productive whiney arses, we would be end-users!
End-Users are the ones that control the Geeks, can't you see that? I guarantee someone like Dennis Ritchie or Linus did not sign your last paycheck. The fact is, the people who hire you are going to pay you as little as they can (that is why there is a minimum wage). The CFOs out there do not pay you on how productive you are, they pay you on the going rate of the market. Eventually, the going rate will become less and less when there are more developers. What will you do then, who will speak for you?
>>If you are not intelligent enough to know what you
>>are worth, and do not have the skills to find a
>>new IT shop willing to pay you
What if the IT shops are willing to pay you $8.50 and hour, where will you go? Who will tell the IT shops what you are worth. How strong will be your one "productive" voice. They will not listen to just you, but they will listen to 8 million of you.
You must have heard the phrase "United we stand divided we fall".
>How exactly could anyone justify the executions
>of highly respected people in the community?
just remember what happened in Cambodia under Pol Pot. I'm not saying that this is about to happen here. But keep in mind that a minority that is currently respected can not have its role recast in a very short timespan.
... Master-Blaster runs barter town...
Why is Jon Katz so intent on creating a "geek" victim class. Replace "geek" in all his articles with "oppressed workers" and you find a remarking resemblence to karl marx's writings. Does anyone else notice these similarities?
How sad Katz gets his ideas from B movies. Go away katz and take your subversive, divisive propoganda with you.
I nominate Trench Coat Geeks as the name.
Except that I'm willing to bet that a LOT of geeks (myself included) are MS people. I love MS. MS pays my bills. I won't fight them.
Geeks make decisions on
logic. The reason a geek seems to be arguing with
you is because what you said doesn't make sense
to him. The questions he raises are decision to
clarify the missing points. If he disagrees, he'll
also tell you why.
So it's just a matter of explaining your
reasoning.
Here's an example.
My position is that we (programmers & other comp
related fields) need an entity with power to
protect our professional interests.
I define professional interests as things such as
*)letting us know the industry salary ranges,
*)warning us about untrustworthy recruiting companies,
*)watching the government for legislation that
affects the way we produce software. (ex. CDA)
The examples above are a small sample of possible
causes that the *entity* could take on.
Some counter-arguments to such a thing are
1) I can get these things elsewhere.
A: yes you can, but the idea would be to consolidate these services.
1a) consolidating services could create a weakness
in having only a single point of attack
A: But the idea is to get leverage and strength
from size. Microsoft isn't going to die anytime
soon.
2) I can handle myself.
A: you might be able to. But not every geek
can fend for himself in all ways. Young ones
especially could use the help of a representative
and mentoring org. I've
learned a lot about working myself just from
reading slashdot. an example is knowing that geeks
work best in small, close knit groups, and are
naturally stifled by a corporate setting. previously I thought that something was wrong with
me for being bored on the job. Besides, if you
have any imagination, you should be able to see
that an org can provide protection for geeks. I think it's a lot easier for a work environment to
be toxic to geeks because normals control the work.
3) Its not in our nature to create orgnizations
A: Is it that, or is it really that it's not in
our nature to maintain and preserve large orgs?
We start companies and sci fi clubs, which are
organizations, don't we?
you could have some suits or normals doing the day-to-day work as long as a visionary geek is at
the helm.
4) I'm tough, and you're just a weenie.
A: so don't waste your time replying, we aren't
talking to you.
Someone may come up with issues that I haven't
raised, but my hope is that that issue, if added
to the final product, may make it cleaner and more useful.
You just have to understand the communication style.
> I think a technological party, though it wouldn't get to power, would get more votes than the Green.
Which just shows how environmentally aware the northern americans are (although the US is probably a lot worse than Canada). Here (Finland) the local environmentalist party was one of the winners in the last elections. They don't have much power (it resides in the hands of the booooring 3 biggest parties) but they're climbing steadily. In the EU elections one of their candidates got the largest amount of votes.
Technology will not solve everything, as we develop we have the capacity to consume more natural resources faster and it doesn't matter if environmental technology advances. The attitudes of the people and the especially the corporations must change.
BTW, We have the natural law party too, they solve every problem by linking in to the cosmic awareness or something and practice yogic flying, too. I don't know if it works, they didn't get enough votes this time =)
Dont go putting words in my mouth "cowboy". I related words that came from higher ups rather then esposing my own opinion.
Before you go spouting off I suggest you take the time to *talk* to one of the international folks here on visas, instead of sitting in front of you machine in your own little world. They *very* much feel trapped knowing that their stay in this country is at the whim of their employer. Do you know how many international families have to make do with screwy long distace relationships becuase they could only get visas from far away companies?
They themselves have two opinions of what might happen when an economic down turn occurs. Either they will be kept on because they (have told me themselves) they will do anything to keep their jobs (in order to stay here), thus be under the thumb of their employers; or they will be instantly laid off because of the legal costs associated with processing and keeping their visas updated.
For those who have gotten their green card it is the happiest day in their life. Do you know that 80%+ of these folks leave their current job for ones paying at least 10% more within 2 months of getting that card? My personal experience is that every single person who got that green card left within a month.
What does that say to you?
If you wanna know my personal opinion, its this:
Every immigrant who completes a degree in the U.S. at any level should be granted resident status upon graduation. That would make it more fair for every one.
Like I said the folks in charge think *different* then we do. I suggest you realise it and deal with it before you become another number in the unemployment office.
You dont get it, you said:
As for implementing policy, start with small steps. Change what you have control over. Demonstrate your success and you will have greater influence over others. Don't whine when people don't latch on to your ideas, figure out why they didn't. Use your ability to learn from your experience.
Buddy when it comes down to it, no matter how good you are, you have friggin ZERO ability to IMPLEMENT changes. You can suggest all you want, you can get all the people you want behind you, but unless the one who MAKES THE DECISION wants it that way it WONT HAPPEN. The only power you have is to stop working there AND THATS IT!!!!!!!
When you get handed more responsibility in the workplace as you mention YOU BECOME THE BOSS, THE ONE WHO GETS TO MAKE THE DECISIONS. So let me say it ONE MORE TIME, without moving into management, you ARE STILL LABOR.
You even reinforce this fact by saying that you opinion carries weight, YOU DO NOT MAKE THE DECISION. I am more then sure that you have pointed out changes that you thought would be good that went unacted upon.
Also:
Most companies, when they get into trouble,
layoff production/operations employees. This
is because they are the easiest to replace.
Only paritally true, go talk to the engineers here in texas that got laid off by Rockwell after the company moved north, or the 3000 Nortel Network employees in north carolina after the acquisition of bay networks. You telling me that there werent any techies in those groups? Or how about the ones who got the "move or be laid off ultimatium".
Also you still haven't understood "their" mentality, AND THAT MY FUCKING POINT!!!!!!!
IT/IS workers TO THEM are almost always a homogenous group, even though you know it and I know they/we are not. You know how many times I have heard a CPA say something along the lines of "we need to hire a few more nerds".
Finally when you said:
As for hiring older workers, our company gladly
would but most of them don't have the skill set
we are looking for (VB/C++/Java/SQL).
You are hiding behind the typical excuse for not hiring older workers. I have 15 years of software experience. I picked up VB in a WEEK. Its easy as shit. But you know what? I like to be paid for my experience (beleive me that experience makes a difference, but at an inital interview they have trouble seeing that), and its cheaper for an employer to grab a freshout at 15-20k less a year. Plus the fact that they are not business savvy, that fresh out is easier to exploit. Furthermore, most likely that freshout does not have a family, thus cheaper insurance costs.
Then change the law. Power lies with the geeks...if we choose to, we can shut down damn near everything that this country, nay, the world needs to function normally. Unions should never be illegal. Labor *is* entitled to all it creates.
We as geeks are in the position to start the labor movement anew, by creating one of the most powerful rank and file labor organizations around.
I don't think anyone is deciding to segregate themselves. Obviously you've lived a very sheltered, closed life, and have been brainwashed with all the "traditional values" bullshit that allows the evil people in the world to continue their oppressive work unchallenged.
People get segregated for being different. Some don't like suits, some prefer wearing glasses, some like their hair long, colored, or shaved off completely. Some are gay. Some don't like to work 9-5. Some don't get anything out of school. Some don't like doing "normal things" like dates, prom night, movies and popular music. Should they be punished for having different tastes? No.
To answer your question, we are segregated by intolerant fucks like you who have no idea what the REAL WORLD is like and think that everyone has a traditional upper-class life just like you have. Wake up, mon frer.
P.S. Unions don't suck. If you actually have an independent thought on the matter and aren't just spewing out propaganda from your bourgois uncle, I'd be glad to discuss this with you.
There's a simple way to get sane hours.
After you've worked a sane number of hours that day -- get up and walk the hell out. Just Go Home.
If you get yelled at for not working yourself to death for the almighty company... so? Just regard it as a signal to put your resume out. These days even the half-wit coders who don't bathe can get jobs.
Few, if any, companies will really go bankrupt if the project is completed one week later than the stupid sales drone promised it to the clueless client. Almost all "deadlines" are completely artifical and meaningless.
The only reason managers try to get programmers to work insane hours is because so far it's worked. It's long past time that we stopped doing it.
I think many of you are missing the point here. The author is talking about a political action group. Not a typical "union", which has earned it's 4-letter-word status. The idea is, when governments pass crap legislation like CDA or the recent Australian version of CDA, the members call in sick or otherwise not attend work the next day, or on some other date. This is to cause a massive loss of support for companies and government agencies that depend on our services to keep things running. As others have allready noted, strikes can be VERY effective. The most recent ones that come to mind are the UPS strike, and the Airline workers strike. Both caused massive disruption in service and got them a settlement they could agree on.
This is not to say there are no problems with this idea. It would require much more thought then has gone into it, based on the article. A few come to mind right off. It would have to be well organized. Mailing lists and web pages would be required to notify everyone about the planned action and why it is taking place. Perhaps we would need a voting system so we could decide what was worthy of risking our jobs over. We would need a huge member base to make this work, otherwise those who do leave just get fired and replaced. Many of the same problems workers in other unionized fields have. I would also like to point out that the article specificly said no dues and no "leaders".
Please people, read and think, don't just fire up the flamethrower because it says "Katz" at the top!
My point was that "geeks" aren't unique that way -- they have no special leverage simply because of "indispensability".
That's not to say that a loose, politically vocal federation wouldn't be helpful. Rather than focusing on economic conditions (which, perhaps to an insane degree, favor those in CS -- most others, even those especially bright, don't have a hope of getting $70+K/yr almost immediately after graduating w/ a Bachelor's...), it could focus on politics. Complain 'bout pay? Nah.
We've all seen silliness ranging from CDA-type legislation in the US and elsewhere, to encryption bans, to everything else. That's at least partly due to non-technically-proficient leaders, and partly due to non-technically-proficient citizens. In either case, an organization *might* be able to make a difference. Informal lobbying, for instance, might help educate legislators who do not already have a firm grasp of the issues. The writing of documents that are understandable to politicans and citizens without, say, having read Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks", or the "dinosaur" OS textbook could be helpful. The active combatting of disinformation with facts might do wonders.
The IEEE has not acted as a union for wage issues as far as I know, but does get involved in politics when issues like the CDA come up.
It isn't exactly what people here are asking for, but it is a large group of geeks all around the world, organized for various purposes. It could at least provide inspiration, if not already being the finished product.
-hersh (don't have my login set up at work)
Let me spank your whelping .edu butt for a moment.
Geeks don't command anything. We are the labor that builds products and keeps the systems running much like many of the other occupations mentioned above. Granted we are *highly* skilled and educated laborers with a diversity that allows us to get ahead by the three methods you describe, but you can only get so far. You, individualy, will never be the "boss' or "commander" or "policy setter" or any other position that wields the power to make signifigant changes (i.e. management or operations). If you think that is not the case, explain to me how you would go about enacting change *individually* other then walking out the door. We don't decide when and who to layoff and what our salaries are to be (granted we can negotiate and choose not to take a job, but thats not nearly the same).
If you do not beleive me you need to spend several years consorting with management, sales, marketing, accounting, etc... The image that they possess of us will *truly* frighten you. Attitudes of: no employee is irreplacable (which is truer then you think in say 95% of the cases), younger workers are *far* more productive then ones who are 20 years older, younger workers are far cheaper (timewise and moneywise and overheadwise) then older workers, why pay for the wise, experienced, and business savvy worker at twice the price when I can hire two much less experienced, naieve ones who will outperform, outwork, have more current knowledge then the old at just a little bit higer price (say 85k vs 2x50k, but instead of 40-60 hours a week, we get 80 to 120!). Hearing stuff like the makes me quake in my boots. Remember folks compared to the youngings there are very few 40+ year old techies out there.
This is a boom time for us. We should make the most of it. Perhaps not a union but a professional organization that accredits us like the Bar association, or the AMA, and forces tech workers to keep their skills current and ensures the quality of our work. From that we could gain lobbying forces and political power.
Anti-organisation people are bitching about mediocratity and seniority set slary levels?
Let me ask you something, a semi-literate auto worker who punches buttons on a machine all day should probably be making $7/hr, but the industry average is $22/hr, with nearly the *best* health benefits in the USA. Thats over 3x salary inflation. Think about what that would be like for organised technical labor. Do not know about you, but I would not mind making a minimum of $60/hr.
Tell me what will happen when (not if) the economy takes a dive.
Will management say "hmmm we can keep the folks we are sponsoring for visas and not give them raises this year, they are not going anywhere else" (don't take this a a nationalistic slur, I have actually heard a proiject manager and a operations manager refer to visa'ed employees as "indentured servants").
Will they say: "hmmm, we need to make cutbacks, layoff 95% of all labor making $60k+, include the contractors in that lot too" (if you think contractors do well in recessions, think again).
Or will they say "gee lets kill off our marketing and sales team, who cares if nobody knows about or buys our products, that wont hurt us".
Or "we could lay off our top earning sales guys, imagine the bonus money we would save! Of course our top sales guys usually do bring in the most amount of money."
Or "lets gut our accounting department so we cannot track any of our revenue?"
Think about it, and think about it hard. They don't think like we do, so we have to think like them.
Jon, I don't think so. *Most* vocations, perhaps outside of advertising and entertainment, are indispensable; to think that one's own job is vastly more important in that way reeks of hubris.
Ever read a short story titled something like "Keep the Roads Rolling", featuring workers trying to blackmail society?
Let's think about this. How 'bout:
* teachers
* sanitation engineers
* police
* soldiers
* highway maintenance
* farmers
* truck drivers
* roustabouts
* telecom workers
* food/drug testers
Well, guess none of them are necessary and geeks are "special". Wow! *SMACK*
The two obvious (and historically most effective) types of 'organizations' Katz seems to be talking about are Labor/Trade Unions, and Political Parties. They each suck, in their own special ways. Neither meshes well with Katz's cliche'd "internet culture", either.
First, the Union. A group of like (and often simple) minded people, joined together to further a common goal, and direct the will of The Management. Unions have lost much of their luster and power these days, for several reasons. The most common is that in general, they have outlived their usefullness. Unions were originally founded to fight for human working conditions and above-poverty wages for steel and mine workers. Strikers and members in general had to be willing to FIGHT for what they wanted, often physically. They had to be willing to risk their jobs if Management stood out a strike. Fact is, for someone to be willing to do this, their job has to be pretty much a piece of shit. I just can't see Joe Happy Web Master going to twice weekly meetings, holding candlelight vigils, or going on strike, let alone beating the hell out of anyone who dares cross him. Sorry folks, but Joe Happy Web Master and his cousin Bill Happy Programmer can't complain about much more than their company car being a Saturn rather than a BMW. They're not going to fight when they've already WON, in the grand scheme of things (stock options, flex hours, cars, money, casual dress, desk job in A/C). Unions also have also just flat out become obsolete for most professions, with a few noted exceptions. A coal miner is a coal miner is a coal miner, no matter where, or what title he's given, and at the Union heyday, there were lots and lots of coal miners. Now, a C programmer refuses to associate with a "webmaster" who doesn't like a "HTML monkey" who hates "java jockeys" etc. There's just not enough broad-band "tech master" type positions out there. You'd be hard pressed to get 50 techies in a room to even agree on a cause to fight for, let alone support eachtother in fighting for it.
Next, the Political Party. A group of people sharing a common general view of government in its ideal shape. This doesn't fit exceptionally well in this case, but because it was brought up in above posts, I'll ramble about it. A successful Tech Party is even less likely than a Tech Union, because of the over-specialization thing, again. For techs, it's not a question of "left wing" or "right wing", it's much more often "how many bits of encryption" or "how many visas". You'll never see a stable party platform with no BIG planks in; especially when the one or two BIG planks are still not important to the voting masses. No support == no success == no party. The other big problem is that most techs are already politically aware, and lean towards one of the major parties (at least, in the USA). You'll not tear enough of them away, because a Tech Party just woudln't have a stand on IMPORTANT issues, like "right to die" "abortion" "death penalty", etc. Political parties generally preach IDEALS (ex: "big govt" and "little govt"), while Tech Party would preach a few selected special issues. It would have about as much success as a Farmers of America political party. That is to say, not enough to count.
So, what CAN we do? That's easy. Work the system. Over and under, inside and out. Call your representatives, write editorials, explain yourself to the layman down the street. Make yourself heard as an INDIVIDUAL; and you'll win over the MASSES. We're a varried group; too much so to band together as a Union or Party. But, when a bunch of INDIVIDUALS speak their mind, people take notice, and the popular opinion IS acknowledged. More importantly, the popular opinion is BENT. Slashdot as a case-in-point, anyone?
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Just lurking, thanks!
Learn to read. Read to learn.
- A.P.
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"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Ha, never heard the term before.
But no, not at all. The heroes in Atlas Shrugged didn't strike to enhance their prestige and position in the world, they withdrew from it because they were so disgusted by it.
And Rand would despise any sort of union... *collective* bargaining, shudder.
- Unions really came about because the workers worked in very harsh conditions, for meager salaries. We sit in our nice, air-conditioned labs and offices, and we make good money doing it.
- 'Geeks' in general, are a fairly anti-authoritarian group. They won't take sh!t from either The Man nor the corrupt union leader.
- The Western system needs lots of people.. The 'geeks' would be screwed if the electrician's union went on strike. Or the carpenter's union. Especially the airline unions.. Get the point? You may be getting a hard time from the non-geeks, but without them, you'd be completely screwed.
Open your mind before your software.Unions suck galactic muffins!
Why don't you Americans form a Third Political Party...Think of it as SysAdmining a Very Large network!
ttyl
Farrell J. McGovern
Montreal, Quebec,
(for now) Canada
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I can see this being billed as a "techno-militia" and the people murdered by the FBI and NSA.
Just think about this for a minute. They will compare them to the guys at Columbine. They will portray them as unstable, antisocial, and dangerous.
This WILL happen if geeks unite.
LK
Posted by wonderpop:
Hmm.. once again it seems as if Slashdot user the world over have completely missed the point of the story. Like that's never happened before. Anyway, I suppose just to be fair I should address everything, even the slighly off topic stuff.
First, a political organization of geeks is ludicrous. We are all to solitary and way to self important(myself included) to want to follow the whims of any organization, even if it is dedicated to our benefit. Even if it was just a vote situation with no leaders, I'm sure that some one would squabble over any position of leadership or power, right down to who would master the website.
Second, a union of geeks(no matter how off topic) is even more ludicrous. It wouldn't happen, for the same reasons listed above, especially if we had to pay dues. We'ld end up just like the idiots in congress, or worse, like the teamsters without the flannel and the diesel stink.
So, there is my point. I'm sorry if I stereo-typed, oh well, that's how it goes. This is a forum, after all.
"They teach us to drop fire on people, but they won't let us write f*ck on our airplanes because it's obscene."
Posted by dhickman:
:)
I faced something lke this. I was a contractor for a Major Telco and within a division of the company, they had about 200 hp workstations and 7 or 8 servers. the problem was the main sysadmin was a nt freak. So each of the 200 workstations had software installed locally, no dns ( they used host files) and no nis. Basically it was hell. I got in there implemented nfs, nis, and dns and everything started to work perfectly. So the NT admin canned me, for not being productive. To my knowledge the network is still working fine after a year. They now pay a var to install softwre/ user maintenance.
This event pursuaded me to get out of the contracting field. So I have a far better job now
mrgrumpy has engaged in an ad hominem to discredit my views, and has also misrepresented my argument.
The ad hominem part is not only unwarranted, but also inaccurate. I do not come from the geographical area he suggests, although he may consider Epping to be near enough for jazz. I also did not attend a private school (Epping Boys' High is where I earned my emotional scars), and I do not have wealthy parents.
As for never having had a real job, I was briefly in the employ of a certain computer assembler (which shall remain nameless), working on their production line for the paltry sum of $7.50 per hour, so I've had first-hand experience of the kind of dreadful working conditions of which mrgrumpy speaks. Even now that I have risen above that level of employ, I am not immune to the vagaries of the marketplace. I am currently between jobs, having been retrenched by my previous employer as the result of a "restructure".
As I said, I believe mrgrumpy's objections in this area are not only highly irrelevant, but also completely wrong.
It may be that unionism is a necessary thing amongst certain demographics and labour groups. If this is true, then it is proof to me that these marketplaces are very sick indeed. Unionism is an evil, and if it happens to be the lesser evil then the marketplace has some very deep-rooted social problems. I will concede that unionism might be the lesser of two evils, but I will not concede that unionism is itself a good.
As for the specific issue of VSU, I am well familiar with there being no terminals available in the labs at university. One tends to learn these things fairly early on in one's academic career and make allowances for it. I haven't been locked out of a class due to lack of seating, although I've sat in my fair share of asiles.
Once again you assume that unionisation is a fair answer to these sorts of problems, and I simply disagree. The university system is severely broken, and the problems you mention are a demonstration of that fact. That student unionisation must be compulsory demonstrates the severity of the problem, assuming that compulsory unionisation is indeed the lesser evil.
I lack the time and inclination to give a dissertation on the problems with university, but I have no inclination to fight the bureaucracy if they want to make university an unworkable proposition. In short, I agree that university sucks, but I disagree that unionism is a valid answer to the problem. So give me VSU and stop wasting my fees.
I would make the following points in rebuttal. CmdrTaco does not have absolute power over what the Slashdot effect hits because:
- Slashdot is not the only entity that produces the Slashdot effect, merely the most notable.
- CmdrTaco is not the only one with top-level posting privs.
- Even second-level posts (by the unwashed masses) can produce the effect if they are sufficiently in tune with the community feeling on the matter.
I'll concede that CmdrTaco has some influence over where traffic goes and what gets reported as news for nerds, but the tsunami level events (like Windows Refund Day, say, or Linux itself) are too big to control. Slashdot itself is an emergent property of the community, and I think the Tacomeister knows it. Sure it's a lot of Rob's hard work that has made it look and work the way it does, but it is immensely popular because the concept strikes a chord in the disorganised masses, not because of the decor.And as for cats, my cat tells me when it wants to be fed in no uncertain terms. The only power the tin-opener wields is as a projectile for temporary relief of that horrible din.
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=8^
The only problem I have with this idea is that it would give NT admin geeks too much leverage when it comes to strikes. If a strike was called, which admin to you think people would miss first? The NT guy or the Linux (or *nix-whatever) guy? sheesh.. it could be years before the Linux server developed a fault which needed the admin. That's really going to bring the PHBs to thier knees... not.
:)
Yeah, well therein lies the problem. Enforcement. Goons enforce picket lines and membership in the conventional unions. Cross a picket line and you get the crap beat out of you. Refuse to join and the goons will pay you a visit. I don't think most geeks would have the belly for it.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Public education was around long, long before the 1930s. Thomas Jefferson was a proponent of public education, and it became commonplace in the 1800s.
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This is a stupid idea. Unions are for low level grunts that can not differentuiate themselves by excelling at their jobs. They are based on the concept of seniority, ie. this grunt is preferred over that grunt because he has managed to last longer and the only way they can try to get a head is through mass extortion techniques such as strikes and corporate sabotage. Geeks excel on an individual basis and can get a head through hard work, smarter ideas and constant self improvment. There is no need to form a union to get what you want. If you don't like your situation vote with your feet. Let's keep out of the dark ages.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
One problem with spontaneous unity is that it often leads to little real effect. Not many people care that they've just ticked off a bunch of geeks. Sure, maybe they will try to take your web server down or some such thing, but overall, not much impact. Unless there is some danger to their political survival, politicians don't really care who they tick off. Making the big companies mad will definitely hurt them in a tangible way. They will lose votes and a lot of campaign contributions. Is there a way to make annoying geeks a bad political move for these guys? I don't know. You're right about geeks being like cats. It's tough to get them to do anything in unison in order to have a real effect.
A few geeks walking off the job as a response to a bad political decision wouldn't do anything to help. Those few would be fired and replaced as a warning to others. Unless it was a massive walk-out, there would only be bad results for geeks. Since a massive walk-out would be extremely difficult to organize, for all the reasons Jon and the above poster have pointed out, there isn't much danger to politicians and businesses.
About the only thing I can think of that might help is to promote voting among geeks and designate a non-partisan website as the central repository for all the facts on the candidates and how they have voted on issues and what their public positions are on other important issues (geek-related and otherwise. Their are lots of important issues that aren't just related to computers and e-issues). There are already several sites attempting to do this, but they are incomplete at best. One or two of them need to really get their act together and become complete sources for this information. Perhaps then we can have a clearer view of the candidates and at least vote for the lesser evil.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I notice that most people are thinking (unfavorably) labor union here. I agree that most geek jobs are better than average. The exceptions can be delt with locally since unlike factory work, replacement employees could take weeks to come up to speed on a project if everyone walks.
Political unions are another matter. Geeks to polititians: 'You want key escrow huh? Imagine that, the entire worlds newsgroups accidentally got dumped into your email'. 'That's your final word on strong encryption? Now I wonder why *.com quit working?'.
Or perhaps conversations like:
The examples are based on the US, but could apply anywhere. "I really don't know why the filters are blocking everything but porn and the PeeWee Herman home page, I could DISCONNECT them for you."
The question in my mind is wether or not a Geek political union could get enough solidarity on ANY issue to pull it off. As someone here pointed out, the general lack of solidarity would help avoid silly responses to silly issues.
I don't see anything unreasonable about something like a virtual coffee house, or open, free discussions. Essentially, that's a lot of what Slashdot already provides.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Professional organizations like the ABA and AMA used their political power to control access to the ranks so their members would earn what they thought they were worth. HMOs have managed to undermine some of the politically based power of the AMA, so they have given MD employees of the HMOs permission to form traditional unions. Lawyers, at least partners or self-employed ones, still control their own destinies.
The NEA started as a professional association but became a union. The AFT has always been a union.
The unions that started in the 19th century were all craft unions. They were designed to protect skilled employees from the depredations of unscrupulous owners. Craft unions are very successful as long as the craft is in demand. Craft unions that overreach tend to encourage companies to automate the overreaching craft out of their jobs. Craft unions were an extension of the concept of the guild, but guild members were self-employed.
Hockey, baseball, football and basketball are all unionized. You may not like the disruptions caused by the lockouts and strikes, but those unions work for their members.
In case anyone has forgotten, I wrote a similar article about 8 months ago.
I read quickly through the posts, and many of the same ideas came up again. Frustratingly, it seems that many have misread the article (which was endemic to mine too) especially in the way that "union" is interepreted (I certainly wasn't thinking of the UAW when I wrote my article, I don't think Katz was thinking that either.)
Many people point to the IEEE and ACM as organizations something like but not exactly what both our articles propose. After reading the posts to this one, I think that a professional association, like the AMA is more desired over the former two.
Contrary to what many say, I believe that geeks can indeed come together in the form of such an association. While some were interested as a result of my article, I don't think the timing was right.
Damn...I even had a little name for it too...oh well.
A geek union wouldn't solve anything.
It won't help the writer of this essay from being laughed at or teased by high-school students -- and if that's happening, I doubt its the result of being a geek, but more the result of the way he's presenting himself to people.
It won't help in jobs. Unions help only when a workforce is in a position to be exploited by management. Once that situation is resolved, they just serve to foster mediocracy, by making it difficult for companies to fire incompetant workers.
There are more open positions in IT than you can shake a stick at. If you're not happy with your job, just take another. You'll probably get a 20% raise in the process. Kind of hard to bitch to a union about that. "Oh no, my job is so hard, they're paying me six figures and expecting me to be there past five... what oh what can I do? I don't want to quit my job and make twenty grand more at the place across the street!"
A union would prevent one person from making more than another person on account of their skills, since unions typically work to smooth out differences like that so their incompetant members are still kept employed at a good salary.
The only problem I see in the IT field is that so many introverted people end up in it and may be unwilling to speak up or take a stand on issues at their job, and they'll get walked upon. More so than with any other field, today's IT workers can speak their mind with their feet as they walk out the door.
Every geek is different. Just as every auto worker is different. While we may not all agree which distrobution is best... we don't have to agree on that or even what OS to use. All that geeks around the world need to do Is to stand up for our rights. You never see a (ex)football star being ridiculed in the work place, or in a school. Why should Geeks be ridiculed and harrased just because we chose a different "sport" ... I think Aaron has a great Idea. It should be suported and the Idea should be ran with.
"The clay can become a bear, but not while it lays cold and wet on the riverbank." -Orson Scott Card, Children of the m
Speaking of compulsory unions, I used to be in a UFCW. I believe it stood for United Food and Commerce (Commercial?) Workers.
Sorry, that one's taken. Ah, to be a fresh-faced grocery drudge...
(this is all personal-experience anecdote, so skip it if that bores you.)
Hardly any of the geeks in their respective industry -- in which I'm mostly thinking of the computer industry, particularly software -- are union members. Most of us are also inexperienced in labor matters, such as what to do when you're working 50 hr/wk and the boss comes and tells you he needs more overtime.
Few software geeks are accustomed to needing to fight to defend themselves in their labor conditions. We're currently such a valuable commodity that no employer is willing (or dumb enough) to endanger it.
That said, those conditions do make us easy fodder for exploitation when the bosses do abuse us. And it makes it hard to defend the conditions of our labor when we don't know how, and have to figure it all out under pressure.
One story of what happened to a geek shop when the management went bad can be read here. A cautionary tale, maybe.
70 degrees? i suspect those of us in ireland might appreciate a regionally adjusted benchmark. maybe the first five days that don't rain in the summer months?
what does the sky look like without clouds?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
What I'd like is if SAGE could offer stuff like a credit union, medical insurance, discounts on stuff besides ora books ;)..
Kind of like a guild without a political agenda, more like a community, or even nation.
This is a variant of the theme of "Atlas Shrugged": all the smart people go on strike until the unwashed masses get a clue. Here's how we could get it to work:
:-).
Set up nonprofit (read: tax deductable) organizations to fund research and construction of off-world (lunar, Mars) colonies. All geeks willing to join would have their employers send their paychecks, or a portion thereof, to their chosen org. (Has to be done at the employer level to duck SocSec/Mediscare and employer-side taxes. Simple for self-employed folks, quite a bit trickier for the rest of us.) Figure that, here in America, we geeks are facing a 50% marginal tax rate on our income beyond $30-$40K/year, so redirecting a month or two per year of labor (on average) in this manner would be enough to really screw up the federal government. (Guess where the alleged budget surplus is coming from?) Plus, we'd be making the very overt threat that if the powers-that-be don't back off, we're outta here, literally. We could probably get more than a few doctors, pro atheletes, and other high-paid professionals to join in, too. I bet the folks at Microsoft might *really* go for this.
At the very least, this qualifies as the most "out there" post of the day
time and a half after 40 hours in one week would be helpful, and I'm sure would make many of us more (cough) productive (cough-cough)
Contrary to some of the postings, this is right on topic for today's world. Any of you following national news have probably heard or read quite a bit about the physicians union being started around the AMA, and I think any geeks interested in organized labor and collective barganing should take note of this activity, a lot of the issues that apply to the medical union concept will face any geek movement as well.
First, consider that it's against federal anti-trust laws for self-employed individuals to create or join unions, the doctors are trying to get a special congressional waiver for their union, we'd have to do the same, or leave all the independant contractors out in the cold.
Second, would you really want to strike? Is your life enough like peoples on the opposite coast that you want someone you'll probably never meet bargaining for you? It's not like its hard to get whatever you want from companies now, do we really need help? I'm not at all convinced that a union would be in my best interest.
It's easy to inherit the earth. Say you're making a parallel worlds program:
public class Earth extends Planet{}
public class DC_Comics_Earth extends Earth {}
public class Marvel_Comics_Earth extends Earth {}
So, if you inherit the earth, that automatically makes you a geek!
"Yeah, I'm in a FOG."
Sounds about right
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Seriously, I scrolled way back up and don't see anything that fits that category (not even if you consider geeks or programmers to be a race unto themselves).
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
He died about a week or 10 days ago.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
That book was (probably)"The Peter Principle" (or at least borrowed that idea from it).
The late Laurence J. Peter came up with the idea that people tend to get promoted to their level of incompetence. They do good work and get promoted until they get promoted to a level (usually some sort of management) where their duties no longer can can be dealt with by the same skills and talents that served them so well previously, but it's usually too embarassing all around to admit the mistake and either get rid of someone who was and is a good employee but now is in over his or her head, or kick 'em back downstairs, so they stay stuck where they are, never to get promoted again, gumming up the works.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"It's a great idea, especially if they never try and meet"
Sure am glad that temporary crown had already come off before I read that 'cause I laughed so hard I'd have knocked it loose and swallowed it. I think the dentist thought I had supplied my own nitrous.
But seriously folks, geeks make control the machinery, but they don't control "The Money", Gates notwithstanding.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
There are probably a few laws that are so totally boneheaded that all geeks would have little to no difficulty being against them.
But I wouldn't count on that.
My experience is that most geeks I know belong to the Contrarian political party - they're against whatever is being foisted upon them, regardless of the system involved. Most geeks are experts at arguing, it doesn't matter what, or if they believe in it or not. They'll always be able to come up with arguments against any viewpoint.
Take this posting as an example.
For another completely fictional example, given three geeks (Abe, Bob and Carl) and the issue of the ten commandments in classroms.
Abe: We should be against it! It's stupid and violates the separation of church and state.
Bob: Well, I agree with you, but it might have a calming effect on twitchy students. I'm for it!
Carl: You're both on crack! We should be posting randomly selected sayings from the I Ching.
Abe: No! Bits from the Tao of Pooh!
Bob: How about the things Bart writes on the board at the begining of "The Simpons"?
Carl: Speaking of which, did you see Futurama?
Abe: When is that on? They keep moving it around...
And so on and so forth, so you see, politics and geeks don't really mix. The end.
Us SysAdmin types already have a trade organization in the form of SAGE, the System Administrators Guild, a part of USENIX. I think forming a SAGE lobbying group and/or PAC (political action commitee) would be one way to go. Of course we need a good portion of the SysAdmins out there to join and support us... It probably wouldn't hurt to have IEEE and ACM start PACs representing their members as well. I'm just surprised that all of these trade organizations were ignored by Katz *and* the Slashdot readership. I only saw one post mention the ACM! Wow.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Well said. I agree with that the time has passed for the union concept, but a (voluntary) guild where knowledge can be shared about salary rates, job openings, etc, would be very useful, as well as perhaps a way to address greivances geeks have with their employers. I wouldn't regard it as an intelligence/stupidity thing, just a lack of information.
... "The same thing we try to do every night pinky: try to take over the world!"
We don't need divine intervention to take over the world. Some help with getting IE5 out of windows would be nice though.
--
The idea has been kicked around on several listservs, as well as among a few of my friends. You're not the first one to notice the discrepancy between geek "workplace rights", and others. We're the ones usually staying well into the evening when the server crashes, we're the ones called in on holidays when a project is running late. Holiday vacation? Yeah, right - not until you finish your Y2K work.
Geeks may be getting the highest pay, but arguably the lowest QoS in the workplace. Stock options aren't as important to most of us as doing stuff we like to do - namely hacking code, gaming, and just having fun online. All those things are routinely forbidden in today's modern workplace.. where productivity reigns king.
The 1930's through to about the mid 60's brought in organized unions for the masses - auto workers, factory workers, ad nauseum. It was the unions that created public education - to ensure that their kids got the same right to an education that a rich person did.
Those unions were smashed to pieces by cunning political moves, corruption, and plain stupidity on the part of union leaders, and the whole thing slid off into the sea, never to be heard from again.
Most unions today are technical in nature - high demand workers who cannot easily be replaced. Plumbers, electricians, teachers. Government unions are also common - Airlines, Postal Workers, etc. This definately speaks something to the legitimacy of organizing a geek union.
I do believe it's possible. Geeks have shown repeatedly an interest in having their fair share of the pie in political issues. Strangely enough though, when pressed, they seem apathetic and indifferent - preferring to talk about the issues, but would rather not invest the time - "I'd rather be coding" would make a fine bumper sticker on most geekmobiles.
I honestly don't know whether it's possible. Technical unions are usually the most successful due to high demand and low availability. The question is - can you really herd cats? Can you convince the geeks of the world to unite in a shared vision (a better workplace)?
Contact me at this address if you'd like to talk more.
--
Unions have tended either to comapaign simply for standard, uniform pay and conditions (which is fine for standard, uniform work, but not for what most of us do), or to try to bring about a revolution (the IWW is still out there, you know...).
..
Can we not have a union that negotiates for the things we want ? open source projects ? better coffee ? less uniform pay and conditions ?
Oh by the way, if people want to talk to you because you are a software engineer, please tell me where you live ! I want to move there
The problem with this idea is that there has to be a central command structure and means of enforcement (even if it's only ostracization). If the union strikes, the union has to be visible. You want to know who went to work anyway (therefore placing them in the "bad" category) and who was with you at the picket line. Yes, we're geeks, but a failed strike generally means unemployment for those who went along with it.
Geeks of the world would be much better served by a professional association, a la the American Medical Association or the Bar. That can provide the type of political lobbying and public awareness education that the poster wants, without the other things like wage scales that would be a solid negative on today's job market.
Just think about the AMA. Something like 50% of all American physicians are members. They weigh in with an opinion on any piece of medical legislation all the way from the US Congress to community council meetings. And they are heeded, not just because the throw a lot of money around during election time (they certainly do) but also because they are recognized as experts on in a very complex and important field. This also gives them entre into the pressrooms of America - they provide an authoritative source of opinion whenever a new wonder drug is announced or a new plague is discovered.
The professional associations have used their power in the USA for decades to improve the careers of the people they represent. If you have any friends in law school, ask them how many texts they use that are not approved by the Bar Association. Manufacturers of hospital equipment fall over themselves get the "AMA Approved" label. Wouldn't it be amazing if there was a group that could keep the Microsoft-sponsored textbooks and lesson-plans out of schools? Or that held hardware and software manufactures to standards of stability and security?
And, finally, when the current job market does turn sour for geeks (nothing lasts forever, you know) an established professional association could become a platform for unionizing. Who would have thought even 2 years ago that DOCTORS would ever want to have a union? But now that doctors are controlled by insurance companies and HMO's the AMA is forming a collective bargaining unit to preserve the quality of their careers.
Information Technology is not like dockworking or auto manufacture, or even clerical/secretarial work. Unions, which work well for these professions, would not be appropriate for geeks. IT is much more like law, medicine, or business - highly educated individuals who can pilot their own professional destinies. If geeks truely need an organization to represent them, then it should be modeled after the professional organizations that represent these individuals.
Morlocks are we?
This argument is nothing more than the Garbage Man argument in higher technology. Frankly, we are skilled in subjects few are but on which most depend. We can generally call our shots or just find another job pretty easily.
We have the power, the money (often), and the sense to make our lives what we will; though some would use and abuse our good nature and work ethic for their own means, we still, on an individual basis, have the "power", even if we don't know it. This is not the case where most unions are needed---an individual member couldn't necessarily have a major monetary impact. We, on the other hand, tend to hold a great deal of trust of our employers. I don't think a union is needed or warranted in our case.
korc
There are LOTS of companies out there that already
...such as strikes...
resemble unions when it comes to job placement/opportunities.
As far as a complete organization of `unionized' geeks... I don't
know how that would fair... has a lot of potential benefits, but
I also see problems that could arise...
working in the industry, and enjoying it as a hobby, I myself
would probably benefit from such a union.
However, I would hate to see what would happen when working
conditions, pay rate, etc would keep the geeks of the World from
going into work... not a Good Thing (TM).
------------------------------------------
Reveal your Source, Unleash the Power. (tm)
The Computer Industry lobby that is out there isn't always acting in in the best interest of it's geeks. For example, it's recent struggles to loosen up visa restrictions, with the explicit intention of increasing wage competition.
Especially considering how many in the computer industry are contracting or consulting or working for small shops, a worker-based trade association makes alot of sense.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Sounds more like a Randroid fantasy than anything else.
I would never join a club that would have me as a member. - Groucho Marx
As a joke once, at an AT&T Bell Labs meeting
I made a smart-assed comment about unionizing the
system administrators. (typically the biggest geeks at AT&T) The ENTIRE room went deathly silent and everyone did a sharp intake of breath.
What did I know? I was a 22yr old SA punk...
An older gentleman spoke softly and said (and I DO quote, as I'll never forget)
"Any company worth their salt would fire and
black list ANYONE who ever tried to unionize
admins. That much power in the hands of
people like you is already scary. With a
union and a strike you people could halt
almost all forms of communication in the US."
At the time I was already aware how to screw
up ALL the long distance in the states and
satelite connections as well as all data networks.
He was right, geeks wield TREMENDOUS power,
and some people are very afraid of that.
Geeks are typically more inquisitive and smarter
than the average Joe. People tend to fear
that which they don't understand. Geeks seem
to top the list since that little rampage over
in CO.
da'fly
...the first 5 days of each year above 70 degrees are holidays!
So what do I do on January 6th???
Or do you mean the first five days of each week?
Quite often I see programmers reinventing the wheel, when they could have just grabed an already existing piece of code and reused it. That's why we need organizations like FSF and GNU, and why we need organizations to go to bat for us when out non-programmer managers are being stupid.
Before using the words geek, our friends may want to know of the dictionary definition. I don't know the exact wording but there are 2 variants:
1: A sideshow of a circus whose act entails digging a large pit in which their act is performed
2: A sideshow of a circus of which the act involves biting the heads off live chickens and snakes.
Please use the word more carefully.
http://www.lord1.f9.co.uk
Just remember that if the world didn't suck we'd all fall off.
What's being suggested here sounds more like a professional association (taking political stands and lobbying the govt.) than a union (collective bargaining, ensuring employer compliance with agreements, etc). There are, BTW, already a number of techie associations, although I don't know if any of them are worth a damn. Anyone got any experience with any of them?
Given the diverse political views of geeks, the idea of a geek Union seems unworkable. Where's the unity?
IMHO Unions work best when they simply protect their members from on-the-job abuses rather than drifting into politics. Imagine belonging to (and paying dues to) an organization whose politics you abhor, just to keep your job and benefits. This is what happens when Unions go Horribly Wrong.
Katz wrote of a geek Union forming to battle the various corporation thundering onto the internet. Would you really want your Union to engage in suce a battle? A lot of us grumble about faceless corporate money-grubbers invading our playground, while at the same time being aware that those very corporations keep many of us afloat financially. Geeks may indeed command more respect these days, but it's largely a function of money, not knowledge (respect from other geeks being a notable exception). A geek Union seeking to drive corporate interests from the internet might well be shooting itself in its figurative foot. Not that Unions have never done that before...
We may already have what we need - a means of keeping each other informed when boneheaded politicians and media figures propose bad legislation (CDA anyone?) so that (somewhat) unified action can be taken to oppose it. No meetings or dues required, no all-or-nothing political agenda. Just information. What one does with it is up to each individual, as it should be.
We have the internet - now all we have to do is use it.
unless I'm totally off base here (which is, as always, entirely possible) What I think the person you replied to is refering to is that the unions were instrumental in making primary and secondary school education a requirement. IMHO, the primary reason for making children go to school was to get them out of the workplace. This was to make more jobs available to adults.
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
Even now, the company I do consulting work for has GM as its major contractor. Anyone remember when GM workers went on strike last year? I had to go through those picket lines every day. Even though I had my contractor's ID in full view with a "visitor" parking pass, they still harassed me. I had to take to bringing a firearm to work with me to prevent people from hassling me or destroying my car.
Unions are not worth the time and trouble. Even if we organized amongst ourselves there would still be those who would want to grab for power. This happens in all forms of structured society, and we are not immune. If you don't like your working conditions, find another job. Fighting with your employer is like trying to fight a rental eviction notice. You're not wanted, one way or another, so you may as well leave and find a better position.
Want a casual atmosphere where everything goes your way? Start your own business. If that scares you, look at the corporate cultures of many tech startups. Try to join one of them. If not, find a company that has good employee relations (Southwest Airlines comes to mind) and get hired on there, then see if they will let you have at least some of the freedom you seek.
As far as lobbying power, I'd rather propose something like the AARP or the Association of Internet Professionals (they still around?). Those who want the organization's lobbying power can join up and make their voice known through their organization. That way, if you agree you can vote with the organization. It makes everyone individually responsible for themselves, but gives them the power to change on a large scale if they can get others to go along.
Jobs are a very touchy subject in this day. No one likes to be told what to do, especially if it is forceful or demanding. Stand your ground, but don't go jumping on a bandwagon that might run you over, just for the fun of it.
If we, the Geeks of the world wanted to be less productive whiney arses, we would be end-users! The Idea of ANY Labor Union appalls me!
EXCUSE ME? are you calling union workers lazy? i'm sorry, but that accusation has no basis in fact.
if you've ever had to work a job outside the realm of the computer industry, you'd know that unions are not useless and union workers are not lazy.
while i agree that a LABOR UNION for computer geeks isn't needed, i am also disturbed at the amount of union bashing going on around here. i did not come out of the womb with a resume with enough geek experience to get a geek job. i've worked both union and non-union jobs (doing manual labor), and the union jobs have always had better pay and more benefits. simple as that.
Actually that's probably the easy part. The strike would be coordinated in 'Net-time, and if not enough geeks have joined in within a 2 minute window, the strike would be cancelled.
Not that any of this makes any sense to me. So-called geeks are generally praised, not ridiculed. Yes there are those who are jealous of them, but how is "exercising rights" going to change that? It would be nice to have greater political representation so that Internet taxes and mass censorship would be abolished. However, I'm not convinced we would make any real progress in that area either--we generally agree mass censorship is foolish but my own opinion is that censorship must be available in public libraries to protect the children. Many would disagree.
Folks,
....
.... What would be our 10 Commandments or Ammendments that would bind US All together forever and protect US from the totalitarian militaries others?
There are ways
However, is it a "Union" Organization/Institution that is desired, or maybe a "Culture" Nation/Society is developing like no other that has ever existed before upon the face of this earth?
A culture without national boundries, human rights equality for all, a religion based on the true good of advancing the interest of humanity,
We can not make a social program/theory (Communisim) fit economic policy, or allow an economic theory (Capitalism, Supply & Demand) to determine the future of humanity.
Aggressivly Stong Self-Interest will create Self-Destruction for individuals a/o society.
Anyway y'all figure it out and I'll support the Geek Nation/Culture in my will.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Disturbingly, most of the negative comments I just read seemed to convey no idea of how modern unions work. I suppose I'm a rare beast around here--a geek that's already a member of a union (a branch of the AFL-CIO even: Service Employees International Union, Local 509).
I work for a company in which there are (if I remember) five separate unions and a "non-union bargaining unit". Everyone here has a contract. We don't all get paid the same, and in fact, there are merit-based bonuses and raises about every 6 months, and guaranteed cost-of-living adjustments. Our dental and vision care is covered. Our employer pays 85% of health insurance costs, for several plans at any of half a dozen providers. When I see phrases like "corrupt union leaders" tossed about casually, I wonder if these people are victims of corporate propaganda or just misanthropic cynics. It's my first real experience with a union, but I'd call it favorable.
There's also a little group called the Communication Workers of America you might've heard about. 630,000 people can be wrong, but since they include the ones laying the fiber we all use, the likelihood of that is decreasing.
Is a traditional union the best idea for geeks? Probably not. Managing or organizing geeks, as I'm sure we all know, is rather like herding cats.
On the other hand, when have we ever done anything traditionally? In the last few years, we've made significant progress in reinventing the press, commerce, and we're even scratching at government. It sounds to me like Katz has pulled the best leadership trick there is: find out where people are going and get in front.
So what are a bunch of otherwise reasonably intelligent geeks to do? Our interests aren't represented in the government, and they're only just starting to be noticed by the traditional media (still vastly dominant in most parts of the world). I have to agree with Katz on this one: let's figure out a way to make some advantage of the fact that we're keeping their toys working without getting any deeper than necessary into sticky issues like "who's in charge" or "how much will this cost each of us".
Most of us like what we do already (if we didn't, we could certainly pursue other opportunities in today's job market). Take a break, and think about whether educated consumers and less-meddlesome managers might help us enjoy it more. If they're unwilling to cooperate, are you willing to like what you do on someone else's time?
It may be illegal. It seems antitrust laws allow collective bargaining of employees with their employer, but preclude a union of "independent economic actors" from unionizing to increase their leverage in the marketplace. At least, in the case of physicians' unions this is the DOJ's stated concern. Follow the link and see the sections labelled Physician Collaboration or Professional Trade Associations.
For a very simple reason no one really could GET the info to even understand such a thing. My father is a person who really dosn't know much about computers I believe this is in part to his experience with some sort of complex computing system in the mid 70's for a degree in Library Science most of the systems back then really were not made for anyone beyond the elite. Now to say that geeks should have unions is probably a good thing however people should look at how effective this would be. Since there are large ammounts of "geeks" getting out of college and they all want jobs what will happen to those that attempt to strike? Can you say replacement?
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
For a very simple reason no one really could GET the info to even understand such a thing. My father is a person who really dosn't know much about computers I believe this is in part to his experience with some sort of complex computing system in the mid 70's for a degree in Library Science most of the systems back then really were not made for anyone beyond the elite. Now to say that geeks should have unions is probably a good thing however people should look at how effective this would be.
Since there are large ammounts of "geeks" getting out of college and they all want jobs what will happen to those that attempt to strike? Can you say replacement?
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
I am really sure the majors would disagree with your assessment that roustabouts are indispensable. They are a dime-a-dozen, easily trained, and easily disposed of.
But your comment pretty well stands. No one is irreplaceable.
Well said, sir.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
While I recognize that unions might be useful for those workers who on their own are not particularly powerful vis-a-vis employers (i.e., not well educated or skilled and therefore have few options, or narrowly skilled, also few options), and that employers can and do screw people with impunity, the idea of a programmer's union (whatever you want to call it) is absolutely abhorent to me, and I imagine most people I know and certainly anyone I would want to work with.
If I don't like my working conditions, I will find a job that better suits me. I wield considerable power in the marketplace to demand a certain salary and working conditions based on the fact that I am competent, have a good repututation and am honest.
While recognizing that unions do serve a good purpose for some, I would think in my field they would only serve to as a shelter for the incompetenent and lazy and could only hurt me by limiting the options I could exercise in a free market.
Furthermore, I have found that in the business world, the best guarantee for screwing yourself is to rely on others. I would stand nothing to gain by such a propostion and everything to lose... so much so that I would rather switch careers than be forced to join a union.
As far as the press goes, mass ignorance will always be with us. Anyone who doesn't understand that 90% of the press is made up of people too stupid to do real work (compare requirements for a journalism degree with anything other than an education degree and see what I mean) and legitimate and worthwhile journalism is being pushed further and further into the fringes. I generally find the level of intelligence expressed on slashdot to equal or exceed most newspaper columnists (and certainly reporters), particularly since I can see so many viewpoints easily.
Ignorance is a fact of life, and I don't really give a d*mn what people at large think since they will always misunderstand someone like me anyway.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
a geek union could finally bring meaning to the saying "card carrying geek"
It would be interesting though after seeing how many websites went black to protest the original CDA imagine if all of those companies reported unpresidented numbers of people out sick. These strikes are going to be the hardest to organize, if not for a common website or other way to dessimate the information there would be no way to know that you were supposed to not go into work/school the next day.
People don't seem to have trouble with the concept of "geeks" forming an association of like-minded people, but they seem to hung up on the semantic concept of "union". Reframe: think not top-down "union" but voluntary-association "guild". When you start thinking that way, you will realize that geek guilds *already* exist: e.g. Webmaster's guild, Internet Society, etc. Remember, too, that the basis behind Net divisions is not really political, it's "religious"! ;-)
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
The job market is currently booming for geeks right? Well, if that is the case than why do we not see government offices and various news media desperately lacking technical expertise? After all, these seem to be the entities that anger "geeks" the most.
The answer is simple and depressing: some people with technical expertise don't care that much, perhaps not at all. Heck, there could even be some techies who agree with some of the wretched policies of governments and the horrible mistruths of the mass media.
If you can't get people to stop working for these entities, how do can you expect them to politicize against them?
I would have to say the Brett Watson that you are living in an ivory tower. You are educated, intelliegent and able to negotiate and understand the issues in an open society. But what about those who do not have the voice that you have? Those whose work or study situation does not allow them to be vocal. I'd say you have never had a real job, one where your rights are invalidated on a daily bases by being underpaid, overworked or put in situations that are dangereous.
The ability of workers to unite against a common enemy, usually the management is a powerful and important part of working life. Lets take an example. In New South Wales in the early 1990's, the Liberal Government of the time, brought in enterprise bargaining agreements. One of my friends, a secretary who was earning about $300 a week, had their boss come in and tell them that were now to get $215 a week. A little more then the social welfare payments at the time. That was their enterprise agreement. They did not have the education, ability or knowledge to use the justice system to hear their case, which might have taken weeks, and cost more then they could afford. If they complained they were sacked. They needed the money, and so couldn't quit to find another job because of the recession.
If they had a union, then the union could have represented all the workers at real enterprise bargaining meetings, where someone had the knowledge and understading of the system to help the workers.
Let's take another example. In Australia there is a large community of outworkers in the textile and clothing workforce. These people, usually immigrants with little english skills work from home and are paid per-garment that they produce. Since they are not in a factory situation, and have little english, they do not realise that working 16 hours a day for $5 an hour, 6 or 7 days a week is not the norm. They don't have anyone to go to for arbitraition, as they need to keep to working and may loose their job. It is the work of organisations like Fairwear and Asian Women at Work ( http://www.awatw.org.au, may not be up) that lobby on behalf of these people.
But lets not forget the point here, what about VSU and the Austalian University System. The rights of students are also constantly being erroded. Have you never been locked out of class due to lack of seating? Have you had to fight for computer resources and lab time? You are an english speaking, probably upper north shore ex-private school student (Knox? Barker?). Perhaps you should go down to your union office, and get involved and try to understand what they do. Just because you can't see an advantage to what they do, try and see the picture of an overseas student, or migrant-enthinc minority student who gets low marks because they have a racists lecturer who can't be disiplined bacause of tenure.
So, I say to you, Unions will always be required in a Capitalist society. While there are still those trying to minimise the wage and status of the general worker, who are unable to represent themselves in discussions.
-- Huh, what?
They just don't seem to realise management is not necessarily the natural progression, I code, I like it, I want to keep doing it.
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
What's ridiculous about it? People hire intermediaries for negotiating purposes (attorneys, brokers, agents, auctioneers, group purchasing organizations, etc.) all the time.
[General rule: 90% of the complaints people have about unions would be self-evidently dismissed as ridiculous if they were directed at an entity that dealt in widgets instead of labor.]
What is described in the article, and what we all
seem to be proposing, is a lobby, not a union. We
aren't complaining about how we're treated by our
employers (for the most part). We're complaining
about the lawmakers complete lack of
understanding (or worse, misunderstanding) of the
technical aspects of what they legislate. Many
varying industries have lobbyists (Tabbaco, et al),
why shouldn't we?
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. -- HS Thompson
The last thing we need is a union. Unions homogenize the workforce. You get x dollars per hour, no matter how good/terrible you are. What we need is performance-based pay, and no sane union would ask for that. Unions are the antithesis of geek demands. Unions demand uniformity in workplace conditions. Geeks demand flexibility. Unions demand standard pay scales. We like to see 15% pay increases. Unions cater to the average worker. Geeks despite mediocrity.
:)
Really, are we as geeks that mistreated at work? For the most part I agree that the accounting departments of the world loathe us, but who cares? When I meet people outside of work and they learn that I'm a software engineer, they are always very impressed and excited to talk to me. That shows respect right there. Managers are afraid to lose us, as they know that we keep the machines running and the software coming. That gives us amazing leverage right there. Any of you ever wriggled a few extra vacation days out of your manager? Wondered why he/she gave in? Ever notice that most geeks only work about 70% of the time? Try that at McDonalds. Although that would be par for a union job...
Opinions change daily as new information arrives. Stay tuned.
Strikes are a very small part of what unions do, most of their effort goes into things like lobbying the government foir or against laws that effect the membership(the minimum wage law recently introduced in the UK owes a lot to union campaigns), providing legal advice for members, providing represetation in disciplinary cases, fighting unfair dismissal, and as thousand and one other things that nobody really notices untill they need them (my union is thinking of setting up a dating agency !! Not sure what that says about its members :) )
Imagine if a large well organised "International Geek Federation" representing tens of thousands of IT workers worldwide from new graduates to managers launched a press/lobbying campaign saying "This new encryption law will cost jobs and destroy the internet, here our well reasoned facts and figures to back up our claim", and compare the effect to that of a few hundred people sending emails to a member of the government who doesn't understand the subject.
While we remain a fragmented community linked only by a comman love of computers and divided by such religious issues as which distro is best we will have no say in how the internet and IT in general develops leaving agendas to be set by big business and politicians . By forming a union or such like (the Institute of Geeks and Allied Trades anyone?) we at least stand some chance of influencing the future of that which we love.
Bil
Where you stand depends on where you sit...
now it's different. This is of course very difficult to prove, what with the retro-sigging and all. So you'll just have to trust me...
+&x
Some friends and I recently registered the domain "lies.org," not really sure what we were going to do with it.
/. effect in this context...
Slightly thereafter, the FDIC proposed its Know Your Customer policy, an extremely invasive proposal concerning bank records. They requested public comment, and received >250,000 replies, all but 72 of which were opposed. Email provided the medium for most of this response. The FDIC accordingly dropped the whole thing.
I personally was awestruck at how well people came together, and how well the strategy worked. The inspiration came to us at that point to center lies.org around the leverage that internet communicaiton allows in political situations.
We seek input. "lies.org" is too cool a domain name to use for some boring personal site, we'd much rather it be used for the public good in some way.
At present we envision it as a slashdot with a political twist. By "a slashdot" I mean a dynamic, community driven and moderated site, updated as frequently as possible.
We have at our fingertips the greatest communications medium in the whole of recorded history. Collective action (and collaboration) is now possible on a scale never before imagined. IMHO we spend too much time receiving information and not enough time sending it. A website with as many readers as Slashdot that kept up minute-to-minute with relevant political issues and included mailto: (or other) links to make your opinion known to the important parties would be politically unstoppable.
Imagine the
So, if you have ideas, suggestions, comments, criticisms, etc. please pass them our way. You can email me at adimarco@gwi.net.
Anthony DiMarco
adimarco@gwi.net
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
Your examples sounded like something straight out of BOFH. Maybe that should be required reading for system administrators.
:)
Oh, it is? Never mind, then.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Hey, we could plan the work stoppage for Dec 31/Jan 01 and really have some people upset with us! Are there any convention centers still available. We can all go have a huge party and let it all go to hell in a handbasket.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
Perhaps what we really need is a trade organisation. Something that will lobby to protect the rights of freelance consultants, open source software developers, etc. Something that can provide portable retirement savings and health plans that we can take from employer to employer.
If you are not getting what you want out of your current job, then LEAVE! It is a seller's market right now for computer professionals. Don't be afraid to ask for what you want. I am working as a freelance consultant. I only take contracts that meet specific requirements. Sometimes that means I go without work for a few weeks while I sift through available contracts, but I just treat that as vacation time. I make more than enough as a freelancer to make up for those periods.
Join a union? I don't think so.
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
Actually, head geeks have been important since long before the 90's. In 1974 (!) I was head geek at my high school of a timesharing system (dual processor HP2100S/2114B with 10 MB of disk), and spent much of my free time running the hallways figuring out why this or that terminal had lost touch with the system, etc. There wasn't much competition for the position, then.
Now THAT would be funny, if there had been a typo, and it was really "The GEEK shall inherit the earth".
doc
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
United Food and Commercial Workers already got that. How about Fraternal Order of Geeks? Or why not just join the Teamsters en masse?
itachi
UFCW member and proud....
First, a compulsory respeonse:
/.BBC or /.PBS
Distros? Flame bait. I don't see politicians driving the same car do you?
Now then,
1. Slashdot TV -
Someone needs to come up with an organization as an excuse to GET AN MBONE connection.
2. Join a distributed networking project
3. Require all politicians to have an email address and an IRC server. Mud could be useful as well. Require them to have an IRC to email log and require them to accept pager summaries of the logs.
4. Every politician needs to place the law they vote for into effect in their constituents' communities before it goes outside.
5. DO NOT Buy V-CHIP enhanced products.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
what a dolt.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Tactical error. some geeks lack imagination.
Say you have A L/BSDUG or even just a project.
Post it on the net as usual. Then post it in your local newspaper.
Irritate the newspapers with short blurbs about your success at the last meeting. Get other LUG's involved.
Make sure that the Public can't hide from Geeks anymore.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Geeks came up with the things most of them maintain.
Teachers. Should be obsoleted by clones of the WOZ.
Janitors. (don't use that PC crap around here) are sometimes writers getting minimum wage while they relax and think up characters and plots.
Police. If people weren't so phobic gangs wouldn't dare exist. Gang members are as fragile as they come.
Soldiers. Nato is too chicken to let a man die. Unmanned warfare is the future.
Highway maintenance. Oh you mean 1Gbit data transfer.
Farmers. Ok they're legit as long as they don't fuck up the produce.
Truck drivers. Interesting bunch. I think they're sorta geeky (so what if they work on
automobiles in their free time.)
Telecom workers. Precisely who isn't at least a
little technically gifted in this group.
Food/drug testers. Nah just educate the farmers.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
As many people have said, Jon is talking more about a Political Interest Group than a Union persay. The interest group can become everything from a trade association, to a paid lobbying organization, to a grass-roots organization.
The problem with an political interest group is overcoming the freerider problem derived from Economics, but observed in great detail when it comes to organizing interest groups. The basic rules are:
Smaller groups are easier to organize than larger ones--It is easier for members of a smaller group to keep track of the participation of its members than larger groups.
Organizations seeking selective benefits are easier to organize than those seeking collective benefits--Industries that organize around lobbying for a tax break that only benefits their industry have a lot easier time organizing that a public interest group organizing around a benefit that everyone receives no matter how much they contribute to the cause.
The reason that a geek interest group probably would not work are because of those two rules of the freerider problem. Geeks are a large group of people geographically diverse and **generally** seeking collective benefits. For an individual geek, it makes more sense to not become involved with any particular issue. If the issue is won, the geek will still benefit because **everyone** benefits. Even better, by not participating, the geek has got something without scarificing time, money or energy.
The ways that I see geeks overcoming the freerider problem is because we tend to be a little more dogmatic (i.e., environmentalists overcome the freerider problem based on passion, geeks could do the same) and because geeks have never seen-before power to communicate quickly.
I do agree that geeks hold a power card that we are not using effectively. However, I don't know if the power card is enough to overcome the inherent freerider problem.
Alright, enough of my political science theory tangent. Back to the topic.
While I don't find doing so pleasant, I have to disagree with Mr. Katz on this matter. I believe that a geek union is unlikely and unnecessary (if not harmful outright). The traditional goals of unions--better working conditions, better compensation, greater job security, etc. are largely irrelevant in geekspace. Compensation for geeks is already higher than most occupations with comparable training requirements, working conditions are positively idyllic compared with industries such as mining or construction, and job security, the long-term-work-for-one-company-the-rest-of-my-life model of the IBMs and DuPonts of the 1950s simply doesn't exist any more.
So what is left for a geek union to do? Require that employers allow geeks to play quake at work? Ban neckties? Get rid of flourescent lights? Require glare-free cubicles? Don't be ridiculous. If you can't get that stuff on the basis of the value of your work, you don't deserve it. The fact is, the substance of the arguments I've read here simply reads into geek culture the bad stereotypes of pimply, unwashed, drooling teenagers that, frankly, have been given lipservice too long. I know too many geeks who are serious, professional people to buy into them. Perhaps there's some joiner meme circulating which periodically brings this topic up, but it would be better served by starting a LUG than by anything like unionizing.
Besides, can you imagine Michael Corleone maneuvering to control the Geeks Union?
-- The Sage does nothing, and nothing is left undone. --Lao Tzu
I am also a "Head Geek" at my high school. I nominate Slashdot as the HeadQuarters of the Geek Revolution and August 1st as the day of reckoning where all geeks everywhere in the world spend the day off the internet, away from jobs and we don't fix or deal with anyone. We sit in our back yards and catch up on some reading!
>Really, if you're going to start choosing political systems out of fictional games, movies, or books, why not go all-out? Robert Anton Wilson's Libertarian Immortalist party (an end to death and taxes!) is by far the best political party we could implement that has no bearing on the real world.
IIRC there is a party called "The Monster Raving Loonie Party" in the UK (anyone confirm or deny?) One of their platforms was to have the Royal Navy tow the island down to the Mediterranian.
I could be completely wrong.
Geeks and nerds have never been an organized people. This is not to say that they do not have common interests, or even that there is no place where they can come together ( slashdot being a perfect example). What this means is that they have never been able to form a real world group to protect their own interests ( the theoretical goal of any union). There is a reason for this. Geeks are a divided group, with no *attainable* interests that can be agreed upon. The very backbone of geekhood demands this. The Geek is defined by a technical mind and/or profession, an interest in technical things, and an extremely strong apptitude towards their technical interest of choice. How many times have each of us heard someone describe themselves not just as a geek but as a "UNIX geek" or a "computer and movie geek" or whatever. The cult of geekhood, which most of us at slashdot belong to, and if not certainly know of, is bound together by a non-materialist bond. It's much more a mentality, a state of being, even a personality type. One geek interests may be in the distribution of free software, while another geek may abhor the idea, prefering instead a system in which they get the direct reward for their code. Both can be equally geeks, and yet both have opposite agendas. That case is over-simplistic, but I think I got my point across. Trade unions ( which is what the geek union seems to be modeled after) can exist because within a profession there are things that are universally wanted, such as better working conditions; higher wages etc. etc. Everyone here knows what a union does. Perhaps what Mr. Katz would be wiser to suggest is that many localised unions be formed, each open to geeks within a community, focusing on not large scale problems, such as free software and other such issues, but rather local problems pertaining to the small group of geeks within the community.
This is last ambitious, but more realistic. We are not in a revolution. We cannot stop working simply to teach the world a lesson. We are not a persecuted group. As Mr. Katz said, we are no longer on the outside of society, but in its very core. Unless the goal is to overthrow the government and set up a geek utopia ( which I think it would be agreed is ludicrous) then we should stick to what we can do. We are not an organized enough group to be powerful, and probably never will be. For now, if we want to effect the fate of geeks, instead of getting grandiose ideas about a large scale geek union that would finally get us the large scale recognition we deserve, we should take things case by case, form local groups, fight in small groups with very specific purposes. Again, not as romantic or grandiose, but much more realistic.
I think this is a fine idea. I think the unions main purpose whould be a lobbying organization and perhaps a legal defense fund. Once M$ starts suing people for intellectual property patents we will need all the money we can get. Javalobby attempted this kind of an organization and it has been mildly succesfull. It may be easier to form together smaller more homogenous sets of people like perl mongers and then an umbrella organization over that though. I'm in if anybody wants to start something. If we build it people may come.
War is necrophilia.
Same thing for Emacs vs. vi, FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD vs. Linux...
That's supposedly what Microsoft does.. At least at their website it says it too.. But, I use NT and even I admit that usually the labels on their products usually don't accurately describe the software inside (on the windows 95 box, it said "work faster and have more fun").
Agrees that Society would be better than Fraternity.
This reminds me of the history timeline in CarWars by Steve Jackson Games (the company that got raided by the FBI a few years back).
Their timeline had a change from the two-party system, and listed a "Technocratic" party who believed in the advancement of education technology to better society.
I'm working from memory here, it's been a few years since I've found anyone who plays the game, much less read the rule book, but I would think that a political party would fit more into the ideals of geeks than would a union, where we could give our time and resources to 'em, and not just cash.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
"Geeks: we run the systems that run the world"
I like it.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Brett says the "Slashdot effect" is the result of many individual decisions, and it is. But he goes on to say there is no central authority to decide, and that ignores the fact that CmdrTaco has the absolute power to decide what the Slashdot effect is going to hit. He can't make anybody do anything, but he's a smart guy, he knows (more or less) what will happen when he picks an article. This is central authority in a benign form.
Oh, and those who think herding cats is hard have apparently never wielded the awesome power of the canopener.
Fear my wrath, please, fear my wrath?
Homer
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Nobody reacts rationally when they are afraid! Think back to the last airline pilot's strike. No matter how justified the grievance, people blamed the pilots, and not the airlines. If this were to happen, there would be hysterical talk about cyber-terrorism, discussion of ways to make the Internet and networks geek-proof (yes, even though it is an oxymoron, and very silly) and finally, quiet discussion about how to settle the entire thing.
The end result would be some quiet settlement, winning the battle for the geeks. However, we would have just made a giant move in losing the war for the hearts and minds of the people we live with.
I prefer a subtler approach, based on social skills. That's hard to implement in high school, when the *pack leaders* have few real social skills, but it becomes better as time goes on.
I don't think a Trade Union is really in order since tech fields generally pay well. The main concerns in this article that strike me are really the governmental/political ones.
What I think we need is a way to elect geeks to political office. Wonder why you aren't represented under the current American political system? Hmmm.. you must not be a lawyer.
Elect geeks and geeks only.. Back geeks and geeks only.. look at candidate's education and experience. Point it out to others. Maybe then we'll have some good technical legislation.
...just my $.02
There are plenty of examples of laws that the geek community pretty much unanimously saw was evil. Remember the CDA?
This could work for us: if we united against something, it would REALLY be a Bad Thing, and that makes the words carry that much more weight...
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Here in the UK we have the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, its not a union, more like a professional/social thing read about it at the following URL
r vie.htm
http://www.bcs.org.uk/publicat/ebull/may98/inte
The official website is not much at the moment, but there is a livery (shield motif) at http://www.wcit.org.uk/
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
Liability, yes. Umm... are there any IRC channels which might be appropriate for these anonymous-denounciation meetings? ;-)
I don't think it would work that well, with all the religious wars going on. If geeks can't unite on which distribution is the best, how can they unite on whether a law is good or evil?
/Ian D - Being Optimized for Fighting and Harm
Seriously, though, if all this potential union went after was more money for geeks, we wouldn't be any better off for it. What we need is to get someone up in the board room who knows more about computers than 'point, click.' Then the progress can really start happening.
Viva Revolution!
All kidding aside, I have managed nerds for about the past 5 years. I find that one key motivator is to make life task assigned, not hours. If you wanna work 9-5, cool, if you prefer 12:00 to 9:00, cool too.
I will send you sunshine if you send me some cool weather (I am in NYC and it is too "bloody" hot.
I have long dreamed of the UFCW, The United Federation of Computer Workers. We need to protect our culture in the workplace and only a union could do this. We need a strong statement on more and better caffine, bigger better displays, faster networks, no flourescent lights, shoes optional, NO TIES-EVER, and the first 5 days
of each year above 70 degrees are holidays!
Just because kids take an interest in computer hardware/networking/programming, doesn't mean that they have to be put apart from others. If you're a geek, and labeled so -- it's because you're not a well rounded person who takes interest in normal teenage pursuits. I myself learned C, perl, php, oracle, sql, sparc and x86 asm, and complex networking in high school. However, that didn't stop me from doing normal things like going on dates, going to movies, listening to music or just hanging out either. Believe me, the american (and other probably) school system leaves so much free time for kids these days you could get a degree in your free time.
:)
I am definitely a geek, and proud to be one. However, it's all in how you present yourself. No one would guess I sometimes code device drivers 19 hours straight over a weekend. If you know you look like one, just change your look.. It can be that simple. New clothes, possibly contacts if you wear glasses, new haircut, even the way you position yourself when you stand can change everyone's view of you.
From there, develop some business skills so that you aren't eventually stuck at the will of those deemed to be "suits". Seriously, all you have to do is look like you're going to succeed and you probably will. I know I've gotten far on that I-know-i've-already-won look.
Unions just suck. period. -- that quote coming from my uncle who just got his ba in union negotiations and has to hide it on his resume
In conclusion, you have to make your own success. Don't expect it to come to you. All you need is focus and a little *earned* respect.
Join / support the Libertarian Party.
http://www.lp.org
This is an ok idea, but I find it extremely unlikely that anything or anyone could get enough geeks to leave there houses and computers for very long. Today's geeks live in cold dark rooms with computers everywhere, and rarely leave home, usually to buy more mountain dew or surge.
Good Luck.
Well, 'fraternal' kinda alienates our sisters in the workforce. I imagine the IEEE has a good cross-section of geeks, too; may be underpopulated on the IT end, but they're politically active...
Anyhow. The talk of how unions are bad isn't very progressive (for lack of a good vocab). Old school unions were formed often in industries made up of big factories with thousands of workers, and they could shut the places down by striking as a whole. IT geeks are more individually stocked at companies and aren't as directly concerned with job security as with conditions and political representation. So what could our version of a union do? It could be political in a very geekly generic sense (since I doubt we'd agree on many specific, complex issues): fight FUD and the hype BS that bureaucrats feed the public, address whatever gov't/industry actions are in the interest of the majority. (I can already see the flames leaping). There must be a way for members to compromise on key issues, allowing room for differing opinions, and giving all member groups access to what could be a very loud voice in Washington. If we can't agree or even tolerate varied opinions, then we'll be seen as the juveniles that America already thinks we are.
In the workforce, it's doubtful anyone is interested in wage setting for our salaried positions that are doing pretty well in thefree market. But the organization could side with a member on individual cases of bias, possibly providing legal advice or assistance. It would provide members with whatever companies don't (especially temps/consultants): health plans, insurance, access to industry stats, individual company policies and history of employees' treatment, whatever we can think of and implement.
There would also have to be some form of support for the organization. Even if it's as small as one person redirecting all of our emails, someone will have to be full-time, and someone else will have to pay him/her. Companies sure as hell won't do this for us, so we will have to ask some pittance of dues from our members' coffers, which, filled at an average $18/hr, shouldn't be too badly damaged.
High school students are an interesting twist. Maybe do like the IEEE does but stretch student membership (perhaps at no charge to them) and representation down to pre-college, protecting the geeks of the future. Somehow. Exposing the foolishness of some schools' policies would help, but in a more proactive, helpful way, we could serve as advisors to schools on tech policies and 'special students' needs.' Hmm. Have to be careful about that one...
Well, I hope some organization comes of this - if we stay open minded it could eventually get sculpted into something pretty cool.
jeff
...
Here in Canada we have the Green party (Environmentalists) and the Natural Law Party (whackos). I think a technological party, though it wouldn't get to power, would get more votes than the Green.
I've thought of having a technological platform party before. It's a good idea! Definately would rack in Geek votes. We could put our URL on the signs! In the last election, there was only one guy that had a URL, and it was printed on his signs in super-small print.
The opinons expressed are those of the voices in the author's head and are not necessarily those of the author.