Should IT Unionize? 1141
snydeq writes "Sixty-hour work weeks with no overtime or comp time, a BlackBerry hitched to your belt 24/7, mandates from managers who have no clue what you actually do — all for a job that could be outsourced tomorrow. 'Is it finally time for technology workers to form a union and demand better working conditions?' InfoWorld's Dan Tynan asks. To some, the odds against IT unions are long, in large part because the 'lone gunman' culture is pervasive. Diversity of skills and job objectives is another hurdle for rallying around common goals. But that has not dissuaded several union-minded groups from cropping up across the industry as of late, Tynan reports. In the end, the best bet for IT may be a professional organization modeled after the American Bar Association or the American Medical Association, one that could give IT professionals a single voice for speaking out on issues that affect everyone — such as H-1B visa limits or tax incentives to keep IT jobs onshore."
Paying for another boss? (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't this really what is comes to? You're just paying money out of your check for someone else to tell you what to do.
No thanks. I'd rather stand on my two feet.
Imag0
Re:no (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't agree with that assertion at all. In my experience, IT people are scattered all over the political spectrum. Sure, the libertarian types tend to yell the loudest, but the libertarian types yell the loudest everywhere.
Personally, I think unions are a good thing for a lot of industries. However, I don't think they're good for IT. Management in many places already see IT as nothing more than an expensive but necessary burden, and putting a union on top of that just makes the perception worse. In places where IT is seen as a vital component to the overall health of the company, techs tend to be treated much better.
The bottom line is that for most positions within IT other than the low-level button pushers, demand and pay are still high. However, it always has been and still remains to a large extent a meritocracy, so all the people who got into the field in the late 90s because they heard it was easy money now find themselves working the grunt jobs at the bottom of the totem pole with no hope of advancement. Unions may give these people opportunity to advance based on seniority alone, but doing so would be bad for the industry as a whole.
The Indian Government pre-empted it... (Score:5, Interesting)
The current Indian Government pre-empted such a move by classifying IT as a "Profession", meaning no fixed working hours, no overtime pay, no benefits, but, we do need to pay close to $50 a year as Profession Tax.
Plus major indian IT cos have gone on record stating that long hours are simply "fiction" and each employee works only 8 hours a day: The last time i checked my team was working 14 hours a day.
Re:Hell no. (Score:5, Interesting)
I happen to be listening to Lola Vs Powerman & the Money-Go-Round by The Kinks and there's some great lyrics on this in "Get Back in Line [lyricwiki.org]":
'Cause that union man got such a hold over me
He's the man who decides if I live or I die, if I starve or I eat
Then he walks up to me and the sun begins to shine
Then he walks right past and I know that I've got to get back in the line
Get back, get back, get right back in the line
I also would be against IT Unions--on the mere basis that (like SatanicPuppy said) my connections would outweigh my skills. When I was a kid, my dad (an independent concrete pourer) was threatened by a Union. They would tell him that he's ruining the economy by pouring cement for barns much cheaper than the unionized companies and they would try to strong arm him into joining. They were telling him to pay more in Union dues than what he spent on food to feed our six member family.
Ridiculous.
Professional organization? (Score:1, Interesting)
Not going to happen until IT actually becomes "professional".
When an architect is hired, he designs a building that does what his client wants. That's professional.
When you go to a doctor, there are actual standards of performance and consequences for being wrong. That's professional.
Labeling your toy PHP web site a "work of art"? Thinking you know better than your boss what your job is?
Not so professional.
unionization = siren song (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, yes-- the siren song of unionization, born out of the early 20th century labor struggles where socialism was still an idyllic future utopia, and factory conditions were truly brutal.
Collective labor bargaining has a brinksmanship game at its very core: give us what we demand or we all quit. The problem is that this brinksmanship is all too easy to call bluff now: globalized workforce, wider literacy, part time contractors, etc. Beyond the obvious changes to the labor pool, the idea that IT work-- one of the most portable sectors in the economy-- could be unionized is laughable.
The AMA and ABA are possible because the inflow of labor is restricted from the beginning: one must graduate Med School or Law School from an accredited university. The AMA and ABA have very strict tests before one gets into these schools, and even harder tests at the end of them before they'll let you in the club. In that way, each association has monopolized the labor force by severely restricting membership. Would such a scheme be possible with IT?
An ITPA (IT Professionals Association) would require specific graduate schools and horrendous tests. The last thing IT needs is an officially ordained priesthood about what is IT and what is not IT. This would restrict the labor pool so tightly that businesses would freak out, the hopeful students would freak out, then the government, and the whole thing would fall apart before it got started.
I consider myself an IT professional, and I got my degree in Japanese Literature.
Define IT (Score:5, Interesting)
Are we talking about sysadmins, application developers, support staff, programmers, testers, system analysts, etc.?
That's because it's only a specific selection of writers. It's not like there's a union for all writers (fiction authors, non-fiction authors, columnists, manual authors, speech writers, journalists, etc.).
Yes - if you're in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
The UK has some very strong employee rights - but I would still recommend that anyone join a union.
I'm a member of Connect [connectuk.org] which is a specialist union for professionals in the Telecoms sector.
The way I look at it is like this: my employer has several floors of lawyers - how many do I have? I hope never to have to fight my employer for my rights (sick leave, working time directive, disciplinary etc) but if I do - I want a team of lawyers on my side.
I realise that the situation in the USA is different - the corruption and ties to organised crime that you see doesn't seem to have affected unions over here.
It's important to draw a distinction between "You can't do that - it's not your job" unions and "You can't do that to me - it's illegal" unions. The former are usually found with low-paying, blue collar works who have a vested interest in protecting their job at the expense of all else - including the company. The latter are usually composed of professional members who own shares in their employer and who want reassurance that should the worst happen, they're legally protected.
I view my union dues (less than £10 per month) on the same level as life assurance, building insurance etc. I don't want to pay them - but I realise it's probably a good idea. In fact, as well as all the legal help, my union also provide me with sickness and death benefit as well as good deals on general insurance etc.
Basically, if you think your employer is perfect and would never shit on you from a great height - don't join a union. If you live in the real world - sign up.
T
Re:Hell no. (Score:1, Interesting)
Exactly. The only things in a code which the electrical engineer wouldn't be able to work out are things put there arbitrarily by state officials. Do we really need a new lot of self-important busybodies to protect us from another?
Nope. (Score:4, Interesting)
Because the blood bank uses a manufacturing component to bag the blood and ship it to area hospitals, the lab workers are forced to be unionized. She can't earn a larger raise for doing better work than her peers because the union sets the pay increases during negotiation. She is the last in line for a day shift position since she was the last to join 2 years ago. Senior people have transferred departments at will, opening a day shift position up, yet she's unable to apply for the position since it's pretty much held open until the person who left decides to come back (which they usually do). That leaves them both short staffed on the day shift as well as relatively disgruntled on the second and evening shifts.
Pay is based on years in the union, not on merit. Vacation is not negotiable. Promotions grant increased responsibility without pay jumping along for the ride. Incompetent people within the lab are still continuing on just fine since the non-profit can't fire them. Union dues are about $60 a month, plus the union actively endorses (and this is a personal gripe, I know) political candidates that are the polar opposite of our personal politics.
Long ago unionizing helped workers and looked out for their best interests. I don't think it would be a fit at all for our industry.
Impracticalities for IT (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing about unions is that they require basically 100% participation in order to function. The monopoly on labor is where a union's power comes from; without it, companies can simply look elsewhere for employees.
In the past, this has not been so much of a problem, because most jobs have required the worker to be physically present at the work site. This makes the process of maintaining a monopoly much easier, because you only have to focus on one region. The employer can't feasibly move elsewhere, and so if you have a lock on the region then you have a lock on the employer.
The problem with unionizing IT is that you can't do this. IT jobs, by their nature, no longer require the worker to be present at the work site, and in fact much IT effort has gone into making this a reality. This effectively expands "the region" out to the whole world, and so you would need a worldwide union that all IT workers are required to join. This is not going to happen; not now, not in the near-term future, and likely not ever.
None of this is to say that IT workers don't need better working conditions. We clearly do. But the nature of our field makes the union approach impractical: those who fear outsourcing are correct in that. What we need to do is find another way.
What's the answer? I don't know. But we need something that works for us, and something that requires a monopoly we can't obtain is not it.
Re:ACM (Score:5, Interesting)
We already have an association: ACM.org
I had to quit the ACM because I could not ethically comply with their Code of Ethics [acm.org]:
First, I do not feel morally obligated to agree with EULAs, nor will I ever. If the law eventually says that they're binding, then I'll go along grudgingly, but I certainly won't voluntarily submit to hidden contracts.
Second, it is impossible to write a modern program without violating patents. Even if I believed that software patents are legitimate - and I don't - there are simply too many to avoid stepping on a few in all but the most trivial of applications.
I like the ACM in general, but don't support their core values. As such, I can't be a member anymore.
Re:Should IT unionize? (Score:4, Interesting)
So we shouldn't unionize to prevent a trend that is already happening?
Set aside everything for a moment except naked self-interests (our employers do this all the time after all). Companies don't outsource overnight, the dip their toe in it. They also rely upon (and indeed demand) the cooperation of their employees in moving their jobs overseas. If you think you might want to say no to this, you'd better have a union.
The issue is not whether a union would increase the cost of IT -- well duh. It's about making the man give up a bit more after all. The question is whether the you hurt the man enough that he loses business to a man who has his team in Bangalore. The answer probably depends on the business your employer is in. Businesses like health care, or for that matter government, can only offshore line activities to a limited degree. Therefore if IT (a support activity) in these enterprises is unionized, it probably works against offshoring. If you work in the auto industry, it might be a different story.
Re:Hell no. (Score:5, Interesting)
Unions may have helped some industries in the past, but I can't see where it helps now. The last thing I want to happen to my field (software engineering) is a union being created. I'll work and get paid on my merit. If I don't like the work environment, I'll find a new position. There are plenty of opportunities if you have the skills.
Re:Fine by me but... (Score:3, Interesting)
lets restrict all IT work to people who have the piece of paper
HR Departments do that just fine without needing a union.
My personal view of unions is that too often they cease to be a "voice" for the employers and just suck up money for the political ambitions of the "boss".
I suspect that the "techie" solution to this is to pass around a hat and hire a lawyer when it comes time to renegotiate a contract, rather than trying to create and fund an entire perpetual organization that is only needed once in a while.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hell no. (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed.
And you know, it's worked so well for:
The auto workers, who have watched 90% of their jobs go to Mexico, Japan, China, Korea, and India. The auto jobs that are here (and aren't in danger of being lost by imminent bankruptcy of GM, Ford, and Chrysler) are the non-union jobs from Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. These companies have been downsizing their workforce, but in case you didn't notice cars and trucks aren't selling very well right now, so there's less demand. Gee, the manufacturers who are able to respond to demand are doing OK, and the ones who have inflexible union rules prohibiting that are almost bankrupt. Nope. No pattern there at all.
The textile workers, who have watched 100% of their jobs go to Thailand, Malaysia, and China.
The steelworkers, who through a combination of union tactics AND environmental laws, have seen nearly all their jobs go to China. It's now cheaper to ship ore to China and import the steel than it is to refine it and form it here.
The fastest way to send jobs overseas is to unionize them. The only unions I can think of that haven't outsourced themselves are the miners and truck drivers, because they're actually location dependent. IT jobs are not now, and never will be, location dependent.
Another thought. I remember working in a union shop, doing some programming. I needed to move to another cubicle, right next to the one I was in. So I packed my stuff and moved it. And immediately got in trouble. See, I was supposed to wait for one of the union electricians to come over and move my stuff. Which would have been 2 days later. Mhmm. I want to work in that kind of shop. So does that mean I'd be able to file a grievance against our receptionist for setting up an out-of-office message? I mean, that's programming, RIGHT?
A stupid idea.
Re:no (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't agree with that assertion at all. In my experience, IT people are scattered all over the political spectrum. Sure, the libertarian types tend to yell the loudest, but the libertarian types yell the loudest everywhere.
Personally, I think unions are a good thing for a lot of industries. However, I don't think they're good for IT. Management in many places already see IT as nothing more than an expensive but necessary burden, and putting a union on top of that just makes the perception worse. In places where IT is seen as a vital component to the overall health of the company, techs tend to be treated much better.
The bottom line is that for most positions within IT other than the low-level button pushers, demand and pay are still high. However, it always has been and still remains to a large extent a meritocracy, so all the people who got into the field in the late 90s because they heard it was easy money now find themselves working the grunt jobs at the bottom of the totem pole with no hope of advancement. Unions may give these people opportunity to advance based on seniority alone, but doing so would be bad for the industry as a whole.
Personally I prefer to be backed by some sort of Union or professional association which will help me if I get into an argument with my employer. It is all to easy for companies to walk all over employees these days and there is no reason to make it any easier. Having access to legal services to do contract reviews, to exchange nasty letter with the employers legal weasel and even represent you in court is a good thing in my book. Another point is that where I live it is basically each employees business to negotiate his pay. It helps you a lot to get a better deal that the Unions do anonymous surveys of pay levels and publish them to give people an idea of what demands to make. I'm sure Unions have a number of shortcomings but dismissing them as useless like some people do is pretty stupid.
Of course (Score:3, Interesting)
And if we don't like outsourcing we can stop it with strikes. It'll work because they can't stop the company from functioning this year just to save money for next year.
Will IT unionize? Probably not. There are plenty of shrill libertarian types who all think they are headed for upper management. Even on this site, you see tech workers cheering for lay-offs and fewer job opportunities. They usually say absurd things like it's good because they'll only fire people who don't love tech or only untalented people are hurt by a slow economy.
I also think a lot of the problem is IT workers are usually doing very well or very poorly. When they do well money is thrown at them so why unionize? When it's bad, they are just scared of being fired.
And if you happen to be an H1-B you're scared of being sent home. It's not like there's even a pretense companies want to pay them their value.
Re:Hell yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel you man.
I can't tell you how many times i've been laying in bed on my blackberry in the middle of the night or the early early morning explaining something to somebody at work.
I can only guess that there used to be staff on-site 24/7 that could answer questions.
The problem is PHB types just getting used to us doing things that go above and beyond. I just had my boss have a meltdown on me this monday (yes, labor day) because he came into my office asking me to do something that is impossible, and I informed him that it was impossibe. (he wanted to embed video from our security system's DVR in a power-point presentation. Unfortunately, the DVR (for whatever insane reason) uses a propriety codec and doesn't offer a way to transcode).
Our bosses get so used to us going above-and-beyond that when we DON'T it is grounds for firing.
Can you imagine calling one of the accountants in at 2:00am because somebody messed something up? It wouldn't happen. If it DID, the accountant would be hailed as a hero that is committed to their job and deserves a promotion.
how many times have you been sitting at dinner mentally working through a coding problem? Or a networking thing? We're in the process of building a satelite office right now and I interrupted date last night to make a Fry's run to buy a telco rack and some patch panels. (because i needed it this morning and the city where our satelite office doesn't have a place that sells this kind of stuff).
Luckily....the girl needed a ipod case so it worked out....but it just pisses me off that this sort of behavior is expected.
Re:Hell yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
It used to be 3, 8-hour shifts of "operators" who would sit at the consoles and respond to messages. It still is that way at big AS/400 shops, which still exist.
The real problem with the people you are talking about is that they are not willing to ask for help. They will try to do everything, even if it is above their ability or takes more than their allotted workday. They are afraid that if they ask for more help, they will get fired.
Things are different today, mainly because of the expensive benefits proposition for companies. That can add 5-10% to the cost of the 50K/year employee. Most companies do not have career paths for IT people, and most IT people are happy being outsiders.
If you want a career with a company, you have to expand your reach far beyond IT and computers. It may seem like you're doing everything already, but learn some accounting, or HR or other information-based skills. A good CIO (the highest job in IT) will know everything about accounting, HR/business services, Disaster Recovery, compliance, etc. but probably will not know the latest patch for MS Office.
And of course, you can further your education. But for most small businesses, there is a small limited path "in IT" because it is considered ancilary. If you work in a small business, you need to get involved beyond IT.
At the government level they have lots of IT career paths, especially for developers. But it's not easy to get one of these jobs, you have to be good, but you will not work more than 8 hours and you will get benefits and comp days if you're called in afterhours.
Well, you are wrong in so many ways. (Score:5, Interesting)
I linve in New York, a union strong state. Here the only place you can't hire non-union labor for SOME job is in NYC. Most other places in the state where licensing is required it is called for by the municipality (town, or city). No one up here requires a union to work.
I've met people who are in the Manhattan electricians union who got there by non-traditional methods. They are truly skilled professionals.
What I do want is a bunch of senior people telling the company management exactly how long my shift should be, exactly when it starts and ends, exactly how much overtime I get for which extra days and hours.
Around here, in the Hudson Valley we have carpenters schools, steamfitters schools, I don't know how many union schools we have, beautiful campuses where the union membership goes to get their training updated regularly. Paid training in skills they will then get to use.
You know what the Teamsters still have that IT workers at Enron didn't? Guess. I'll make it easy for you. The answer is a secure retirement.
How do you explain all the IT offshoring that already happened? The overwhelming presence of the union? What drove all those call centers offshore? It wasn't the union.
Look, I know your 4th grade teacher told you that someday you would be rich and the schoolyard bully would work for you. They told you that a lot, that someday you will be the boss by right of your superior intelligence. Ayn Rand is wrong, sure you can excel on your own and protect yourself and what you care about and all that. If you want to make real change, and not remain insignificant, you need to be part of a group that has influence.
Here's a list of people doing well in unions...
Cops
Teachers
Truck Drivers
Carpenters
Plumbers
Actors
Screenwriters
Here's one more thing an IT union would be able to do. It could help define best practices. As in "Nope, that software is not union-spec. If you want our guys to use it you're going to have to pay for their training." Then the union membership (IT workers) would have some say over whether or not non-standard or poorly written software gets union support. As union members we would be protected from having the blame on us for every piece-o-shit software.
Don't focus on the abuses of power, that always happens. Can't not do something because someone might misuse it. Or do you not use filesharing?
Re:Unions by definition are crap (Score:4, Interesting)
Too many of those skills are things that people are growing up knowing how to do these days...You can't expect the same compensation for work that the guy next door will send his 11 year old daughter over to fix.
I dealt with plenty of this crap myself a few years back. Moved into a small town, and when I couldn't get a full time gig, I started my own company doing whatever I could.
I started deploying PostNuke websites as a sideline (that was the big thing then) for pretty reasonable rates, and it made all the local HTML jockeys lose their fucking minds...They'd gotten by for years with photoshop and dreamweaver doing static pages for big money, and I was undercutting the fuck out of them with big dynamic sites.
I probably put a few people out of business, but it wasn't my job to make them look good, and I wasn't going to bill a thousand dollars an hour to equal their ridiculous prices.
If they were a craft union, on the other hand, I wouldn't have even been allowed to sell my superior product for my lower rate. They would have kept their sweet sinecure, and I would have starved.
Re:Hell no. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a young industry, and it's changing all the time. What you need to know changes all the time.
As someone who got into IT from (natural) languages, I agree with most of your comments, except that one. From what I can determine, based on reading a lot of books about software development as an activity (not about specific languages, or platforms, or tools, or whatever), very little has changed in the last 30 years. A lot of what people really need to know in IT are softer skills like time estimation, requirements management, change management, customer communication, effective documentation, issue resolution and so on. As much as some people would love to believe it, cranking out code for a solid 8 hours a day rarely happens and when it does the results often aren't pretty.
Realistically, standards in IT are terrible, precisely because we focus on the things that change all the time and deliberately disregard the lessons of the past. We tell ourselves that the IT world is so different from just a few years ago that we can't learn anything useful from what's gone before. And of course that's all part of the 'romance' of IT; every coder wants to feel that he's breaking new ground and doing something totally new. In reality, most people are writing code for fairly mundane purposes and doing it rather badly: just look at the Daily WTF, Coding Horror, or ask a 'senior' developer for a few stories about interview candidates - or worse, colleagues - who couldn't write even a basic function.
Computer Science is exactly that, science, but in most fields the world needs a lot more engineers who can build working solutions out of what the scientists invent, not more scientists. Out of every 1000 CS graduates, how many end up writing compilers, hacking kernels, or doing other 'deep magic'? And how many more end up writing web-based data-processing applications with some simple business logic behind that still somehow never quite work correctly? Yes, there will always be a Google pushing the boundaries and they will always need PhD types to do it, but an awful lot more people just need developers who understand their needs and can build simple, reliable business applications.
My personal opinion is that IT has a higher opinion of itself than it deserves. In the end, we're still a young profession (as you said), but yet we flatter ourselves with job titles like 'engineer' when any real engineer (mechanical, electrical, whatever) would be horrified at the amount of guesswork and imprecision we seem to be happy working with every day.
If we really want to get to the next level as an industry, then we have to stop fixating on the details of languages and technologies and look at the processes and practices. Unfortunately, that's precisely what many techies least want to do, because it's knocking on the door of PHB territory. A professional association would have some problems, because the whole IT industry is so diverse, but it could do a couple of useful things. First, persuade universities to cut back on CS and ramp up "Computer Engineering"; think of CS as "Materials Science" and CE as "Construction Engineering" to see the difference. Make sure the CE course covers effective source control, issue tracking and change management, basic economics and project management, cost calculations, oral and written communication etc., all of which are skills that CS graduates just don't seem to have, but which are clearly needed in the real world.
Second, persuade insurance companies to underwrite large IT projects, just as they do for large construction projects, and use that as a more or less neutral/independent means of raising the industry's performance. They could also offer professional liability insurance for individuals and companies. If large projects could be underwritten against failure, companies would jump on it a risk mitigation measure: the project fails, at least they get some money back. In turn, the insurance companies would push developers to improve standar
Re:The main problem with a professional organizati (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems unusual in the USA, but in the UK it is common for a profession to be represented by several unions or professional bodies. There are three big teachers' unions, for example. If one isn't representing you, then you're able to switch to another, and there are laws in place to protect non-union workers (it is illegal to make union membership a factor in hiring decisions - you can't specify only-union or only non-union employees).
If you allow a union to be a monopoly, expect the same treatment you would from any other monopoly.
Re:Hell no. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, yeah. The standard American attitude to unions. And pretty much everything you have said is true, the problem is you are ignoring the giant elephant in the room.
Employers form a monopsony and will screw you for every penny they can given the chance and you are comparatively powerless to stop them.
If you work in IT you do not receive a fair wage for your labour. Now I'm not talking about the tired old communist mantra of "capitalists profit because they pay less for labour than it enhances the value of a good" crap. I'm talking about the fact that employers amalgamated over the economy behave like monopsonies. In IT the effect of the minimum wage is non-existant, it is below the monopsony wage. Without labour unions employers can (and do) routinely offer lower wages than a free market would settle on.
Organised labour almost certainly does everything you said it does. But I don't see any alternative to fighting monopsony power.
Being in a union is a selfish act. So is trying to get a monopoly or monopsony in any other market. Business people do it all the time without a seconds thought. Your employer does it all the time without a seconds thought. If these callous bastards are doing it why shouldn't labour? It is in your own best interest to do so because everyone else will screw you. In fact they already ARE screwing you.
I'm not saying labour unions are good. I'm saying that people who refuse to join unions are putting down their guns before they walk out into the firefight.
You want to do that in the vicious dog eat dog world we live in, feel free. Me, I'm not putting down my gun till every other son of a bitch agrees to as well.
Re:Yes, tech workers need unions (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if tech workers and workers in general organized themselves, they could fight against this politically and get legislation passed that created incentives for companies to stay here.
You forget that the economy is not some immutable, all-powerful force. It can be shaped by policy decisions. Corporations are calling all the shots now and they get laws that allow them to easily offshore. Unfortunately, their quest for short-term profits is creating a dangerous race to the bottom where all IT workers across the globe are not treated as humans, but as disposable parts. Unless there is a force to counteract that, like unions, this trend will continue and there will be nothing to stop it.
Re:Hell no. (Score:5, Interesting)
You've obviously never been employed in the building industry.
I have.
In fact from the age of 13 to 20 it was my job.
I worked in HVAC and plumbing as a summer job until i graduated HS and then till i was 20 as a full time job.
i then got back into the business as a professional manufacturer's representative and then a wholesale salesman.
most local codes are in direct conflict with NATIONAL building codes.
In fact, the southern building code is in direct conflict in many places, and we can see how well that worked out during the last 20 years for hurricane protection.
Most code's are a joke.
They don't change year to year.
They stay static for way to long.
They PREVENT new and better technologies from being used and instead try to FAVOR old time practices and keep old time union practices in place.
like pouring a lead joint for cast iron drain pipe.
useful if you are FORCED by code to do it, but no one in their right mind thinks its a better, safer, and more productive application than a no-hub gasket or even a hub gasket.
the same can be said for many code requirements.
like having to place individual steel plate anti-nail protection underneath drywall for corrugated stainless steel gas pipe, but not for copper water pipes or even for pex (flexible plastic tubing of a specific types for those that don't know) water pipes.
that makes perfect sense.
why does it happen?
because according to theory, if you puncture a gas line, you can blow up your house but if you puncture a water line, it only leaks.
great theory until you realize that most walls also contain electrical outlets which when exposed to water tend to start fires.
oops.
most codes are arbitrarily assigned in reactionary ways, and don't truly make sense.
sounds like another "law making" body i know......
no.
i don't need something like this type of organization making the rules for me and telling me what i HAVE to do in order to get a job.
Unions are the very problem in US industry that is forcing movement elsewhere.
No, you don't deserve $25/hour (to start) plus full benefits to drive a local delivery truck.
sorry.
and when you make $40/hour to repeatedly screw in 15 screws, you better have planned well for retirement instead of buying a new truck every year and a new boat every other.
i live in the midwest and grew up here in union manufacturing towns.
all of those jobs are gone due to overpayment for jobs anyone can do.
forcing higher wages and forcing arbitrary qualifications will do the EXACT same thing to IT jobs.
Only it will happen faster than ever as the ability to move the jobs is easier.
Re:Hell no. (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the tech industry... there are plenty of jobs out there to be had. The techies in the industry pride themselves at being very good at what they do and being on top of their game. And, for the most part, we don't want or like to take any crap. We'll find the decent working conditions for decent pay that we want. If we don't want the 60+ hours, plus being on call, we'll find a better place and leave to some other schmuck who's willing to do it. The company demanding that type of condition will quickly re-evaluate the conditions once they realize employee turnover is really bad.
I was an IT union member... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hell no. (Score:4, Interesting)
"The unions are now abusing both the workers they claim to protect and the businesses. Look at the American car industry or the American airline industry. Both are badly hurting because of union practices."
Workers are the union. If they are getting abused, it is their own fault.
The companies aren't hurting because of the unions. The are hurting because they have incompetent management. Unions don't mandate wages. Companies have to agree to the contract. A company is (generally) free to fire union members who strike and replace them with others.
Nonsense (Score:2, Interesting)
There are too many problems with your post, so I'll just name a couple.
The auto jobs that are here (and aren't in danger of being lost by imminent bankruptcy of GM, Ford, and Chrysler) are the non-union jobs from Honda, Toyota, and Nissan.
Since when do assembly line workers get to plan and design cars? Union assemblers build em' good or bad and they've been building products nobody wants for decades. Pontiac Fiero anyone?
The textile workers
Huh? The products that can't be made anywhere else have stayed in the U.S. Your generic t-shirt has been made abroad for at least a generation.
The steelworkers, who through a combination of union tactics AND environmental laws
You need a better understanding of the history of the American steel industry. Those mills were booking work *years* in advance. Instead of expanding capacity (which lowers prices) they stuck to their high price, let 'em wait attitude. It's very difficult for me to see how floor workers were to blame for that.
See, I was supposed to wait for one of the union electricians to come over and move my stuff.
Did it ever occur to you there might be a reason that is more important than your immediate need to use another cubicle? Imagine a worker who brings an electric heater to her new cubicle.. No problem right?? Well, he's probably the one that screwed it up for you.
Re:Hell no. (Score:4, Interesting)
New construction methods (Fountainhead) and new technologies (Reardon Steel in Atlas Shrugged) that would make cheaper products of higher quality for the consumer at the cost of cash in the pocketbook of the union builder or factory-owner.
Please read those books; I would read Atlas Shrugged if I was only inclined to read one, but Fountainhead first if planning to read both. Trust me.
Speaking as a Hiring Manager... (Score:3, Interesting)
First, I RTFA:
Let's be very clear about this, while you have a right to work in America as well as a right to seek work, quit work, work well or work poorly, even a right to not work at all, you do not have a right to have a job.
Arguing that you have a right to a job is tantamount to arguing that you have a right to force someone to pay you regardless of your qualifications, skills, effort or quality of work.
Secondly, lets talk about incentives.
I used to work in Washington State and ran into a few people who were interested in this WashTech thing. I didn't meet ALL of them, so please don't be offended when I say that those I met were easily in the lower 50% competency bracket. Unionizing has always been about leveling the field. Providing equal or more equal pay and benefits to the lesser capable at the expense of the more capable. I suppose that is a good thing if you are in the lower half or even lower two-thirds since no-one can be accurately placed on a sliding scale. But it's not a good thing if you are at the top of your field.
These incentives are all wrong. They encourage solidarity to the union and your peers, not the business or the underlying profit motive that makes your paycheck possible. They encourage seniority rather than excellence. This is the death knell for businesses even though it can take generations. We are witnessing the effects now in the way Detroit is losing to Japan. If you don't understand why a healthy business environment and support for the profit motive are important to your employment options then please stop reading now and go mark some other post as funny, the rest of this is beyond you.
Thirdly, lets talk about hiring.
I don't know why corporate lobbyists are fighting for H1B visas so hard. It cannot be about the volume of candidates because I have no trouble finding a volume of non-H1B people to apply for my open positions. It also cannot be about quality of candidates because I don't see the H1B applicants as any better (or worse) than the standard US Citizen candidate. I also don't see Unions protecting us against H1B candidates or offshoring taking "our jobs." There are financial costs to H1B hiring that level the salary with US workers. There are also stability costs... will their visa be renewed or will you have to replace them in a few years after they've gotten up to speed? Offshoring is also immune to Union protection. If anything, a Union threatening an employer will chase all the jobs overseas rather than none. Companies go offshore because cash is tight and their goals are big (and they're run by inexperienced management that hasn't been burned sufficiently by offshore teams). Sure some jobs can be compartmentalized or are documented well enough to be regimented and executed by offshore teams... but are those really the jobs you want to fight for? Do you WANT to work in textiles or a call center where you just follow a script? Are those the jobs you want to fight to keep in the USA?
When I'm hiring, I look for the most capable candidate with the best experience and attitude that I can find. I pay handsomely to retain this person because I want those skills and don't want to have to settle for second rate. You, as a free American, have a right to acquire those skills. In other words, you won't be forced into a gymnast training camp at a young age because your body type is right for it and the olympics are coming. You have a right to educate yourself. The Internet is a sufficient tool, you don't need a college degree, you just need motive, time, the web and a cheap computer to play on.
If you bust your ass and become highly skilled/knowledgeable in a desired field (choose wisely) then you can be c
Re:Hell no. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, just to play devil's advocate here, the "software industry" with it's "competition" isn't exactly cranking out work that is of a quality level worth telling anyone about.
Quality is not a department, it's an attitude about how to do your work. More coders should learn that.
Outsourcing has proven that the end-customer doesn't care, however. The customers are so used to bugs, they pre-build whole bureaucracies and test labs and hire staff to find them pre-production.
It's a sad state of affairs, and also a dangerous time now to start caring about quality because someone else can do any task cheaper and sloppier, and the customers have forgotten what a software project that worked right the first time out, and never had to be modified until new features were needed -- is even like.
I won't say ANY system was ever THAT good, but there's been a slow treacherous decline into "we'll just fix it in the next release" across the board.