NYT on High Tech Unions

Rob sent us a New York Times article (this means you need a free registration) that talks about something we've addressed here in the past. Its tech unions. It talks about the struggle of the MS Temps, as well as the fact that techies are often paid well (cash, stock options and benefits) that the 70 hour work weeks just don't seem so bad.

Comments

Unions are punishment for poor management

[plopez]

If the situation on a job site gets bad enough, then unions start to look like a good idea. When people are used and exploited, basically treated no better than interchangeable parts, then you have a good environment for unions to take hold.

Often times it is less a matter of pay than a matter of respect and working conditions. 70 hours a week is excessive, it will people. I have been there and even though I was getting good rewards it wasn't worth. I ended up spending most of my money on convience (e.g. fast food) because I did not have any free time at all.

Excessive work weeks are also a sign of poor management. It means:

1) under staffed
and/or
2) your processes are so hosed that people are not working at 100% possible effectiveness (e.g. solving the problem the first time)
and/or
3) you are not hiring the right people for the job
and/or
4) The people managing the situation don't have a clue how to organize it.

All 3 of these feed off of each other: being understaffed increases over-time which increases turnover, often just as people are learning their job. Since you are scrambling for people you often will hire anybody and end up with just a bunch of warm bodies, which causes training difficulties and insures that you have to fix things 3 times over etc.

In the tech support game, tech support is a cost shifting situation. Instead of taking extra time and money for tesing and developement, you are ending up spending more money on tech support.
The only way MS and other companies are pulling it off right now is the eonomy is hot and people will spend lavishly on technology. Anybody can make mone in a booming economy, the question is who can make money in a slow economy. And the way we are organizing software support right now is extremely wasteful.

If a company is plauged by unions, it is management's fault. as Demming put it "The woker works IN the system, the manager works ON the system." And if you are out there working 60+
hours a week, stop it immediately. You are only rewarding companies for poor management and ruining your health to boot.

(rant/rave....)