Hi-tech Work Places no Better than Factories? 801
Anonymous Coward writes "A
tasty bit of truth.
Again, a Sociology Professor has found out what we all know. He wistfully comments on the state of geekdom in the modern corporation:
"They face the lonely insecurity of the individual entrepreneur in a marketplace and culture that stresses, with macho imagery from war and sports, that they are ultimately alone"
and adds that...
"For many this may be the shape of work in the 21st century."
You want to start a union? I mean how much is your boss making at your expense even if he did start the company long before you joined up?"
I can see it now. (Score:4, Funny)
And this great union would add a clause somewhere in the collective agreement with the employer that slashdot is a right that cannot be taken away during work hours! :)
Re:Union == stagnation == no jobs worth taking (Score:3, Informative)
I've worked int he private sector and a large union shop. Both have advatages and disadvatages:
Private Sector good stuff
- If you are good, you get promoted fast.
- Base salary often higher.
- lazy and useless weeded out quickly
Private Sector BadUnion Good
- Great job security
- Great benefits
- Lots of time off (in my shop anyways)
- Good training program
- Over-time
- Protected from the whims of mangement
Union BadDead wood almost impossible to remove
Promotion whithin a 'job description' by senority, not ability
Must change 'jobs' to further career
Union politics and red-tape
In 'militant' unions very rigid job functions, no flexability
Dues
strikes
Unions are like big rusty ratchets. You never move backwards, but it makes it very hard to move forward.
anyone think this is going to change soon? (Score:5, Insightful)
And let's face it. Employers benefit from people's "But I'll be the exception!" mentality the way the government profits from lotteries and the service industry profits from aspiring actors.
Dont like it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dont like it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Insightful)
As in all things, it's not the lack of skills. Skills can be learned. Face it: it's the lack of desire. The lack of drive.
I'm not knocking people who don't have that entrepreneurial drive; I've not started my own company yet (though I've made two abortive attempts). But I'm only worth what an employer is willing to pay. Note that I didn't specify my current employer. I'm free to try to find a better match; someone who values my particular skill set and persona more than my current employer. I'm not interested in doing so right now, because I already found an employer that treats me quite well, thank you very much.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Insightful)
A one person operation is not a business. It's a guy scraping a living. Yes some people (very few) make a living working for and by themsleves but most of them are artists or street musicians. Eventually somebody get hired to answer the phone or keep the books though.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Interesting)
And as a computer programmer who was very good, I can tell you my project managers, both company and client side, sucked ass, and weren't worth whatever they were being paid. The problem is simple; the people running the businesses are the ones who were most successful at leaching off of other people, consumers and employees alike. THAT, my friend, is the reality of the situation.
And to those who say, well, why not just start a business? Because I want some bloody land, and you can't get a reasonablely-priced mortgage unless you have at least 2 years of records for your business, of which 2 of them have to be years you have shown a profit.
The end result, a person who basically runs his own projects, looking for "security" of a wage-slave job.... Thats the system we live in.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless the owner/CEO is paying your salary three months' late, and later every month, because he knows the job situationis tight and you have to take it or nothing.
Happened to me, till I finally found a new job and took the fucker to court. But after a year in spite of blatant law breaking, he only had to pay me the money I was owned, no penalty imposed. If I'd helped myself to his money as he did to mine I'd have been in jail in a minute.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3)
If you think you're better off alone, then start your own.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:5, Insightful)
So... only the rich mangement class are allowed to even voice an opinion on pay structure and labor issues ? That sounds... surprisingly like the current U.S. system, actually.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:4, Insightful)
What on earth are you talking about? There is no "management class". You think all the managers in the IT industry went to the same prep schools, joined the same fraternities at college, play golf together at weekends? What rubbish, if anything the "management class" is more diverse than the "programmer class"
If you're talking about the company owner, then it's up to him/her to set pay structure... and it's up to employees to decide whether or not they want to work there. That's it. The system works remarkably well, and is the basis of all the successful economies in the world. Class War rhetoric is the hallmark of the world's economic basket cases.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm happy that there are people who like bothering with the boring stuff, so I don't have to. I just don't think that they are somehow "more important" to a business than the people who actually create the product it sells. The idea of companies magically making tons of money without having any useful product kind of got unpopular scince the dotcom disaster.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know any successful entreprenuer and, believe me, I know a lot, that believes that their employees are unimportant. Quite to the contrary, most successful entreprenuers have a great deal of respect for their employees and they fully realize just how important they are. Nonetheless, it is often the entreprenuer that is the glue the keeps the entire ship together (not to mention keeping it pointed in the right direction). Talented teams don't just assemble by themselves; they are often brought into and held in place by the entreprenuer. What's more, it is often the entreprenuer that keeps the teams energy focuses on the task at hand, to deliver a product or a service that is of real marketable value. That is to say that the entreprenuer is both the catalyst and the sustaining additive, if you will, without which the company would quick fall apart. While the employees are very essential, they tend to be a lot more interchangable and a lot less critical to the organization as individuals. (Note: this is not to say that there are not exceptions, but that those that view their jobs through such a limited scope are rarely ever that uniquely valuable) That is to say that while entreprenuers tend to share a lot of things in common they are often not interchangable as different industries demand different skill sets and the number of qualified entrenprenuer (or like managers) are in short supply. If starting up a business were easy, or if it were a license to print money, as so many kids on slashdot suggest, then a lot more people would be doing it and the profits that any entreprenuer could make would fall sharply.
How about I bitch about the salary structure (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not doing me a favour by letting me work for him. he's hoping to get more than his moneys worth from me. I'm hoping to get the amount I'm worth from him. I'll meet him halfway.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:4, Interesting)
ER
You try working for 8% of the piece of the pie (Score:3, Interesting)
One question (Score:4, Insightful)
The average worker puts in about 40 hours a week, goes home for the week, and is done with their job. That's fine and good, and we need people like that, but you just can't run a company like that. Most entreprenuers I know work about 80 hours a week under the stricter definitions (e.g., time at the office, on the road, in meeting, etc) and that's not even counting the many hours spent at home, on the phone, etc. Basically the entreprenuer never gets time off, really. Add responsibility/stress to that. If things don't work out, the average worker might be able to say "I put in my 40 hours this week" and wash his hands of the matter, but the entrepreneur still has to answer to the investors, employees, customers, the community, etc at the end of the day, because at the end of the day the responsibility for the entire organization rests squarely on the manager. Oh yeah, and don't forget that the entreprenuer is generally heavily invested in the corporation. Not to mention the fact that the entreprenuer generally needs a certain level of education, i.e., you need to compare their compensation to similarly skilled/motivated people. Are you going to motivate, say, a bright ~9-5 programmer that's earning 70k a year to bust his ass like that for 100k a year? 200k? How about a doctor or a lawyer?...
The world is not fair, but that system of compensation, if you could call it that, is about as right as it can possibly be, considering the world's flaws, on the aggregate.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Funny)
Have you ever thought about becoming a motivational speaker? This is just the kind of thing that every manager would love to present to his or her staff during departmental pep talks. I've never seen it summed up so succinctly. This would really get the team fired up!
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Funny)
Tell that to the ex-employees of Enron, etc.
negative, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, life sure is tough.
If you think a factory is better, go work in a factory! I'll stay in my cubicle and deal with being "lonely and insecure". I'm very thankful for my job and anyone who thinks a career in an office is difficult needs a big reality check. We have it very good, people.
Re:negative, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Say it again, brother. I once worked in a factory that made plastic buckets. You know how handles get put on buckets? It ain't a machine what does it. It's people. People standing at tables and trying to make a quota for minimum wage. Argh. I have a co-worker who once worked in a factory where they made the coily handset cords for telephones. When the "kids" at our workplace complain about their slacker jobs, we like to trot out our factory stories. Doesn't help though. People who haven't worked in factories usually don't appreciate the mind-numbing repetition that goes on in a factory. I'd rather be exploited for $30K a year in a job that requires thinking than be exploited for $9K in a job that encourages brain death.
Re:negative, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, factory work is tough and in the early days abusive employers could get away with lots of nasty things we consider illegal and/or immoral today. It took a combination of public outrage, progressive politicians, and organized labor to fix many of the worst ills associated with factory labor conditions.
Just because code serfdom is a better choice than factory work does not mean that all is well or that conditions cannot or should not be improved.
Re:negative, much? (Score:3, Funny)
We've all met computer people with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but I've met very few who've actually lost fingers due to a computing accident (although I did cut my finger rather badly on some case sheet-metal once -- had to wear a Band-Aid for several days.:))
Re:negative, much? (Score:4, Informative)
- Employees would frequently lose digits of their hands, whole limbs, or even be killed on the job. As a result, they were simply replaced with someone else with no compensation to the original employee or their family. It's not so far off today.
- If employees didn't like their conditions, and went on strike, factory owners would often choose to just ignore them, and then bring in Pinkerton guards [tripod.com]. These would then bust up the unions, force employees away at gun-point while the factory brought on cheaper people. Even today, factory workers complaining of insufficient compensation are ignored.
- Now while some tech jobs require exposure to nasty chemicals (chip manufacturing for example), most certainly do not. People working in factories, even today, are exposed to substances that cause severe birth defects, mental illness, and a plethora of other nasty side-effects.
So, do you think you geeks really have it so bad on the job? I highly disagree. I have never worked in a factory (and I consider myself fortunate), but from a tiny little research, it's easy to see how much worse it is for people who aren't working in Tech.
Re:Not as bad as a factory but... (Score:3, Informative)
Not for me (Score:5, Insightful)
When I talk to the other employees in other departments, I see that the developers have much more security, and much better working conditions, than anyone but the executives.
blue vs white (Score:5, Insightful)
Unions == Socialism (Score:3, Insightful)
Unions were a good idea prior to the labor laws that are now on the books. In today's world you have OSHA and other agencies looking out for the safety and health. And don't tell me that they are overworked and can't do their job. Someone at my place of business calls and complains and there out tout-suite and a nice little bulletin gets posted on the company bulletin board.
The problem we have now is that people get into a company and into a union and they're like ticks. They work poorly and you can't fire them. They get drunk and hurt themselves and you have to put them on disability. Don't hire them and they stand outside your business and menace your customers and other employees. Hire them and they might strike anyway for that "safety" problem you have and oh by the way they want a raise. I see them all the time, every day almost, standing outside some little shop or mall or street corner with their pickets with words so small that you can't read what it's about. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what it's about and if they really wanted you to know what it was about they would get out of their lawn chair and out from under the umbrella and put down the plackard and go out and talk to people and contact the media and write a senator and start a campaign that actually changes something for ALL employees.
Unions are nothing more than a poorly constructed SOCIALIST system. Which makes it that much funnier because most union people I know are so anti-communist and anti-china but yet they are working under an almost identical regime. See in the real world people work hard to get a raise. The people who don't work hard don't get raises - unless you are in a union. If you work hard and don't get recognition you have choices... the choice to find another employer, the choice to work for yourself, the choice to move.
It's like the farmers who feel entitled to get the government to pay them to farm in an area and time when it doesn't pay to farm. Well my daddy did it and my grand dad did it and my great grand dad did it, so I'm going to do it and my son is going to do it... If it doesn't work it doesn't work, find another way!
I'm not envious of any union worker I've ever met. My step father was an autoworker at GM, my father is a teacher, my grandfather worked for Boeing, the guy in the cube next to me worked for Mac... at the end of the day I've not heard one of them praise a union for what it's done for them. My father is facing a pay cut and higher class sizes along with needing to pay for some of his own supplies. The unions are doing crap but threatening a strike if pay raises aren't negotiated. So at some point pay raises will be negotiated and then the schools will "downsize" to pay the teachers they have with the budget they have and class sizes will increase again and more supplies will come out of my fathers pocket. The more out of pocket expenses the more the unions will call for raises and so on and so forth.
Re:Unions == Socialism (Score:3, Interesting)
My father was a teamster from when he was 16 until four years ago. The whole time he was making more than twice what the other truckers were making, with better work conditions. Now he is retired, living of his nice pension, while his new wife is getting worried about her 401k dying dramatically.
One of my close freinds just started to work as a truckdriver, but is he massivly anti-union, pro-capitolism. He now took a job with Swift paying a QUARTER of what my father last made, doing even more work (cross-country v. interstate). His job takes him away from his new family for weeks at a time, and he isn't allowed break (tag-team driving). All for a quarter of the pay.
I see nothing wrong with unions supporting only those who pay their due. Those who are willing to support the general cause deserve support, those who insult their own class (working) until they need representation deserve nothing.
Yes, unions are socialist, as is universal health-care, social security, and other things that are generally considered good. Not all things socialist are bad, most is better than the US's social-darwinism policy.
If you want to protect your rights, join others like you. Thats how our country was founded.
Also, yes I'm rambleing, unions are more DEMOCRATIC than what you want. Teamsters VOTE for their president, and vote on other things. Teamsters also can ignore strike lines if they really want to.
What about academia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about academia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Increasingly, universities are run as corporations, complete with greed, terrible politics, and lack of interest in their teachers. ASU is a wonderful example of this - there have been articles in the Arizona Republic newspaper about the 'brain drain' hemmoraging from ASU because they just won't pay their teachers even close to what they deserve.
As for any business, you must eventually understand that the future is already written; we are all to be temp workers. I'm not sure how painful this transition will be, but already there are very few bastions of stable, long-term work. Heck, just look at what our president passed (or should I say "snuck" through) on Friday - ability to hire/fire workers, displace federal workers in place of the private sector, etc. etc.
A good friend of mine has tried over and over to get a stable IT job - he's been through it now about ten times in the last year. Each time there was a different excuse, and the last few times they've fired and re-hired the next day for someone who was willing to work cheaper! In his words, "Welcome to Corporate America: do what you can, just don't get caught."
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'll never work for someone else again (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm..well, the thing is out of the $4000 that was billed, on average, about $2000 is overhead -- rent or mortgage, utilities, marketing and so forth and materials. Then he gets his $300, plus it costs the company an additional $150. That leaves about $1550. Unless your friend reinvests part of that into the company, Uncle Sam gets about 1/3rd of that, or about $520. That leaves $1000. That's *IF* the shop is getting good margins. Most likely, the margins are a lot less than that and the overhead is more like $2500-3000. Meaning that the shop probably makes a whole $200-400 (not much more than your mechanic friend) or so on the whole $4000. Assuming everything's going well of course, and there aren't unforseen costs.
That $4000 sounds like a lot of money. Trust me, it isn't.
Re:I'll never work for someone else again (Score:3, Insightful)
What the hell are you talking about? First of all, the American ideal has never been work hard for someone else and work hard. The American dream (or myth, whatever you want) has always been about striking out on your own. The yeoman farmer, the 49er, the guy who drops out of Harvard to start his own small software business, etc.
Secondly, I'm getting weary of the idea that working hard is some kind of lie that has been foisted upon us. The fact is, until very recently, people simply had to work long hours to survive. And it wasn't just exploitation by aristocrats or an unfair system - it was an economic fact of life. Production wasn't efficient enough to allow for people to work fewer hours.
Now, in the past few decades, a few lucky countries have become efficient enough to allow people to work fewer hours (Japan, Europe, America, etc.). But even then, I would not count on it simply being "We're only working hard because of a lie we're being told." Yes, workers in France and Germany work fewer hours at better conditions than American workers do. But on the other hand, France and Germany's economies have been stagnant for the past decade, while America's has been dynamic. And that's not just the bubble - America's GDP growth rate last quarter was much higher than either Germany's or France's, and is predicted to be much higher for next year as well.
As our production methods get more efficient, we can make our choice between greater production and more hours off. Europe leans towards more hours off. America leans towards greater production. Simple as that.
Personally, I am comfortable with America's choice, because I think Europe (Britain excluded) is headed toward financial crisis, and will eventually be forced to switch towards a system more like America's anyway. I am also comfortable with America's choice because there are many things we have yet to achieve, that I would like to.
But indeed, one day we will have robots to do most of our labor for us, and we'll have genetic engineering, clean energy, and all the biotech advances we could ever want, and then I'll be ready to start making the trade for fewer hours. Because at that point our production will have become extremely efficient, and we'll have attained the things I want to see society achieve.
Re:I'll never work for someone else again (Score:3, Informative)
And that's not just the bubble - America's GDP growth rate last quarter was much higher than either Germany's or France's, and is predicted to be much higher for next year as well.
And according to this weeks "Economist Magaizine" your socialist northern neighbor will have 2002/2003 of 3.4/3.2 GDP growth vs. the US of 2.4/2.7.
So whats your point? It is not as simple as you make it out to be. GDP growth rates are not just based on people working more effiecently (not even close).
The economist also had an article a few months back dispelling the myth that the US was way more effiecent through the 1990's. It was slightly more effiecient than coutries such as Britian, but not as much as the numbers led you to believe.
Bollocks..... (Score:5, Informative)
Does this differentiate between R/D and coding?? (Score:4, Informative)
This is the main reason why I want to involved with Research and Development and become a professor. I would rather create new things than (as one of my old bosses put it) "Tell a computer what to do" for the rest of my life.
In a factory, just like behind a computer programming, you somehow become subordinate to the machine. That is what leads to employee unsatisfaction in my opinion.
Mathematics (Score:5, Interesting)
S = Salary/Hourly Wage
B = Benefits
A = Administrative overhead (payroll, etc)
I = Business insurance cost per person
R = Revenue from your work
P = Profit from your work
P = R - (S + B + A + I)
Viewing this model you can draw several quick conclusions. First, if you are doing billable work, then the quickest way to get a pay increase is to increase your billable rate.
Second, no matter how long you work for the company, at any given moment there exists a maximum amount you can be paid before your company loses money.
It is pretty standard to get paid between 25 and 33 percent of your billable rate. Any less than that probably indicates a boss that is ripping you off royally.
Stupid article (Score:5, Informative)
Poor geeks ... (Score:5, Insightful)
A bit of perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
and I'm here to tell you that it can be quite debilitating. Medically and physically, it becomes quite expensive when your living depends on your good health and you have to take off a week or two for medical problems. In other words, a week or two of no income.
It's not the Golden Era of manufacturing anymore in my part of the US; $25k gross is considered a decent middle-class income here. If you are fortunate to have any financial reserves, they are probably very slim.
It's mentally debilitating; there are no fellow geeks, so it tends to get lonely beyond a certain point. (my answer is to do Linux at home). Certainly, there's little of the intellectually stimulating debate that I love. (I majored in English, with a few years each of Philosophy and Art. Now I'm into networking)
Now for the perspective: I have to wonder how much of this sociologist's observations are specific to the IT industry, or is it all just becoming part of the US corporate ethos? IMHO, business is a very human activity, but the way we go about it certainly isn't sometimes.
Been There, Done That (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a chance that a "Geek Guild" would be a good thing. If anyone has a chance, this bunch might... However, anyone remember the old FidoNet power struggles?
Anyway, it might be wise to check out the experiences of today's Engineers unions (mostly aerospace as far as I know) as well as study the Guilds of Renasaissance times.
Keep the "Good", avoid the "Bad".
Cheers!
Dockworkers Union was right! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that thing that everyone is scared of is a Union coming in and telling them that they're relegated to Jr. SysAdmin while the mainframe guys are trained and promoted. People are afraid that they won't be allowed to rise to the level of their competance as quickly as they saw people do during the boom years.
Ultimately any union that is created for IT will be started by IT workers, remember that. It's not like the UAW is going to come in and force their methods of union dirty tricks on the IT industry. Would any of you have a problem with an IT Union that was built by Sage/USENIX, or a like organization? If there actually were an IT union and it had some clout who do you think could be lobbying in Washington against DMCA and the like?
The problem is we all still have some of that cowboy glint in our eyes. "Yeah I can be a CIO by 30, I know more than the doofus sitting in the executive suite does anyway" Grow up a little bit and see that while not perfect, in the face of a declining IT industry a Union is one thing that can give you some power back, on a large economic sized scale.
Re:Dockworkers Union was right! (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at the crap the Unions are pulling with United. UAL has been in serious finacial shape since before the attacks, and now that it's in worse shape, the unions are asking for more and more money.
From what I've seen, all Unions pull dirty tricks. Have you seen a co-worker cry because she's scared to vote against the Union line?
Oh the Teacher Union wants more money, lets park in the spots the poor IT people park in and make them walk a half mile to and from thier cars, that'll make a point.
Screw Unions.
Make an Informed Decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the problem is that there aren't enough good companies out there along with the dilution of the number of tech workers and the dot bomb is forcing people to take jobs they otherwise would not.
Long gone are the days of drive up dentists to Yahoo's main offices
Get used to it. (Score:4, Insightful)
IT people think they have some right to work 4 hours a day and get paid 200k a year. The .com boom is dead, get over it.
Welcome to the real world; job insecurity and other "stresses" are what all other workers have always faced. IT people are no better. In fact, programming has become more of a commodity than most other fields. If you aren't adding any real value, than you shouldn't have a job. Simple as that.
Blue and White (Score:4, Insightful)
Sign me up for the white collar nightmare.
Survival of the weakest (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the classic corporate-machine strategy: increase profit, reduce expenditures. Squeeze whatever productivity from employees that you can; if they balk, replace them
Three cheers for capitalism...
No need for a union (Score:3, Insightful)
For people working under these conditions they need some form of group representation, because they have nothing else to bargain with. They can be easily be replaced. Your value as an employee dose not increase the longer you hold the job.
I.T. (and most other jobs) your value to your employer does increase over time. Also your able to become a specialist in an area. (We can't let Johnny go, he's the only one who knows the AS/400). Having a union in this area is a bad idea for both the Company and the Employee.
While you would have easier working conditions and possibly more pay you would lose your ability to specialize. Unions don't want people to become more useful (I.E. learn how to do multiple jobs), they want to hire more people. (Which adds to the union's income) But your job would be secure as long as the company exists. Just keep in mind unions have been known to destroy companies. And forget about having a job you enjoy. Dose anyone really want a government job?
The company loses as well because they are no longer as flexible, and profitable.
As for your boss making too much money form you. Just keep in mind that you wouldn't have your job without him.
Want out of the "factory"? Become management! (Score:5, Interesting)
In short, do your best to infiltrate the top ranks now. We may hold a lot of resentment towards PHBs, but with a little tact we can defeat the PHBs like the Mandarin Chinese defeated the Mongols - not by force, but by integrating them into our culture.
I leave you with this quote:
"If you hire someone smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are." - R.H. Grant
Class warfare beats the drums...again (Score:5, Insightful)
So I started my own business. What an education that was!
I've found that, as a business owner, I have to work far harder than I ever anticipated in order to keep the company viable. There's a tremendous amount of work going on that employees of a company never see and are rarely aware of, work that has to be done by someone with good management skills. If that work is being done properly then the employees never know about it and they're able to do their jobs.
I have a great deal of respect now for entrepeneurs who risk a great deal to start a new business. It takes guts, patience, perserverance, and more to do that.
Any fool can sit around and bitch and moan about how much they hate their company/boss/workplace/insert-bitch-and-moan-noun
factories are NOT like tech jobs. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, but none of you have a clue what it's like in the real world. fortunately I was one of those that did the grunt work whil I attended college full time. so I got to live the live that I never ever would wish on the worst of my enemies. Yes some places in the tech industry suck, with bosses that are basically robbing everyone blind to keep his ferarri detailed... but... you can always work elsewhere (relocate! what the hell are you still doing in your location? if you wont relocate then you're just throwing excuses... or you really dont want a different job.
There are employers out there that care for the employees and recognize that the employee is what makes his business work and profitable.. anyone that doesn't is of course.... an idiot.
My analysis of the pros and cons (Score:3, Interesting)
I've worked in the whole Bell Labs chain of companies (AT&T, Lucent, AT&T again, Lucent again, Avaya) for 10 years already and as of last August I've been laid off. There are some obvious pros and cons:
Good points:
Bad points:
Let's face it, it's a toss up when you talk about the pros and cons, but ya get a CS/CompEng/IT/IS degree because you're interested in computers, so that really tips the scales. The cons may be significant now, but the fact that I can say the pros and cons balance out even when the economy is so horrible tells us really how good the jobs are when the economy is good.. you can't tell me you had it that bad before the recession, when companies left a dozen job offers on your answering machine every day. I won't believe it. You see blue collar workers working multiple jobs all the time anyway, these days, so while you might say "Money isn't everything," I would disagree when you're talking about the nasty hours.
Union needed for IT workers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course the ugly side of forming a union would be that eventually the standard industry qualification for joining would be "MS Union Certification.NET".
Do we really need a union? How many of our lazy IT buddies are willing to go on strike, and walk a picket line? Is Dilbert really up to "scrub busting"?
A Little Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Certainly unions became something else after the years of struggle ended. They shifted their concerns. Like any other institution, they evolved, and not necessarily in consistently productive directions. Consequently, we tend to emphasize the negative effects of present-day unionism and forget how it came about. This is a common phenomenon -- another quick example: the FDA, designed to make sure you didn't fall over dead when you ate your hamburger, is now derided for being slow and bureaucratic. So, a basic historical principle: you can't understand a mature institution by looking at it's mature behavior.
That said, let's look at the present discussion.
Unless and until current employment conditions are perceived as inhumane, unjust and evil by a substantial number of employees, employers will basically have carte blanche within those parameters. Unless conditions become (or are perceived to be) so intolerable, there will be no real attempt to find solutions that better those conditions. It is in the interests of employers to better conditions only if it improves productivity.
Besides, the solution to the problems of the capitalist triumph -- anarcho-syndicalism -- has already been found. We simply have to wait until the capitalists, unrestricted by a government they own and laws and law enforcement they control, decide to tighten the reins a little too far. Of course, well-educated employers probably won't regard their employees as mere resources, but continue to regard their employees as people.
Damn. No grounds for revolution.
Trained as an historian, living as a coder.
Steaming Pile (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted there's no one locally that I can talk to about my code, share my experiences etc. but at least I'm getting paid for it and there are about a billion forums on the web for me to discuss my coding probs.
I suppose if I had to work in the factories I could talk to my co-workers about that damn machine acting up or that idiot boss assigning all the good jobs to his/her favorite people while getting stuck with a shit job. Yeah maybe I should give up this lonely ol life and go back to that wonderful fulfilling life in the factories. Think of the wonderful conversations I could have with my co-workers about last night's episode of Survivor or of any of the various sitcoms featuring a balding fat guy with young cute wife
As far as the boss making more? If they have the ability to market my skills and make buttloads of money then good for them... I don't have the ability to market my skills effectively and really don't want to learn how... I do what I do, I do it well and if someone can keep food on my table while "exploiting" me then more power to them.
I am a commodity to be bought and sold, as are all employees and employers. When things get to far out of whack and I feel I'm being taken advantage of then I'll re-negotiate or I'll trade my employer in for a new one, that's how the world works. When the boss feels like I'm not making him enough, he'll trade me in on a younger fast model. It's cold and hard but its just good business. If I find that I can't make enough writing code then I'll have to do something else but for now I'm pretty content working long hours and being lonely and I don't need some jackass professor telling me any different. I don't seem to have as many problems dealing with management as many of the posters here maybe it's because I'm old than most coders or maybe it's because I'm an asshole (I've been told that on more than one occasion:)
Fifteen Years in a Union. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
As a union member these past fifteen years (two different unions at two different workplaces), I have to ask: How many of you have even belonged to a union? How many of you have firsthand experience being on a union negotiating committee, walked a picket line or have seen a horrible injustice averted by a grievance? I have, and that has helped me see how I get value from my union. (And, no, I don't hate my employers or have a bad relationship with them -- we're all professionals.)
Yes, unions can have their bad sides, but so do some employers who take advantage of employees unwilling to rock the boat when their employment rights [dole.gov.ph] are violated.
So don't dismiss unions out of hand. At least learn a bit more about them [afl-cio.org] first.
The business argument (Score:3, Insightful)
OK. Exactly what risks is he taking? Well, if things go wrong he will lose everything he has got and wind up having to work for someone else. It is true that is not a risk his employees take; but only because they are already on the down side of that situation.
It has been my observation that it is a very difficult task to make money honestly in a business. Because it is very difficult only the very best in a given field are ever able to do so. Most people who are successful at running a business do so by stealing from someone. If they steal from the government they risk prison, if they steal from their customers they risk losing them (1), if they steal from their suppliers they risk being cut off from the material they need to stay in business. About the only remaining avenue is to steal from employees; this seems to be a universally accepted way of doing business. The fact that the vast majority of businesses do steal from employees is the main way that most business stay solvent.
If stealing from employees were eliminated from business only the very best companies in a given field would remain. The huge numbers of incompetent people who would find themselves unemployed would probably trigger a massive depression.
Because of this we maintain the fiction that people are paid what they are worth in a free market economy. The truth is that people are paid as little as the businesses figure they can get away with.
If you were to eliminate the greed angle - so that business owners didn't make substantially more than employees for the same amount of work - very few people would ever start a business; the greatly increased responsibility and pressure of running a business compared to being an employee would ensure that was so.
(1) Yes I know that Microsoft has been eminently successful in stealing from their customers: $299 for a product that costs them under a dollar to produce qualifies as theft in my book. However people are slowly starting to catch on to them. Oh, by the way please don't give me the corporate line about how much it costs to write Microsoft XXX product in the first place; Microsoft net profits (after every accounting trick in the book to lower them) are in the 40% of gross sales range - it typically costs MS more to advertise a product than it ever cost them to write it. The actual costs of writing software are so low that it is possible to write a major operating system using the programmers' donated spare time. Come to think of it Microsoft steals from the government also; last year they paid not one thin dime if federal corporate income taxes. They also steal from their shareholders, since contrary to federal law they don't distribute any of their massive profits in the form of dividends.
The author has never been in a factory (Score:4, Interesting)
Look, I'm an industrial engineer who specialized in manufacturing systems. I've worked in factories and I spent the last few years doing computer simulations of factories. This meant I have spent a LOT of time in factories as well as a lot of time as a high tech worker doing programming. I have lived in both worlds and let me clue you, high tech jobs are cushy by comparison.
Yes high tech workers have their problems. Project managment tends to be poor, hours are long, bosses can be clueless. Lots of folks here on slashdot are well aware of the problems and I don't mean to trivialize them. But I do mean to give a dose of reality.
Working in a factory is in many ways harder. You are on your feet all day, every day, often 6-7 days a week. The work is usually physically tiring, repetitive, and mind numbing not to mention dangerous. (sorry carpal tunnel just doesn't compare to getting run over by a forklift) If someone doesn't show up one day you get to cover for them which means your day just got significantly longer and harder. Even the best plants are not exactly comfortable to be in and are loud, smelly and often dirty. You'll be wearing ear plugs and safety glasses all day long. Any office is plush by comparison.
If you are skilled labor you might pull down a decent wage, though you will never be rich. If you are unskilled labor, you will make minimum wage or close to it, and you will be stuck with the crappiest, most mind numbing jobs you can imagine. And you can be replaced in a heartbeat with pretty much any monkey off the street unless union rules prevent it.
Your co-workers will be a mixed bag of intelligence, but generally uneducated past high school. We're talking the same crowds you find at your typical NASCAR or WWF event. Piss someone off at work and you might find your tires slashed. (especially if your are a manager) Never drive a nice car to work if you work in a factory.
Want to join a union? Let me clue you in about unions. (I'm speaking in generalities here, there are exceptions to everything I'm about to say) They *can* serve a useful purpose but you don't really want to be in one if you can avoid it. Unions are all about rules and they will define job descriptions to the Nth degree. Only certain people are allowed to do certain jobs. Unions will remove much of the flexibility from your job. Want merit based pay increases? Dream on. Unions are about preserving jobs with a relatively high average pay, not promoting individual achievement. You'll get the same pay increase as everyone else no matter how hard you work. And since people know this, they tend to not work very hard. Want a close relationship with managment? Not very likely with a union. You'll often have a shop steward present for every conversation you have with management.
Anyway, the point is that unions are sometimes necessary to avoid a truly abusive work environment, but frankly very few white collar jobs even come close. If you are a skilled worker with talents that are in demand, I cannot see any logical reason you would want to join a union. It would only hurt you in the long run.
To get back to my original point, factory jobs and hi-tech jobs just aren't the same. Sure any job can be hard and you can get a pointy-haired boss who will make your life miserable. But I don't think anyone who has actually spent time in a factory could agree with this author.
Whining about business (Score:3, Insightful)
First: "It's not fair that the boss makes more money than I do. I work all day long, and he sits around and gets a ferrari."
The boss does not sit around and do nothing and get a free ferrari. 99% of small businesses fail within 8 years; this implies that the successful small businessman is providing a service that 99% of people who tried were incapable of providing. If running a company were so easy, and a ferrari were guaranteed, then everyone would do it.
The fact is, small business owners subsidize both employees and consumers. This is a well-known economic fact. They do not intend to do this; they wrongly think that running a business is easier than it is, and they end up bankrupting themselves while paying employees and consumers. It is simply not true that the small business owner is "exploiting" you.
Another point I should take issue with: "It's not fair that I'm only paid $80k per year. My company is exploiting me and driving down the price of my labor, so that my bosses can greedily increase their profit margins."
Fact: the average profit margin in large U.S. businesses is 4%. That profit margin is not blown on ferraris; it goes to expanding the business. In short, there is no extra money. Your livelihood is not being stolen and sucked up in greedy profits. In order to increase your salaries, business would have to raise prices, which would make everyone else in this economy poorer. And don't say: "we can just take money away from executives!" Executives do something that you could not do. If being an executive were so easy, companies would fire them and replace them with someone less expensive. Comapnies don't want to blow money on execs any more than on anything else; the only reason execs are paid alot is because they render a service that few others can provide.
And a final point: "Look at the fruits of evil capitalism. I am only paid $80k per year, and I am forced to work, and my job leads to loneliness, etc. Capitalism has done this!"
A typical salary before capitalism was ~$800/year. That is what the salary still is in communist China. You are paid 100 times that amount. Capitalism has led to a phenomenal increase in the standard of living; NOTHING ELSE could have done this.
All of this demonstrates a few basic points:
1. Slashdotters, and people in general, are radically ignorant of both business and economics.
2. Their suggested "improvements" would wreck the phenomenal machinery that provides them with a fantastic living. The masses go in search of more food, and the methods they employ are generally to wreck the bakeries.
I want to bitch and moan (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
My "Important Note to Recruiters" (Score:3, Insightful)
-
Important Note to Recruiters and Contract Agencies
[goingware.com]
Headhunters and contract brokers are a large part of the problems we have, expecially with older workers not being valued for their experience - they only want the latest buzzword.I'm a software consultant, I deal exclusively with the end client, because I feel that brokers don't serve my needs, or (in my honest opinion) the needs of my clients.
Headhunters are a pestilence on the face of high-tech. Join me in boycotting them.
What can you do if you're looking for a perm job? Apply directly to the company. Most open positions are never advertised. Just send your cover letter and resume to companies you think you might want to work for, regardless of whether a position is advertised.
This page [goingware.com] has some tips on job hunting, it's most useful to people from Santa Cruz but the methods are helpful to anyone.
The "dot.com downturn" has been challenging for me as well as everyone else - but I have continued to work and be able to support myself and my wife throughout it. An I have done so without the help of headhunters.
How About Respect & Appreciation? (Score:4, Insightful)
What I want to know is - how old are those posting the anti-union, pro-intelligentsia drivel that is in this thread?
So many here are missing one basic issue that the BBC article alludes to: IT work itself is ABSOLUTELY NOT RESPECTED by most companies nor managements, and neither are the practitioners. I think that is the underlying problem that is reflected in poorly designed, one dimensional, excessively macho work culture in this field.
To reflect this assertion, the proportion of top executives in most large companies whose background is engineering or applied sciences is truly insignificant, and the career track in IT and engineering is absolutely non-existent and must be manufactured ad hoc by the individual. This is as truly a young person's game as major league "anything".
My post is not about wanting anyone to guarantee me a job, nor a plea for anyone to kiss my ass in gratitude for knowing how to code a constructor or a GUI. I simply would like to see some genuine appreciation from the people whose businesses I help. Alas, I find that I am expected to: shut up; code my nuts off; not express any opinion; and conveniently disappear when my piece is done.
You may feel that you're doing great at 25 or 30. I challenge those beating their chests in shared exultation at the primacy of the uber-geek to say the same things at 40 or 50! At some point real soon now, unless you enter into some sweetheart partnership or start your own company, you're going to see your options shrivel unless you *aggressively* re-make yourself. In my area, I simply see almost nobody over 45 in high tech.
My background and perspective: I am a self employed IT contractor and have done this for 9+ years. Prior to that I was employed in several jobs for a total of 20+ years of experience in mixed HW and SW applications. I have mainly developed shrink wrap resalable applications for my clients and I have represented myself, so I have not had to contend with any static from a body shop agency.
My experience, overall, has been that I have pretty much been treated more as a temp or grunt worker along the lines outlined above. Here are some of the wonderful roses and tokens of appreciation thrown to my feet for developing mission critical applications for my client base.
- Threatened with death/disappearance/lawsuit/other by a startup's paranoid CEO if I were to quit a 1099 contract or reduce my work hours.
- Bullied continually by another company when working on a fixed cost contract, and treated like I was their janitor and their property - it was a conversion of their flagship vertical product to Windows. I pulled it off in a reasonable time and cost and I was told later that they felt I was 'sleaze'.
- The president of a long term client took something like four months and much wheedling and begging from me to write a simple stinking letter of reference. This from a guy that claims that he was grossly underpaid and abused when
he was "just" a programmer... IE: my brother, a corporate controller, says that he dashes off letters like this on demand within 2-3 business days so that he doesn't forget.... and feels that it's his duty when someone does their job well.
- Another client's owner insists on using me pretty much like a robotic pair of coding arms, reserving all design decisions for himself and treating all developers in his company like code technicians. "Here, put this 'Begin' starting at column 4, and space down two lines, and put a 'writeln()'.." etc.
- Got shingles (at age 37!) working in a boiler room office coding VB apps while the office's tech writer is constantly over my desk grunting inane questions at the other developer in the office.
Mostly, I find that flagrant hypocrisy, psychological abuse, ingratitude, and snotty holier-than-thou "I was a coder once but now I'm not a loser like that" attitudes are bestowed on software and engineering types by business owners and managers.
So why am I still doing this crap, you may ask? The major reason is degree of investment in the industry - at some point, age, cunning and (my) nastiness
Um, read the article? (Score:3, Informative)
And here on slashdot, we have macho male techies saying that the article is full of shit, because techies who aren't happy with their jobs can just go elsewhere.
Explain to me again how the author has missed the boat, because I really don't see it happening here.
-schussat
on comparing to factories and on underskilled IT (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't it interesting that some execs make hundreds or more times their workers? If pay were equal, that'd be (by my envelope) about 10% fewer layoffs. So-called "deadwood" is an asset: pay them to take classes and run drills -- preparedness is value. Pay them to hang around with light hours and make the office more comfortable while they attend to a life outside the office -- aren't these things implied by "conservative values"?
The party line among execs is that their pay is justified by a "global competitive market" for their skills -- but really, how many of these folks are being actively recruited in any serious way? No -- they are an old boys club. Obscene stock grants and bonuses don't "align their motivations" -- they "isolate them from the rest of us".
All that said, one of the bigger problems in IT is the substitution of bodies for brains. Too many IT workers don't really know what they're doing -- but have positions of high consequence. I'm not sad to see them go -- I'm sad to see them hired in the first place.
One common pattern I've noticed is eager, young, generally nice-folks execs and upper managers who fret primarily about the role of the appropriate use of their "authority" -- and that tends to result in arbitrary and counterproductive exercises thereof. Another pattern is HR execs who write COE's (conditions of employment documents) that fill many pages, the gist of which is "we have arbitrary rights over you, you have no claims against us". In other words, from one way of looking at it, our jobs suck because everyone at every level is paranoid, untrusting, and isolated.
The best high-tech employers I've ever heard of were various coops -- most often, celebrity coops (coops of already famous hackers). We need more of those, and we need efforts to bring everyone up to speed with those, attitude-wise.
The most satisfied class of employees I've ever seen are non-tenure-track university employees, especially the unionized ones. Their pay sucks. They have no end of gripes. But their benefits are generally good, job security good, hours good, job satisfaction often good, work product often good, and they all live in and _help_to_create_ the best urban environments in the nation and drink plenty of good coffee and enjoy good affordable food.
Forget a Union, what we need is a Guild (Score:3, Interesting)
The guild would set various universal guildlines for technical workers and be international, what is believed to be acceptable wage in the US should be the same elsewhere.
The guild would address broad issues, after putting up polls to the membership, move and lobby for certain rights and issues that important to the IT industry. Anything could be proposed, everything from wages to free speech and would be put to polls, if a course of action was decided on then suggestions for how to pursue and polls for that would then be raised. (All this could be done within a matter of a few days).
I'd be happy to do the initial work to get this going, but I can't do it alone. If you'd like to help in some way, have webspace to contribute for a donations, legal assistance, manpower, etc please mail me at wendoy@mcleodusa.net [mailto]
Depending on resources available I'd to see this also be a place for exchange of ideas and information to help people enter the IT industry, or existing professionals to learn. Howto's and tutorials, platform bias is not really what we need here, I'd like to see windows and linux side by side.
"PU - The Programmers Union"... (Score:3, Informative)
It does things to "protect" it's members, the same as any union. Things like lobbying against green cards and H1-B visas, to artificially control the size of the available talent pool, and thereby inflate the cost of their labor.
In general, it's not a bad idea to work to strike some balance between what top management is paid, and what the people "in the trenches" (to strain your metaphor) are paid; in fact, we have punative tax codes to do exactly this, including preventing matching contributions by the company above a certain amount/percentage for 401K and other benefits, to make sure that the people "on top" do not benefit more from the matching than people on the bottom of the pay scale.
On the other hand, it's unlikely that union tactics will be effective in the "at will" and "right to work" states, like California, where most high technology industry is concentrated -- no accident, that.
The communications workers union have been trying, unsuccessfully, to unionize IBM technology workers for 20+ years, now, and they have universally failed, due to their inability to prove that there will be any benefit to the workers, whatsoever, other than the union getting to take over administration of one of the larger private pension funds on the planet.
-- Terry
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:5, Funny)
Damn right! For a geek a strike would mean not touching the computer for an extended period of time. Can you imagine abstaining from games and pr0n for that long? A few days and we'd be ready for a pay cut...
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, I'd say that this would be significantly more influential than drinking beer at home or picketing or anything that the steelworkers did...
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally am tired of hearing people complain about this phenomenon and come up with bad answers to a very real problem. Creating a union is one "solution" i've heard. The people who make these claims will read an article like this and feel even more strongly that we need to be unionized. I believe this is the worst thing we could do. It will accelerate the trend to go offshore.
The real answer to the job security problem is to find new ways to add value, above and beyond custom development skills (which in many C level executives eyes has become a commodity). Had the steel, audio/video, and textile industries taken a different tact than hiding behind a union to avoid the "constant upgrading of skills" that the author of the articles derides, perhaps they would still be industries that employ millions of Americans.
Just like when I was in school, the sociology professor offers a very bad answer, one that will compound the problem. It amazes me how little things have changed.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, in America and all modern productive countries, the masses have given up their freedom to further the goals of the employer. As an employee, I spend most of my life serving my employer. So much of my quality of life is controlled by my employer. (And all full time employees). I think it is reasonable to expect and ask for job security, freedom from wrongful financial persecution (someone firing you 'cause they don't like you), and a reasonably comfortable work environment. After all, I am giving my employer my life. The least I could expect is to be treated fairly.
In conclusion, Unions can be horrible for an industry when they don't consider the business needs of the company. On the other hand, Companies need employees to make money. Employees sacrafice a great deal of control in the employee-employer realtionship. The least a company could do is provide employment fairness and comfort, and restraint on cracking the whip.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple fact. Unions promote complacency.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:3, Insightful)
dumping/unemployment/manipulations (Score:5, Informative)
To me it should be a quid pro quo, you tariff us, we tariff you right back. You won't allow US people to own property there (japan, mexico, china) they shouldn't be allowed to purchase and own anything here.
Our leaders are sell-outs, and they play the left versus right, repub versus dem,white collar versus blue collar angles against us, keep everyone faked out as they are creating a global two class technofuedal society. The US middle class is the biggest hindrance to those efforts, that's why you see them gleefully destroying first the blue collar manufacturing and agricultural jobs (white collars never cared for those people while this was happening), now they will be destroying the white collar jobs (and of a suddent the white collars are going HEY! what's going on?). They won't "run out" of technology, nor will these uber international pirate bosses "go broke" or lack for anything, they just prefer the master/serf style society, and are willing to trade off the loss of customers to a great degree. The bonus money to them is they get to keep constantly keep transferring ownership of all the land and buildings upstream into fewer hands. A headline last night, mortgage defaults at 30 year high. This isn't an accident, it's part of "the plan". Get people to establish credit well beyond any rational level, WELL beyond that, get them shilled into the phony manipuylated stock market, then destroy their jobs and income, poof, the uber bosses get to legally own everything. In the meantime they set people -the white collar and blue collar victims-squabbling with each other using propoganda and media manipulation with the "political" system with *one* political party with two names. It's a great scam for them and is working right on schedule. One of the easier ways to see the scam is to look at "official" unemployment figures, which are approximately 1/2 of what the real numbers are. How they do that? simple, they stop counting people who have exhausted unemployment insurance, they don't count people extremely under-employed in very low paying part time jobs, and they also really messed with consumer cost of living indices by taking out food and energy costs, which they used to include.
The economy is much worse than they admit to, despite wallmarts impressive figures. I'd like to see a breakdown of how much walmart's sales are cash versus credit card the other day.
Two other economic indicators, look at large banks derivatives exposure, then look at fortune 500 pension funding, and government pension funding and projected cost of social security and medicare/medicaid.
It's pretty dismal right now.
It's more complex than that obviously, but that is a good gist-cliff notes version over-view.
Yep, the man don't want you unionizing, they want you to keep voting for either crips or bloods gang at the polls, they don't want you to notice the daily factory closings and the daily importing of second world labor, white or blue collar. They want you to keep with the safe little finger pointing "it's all the dems fault, no it's all the repubs fault". They love it when people stop looking at that bare minimum level. They love it when 99% of the population is more interested in professional sports, movies, music, games, mindless TV shows and etc. They want you concentrating on ANYTHING but looking real hard at what's going on now and using common sense and logic to make a rational projection of events with some sort of realistic timeline. they want you to focus on "homeland security" and "terrorists" as they remove border patrol people and abandon the southern borders to humongous invasion. they want you to think "cheap prices on gadgets" now as these so called "american" companies all move off shore in search of the last dregs of short term profits. They want you to constantly take any "spare" cash you got and pump it into the magic beans stock market, or even buy government paper, which is just another form of indebtedness that falls right back on you in the form of future higher taxes to pay this paper off. You won't see any of those TV shills recommending people pay off their mortgage early, or perhaps get a smaller and more modest place so they can do that, nope, they still want you to buy-buy-buy, get those 30 year notes on fancy foyers and gimgrack houses and shiny things in the rooms. Just keep doing it on credit, that's all they ask, and don't look any farther than that. On and on. They baited the trap years ago, most people took the bait. The bad part is, people will still argue there is no trap.
Oh well.
Very interesting point (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems like H1Bs should be aimed at execs, since each visa can save the company more money. Aiming them at engineers is a misuse of company funds.
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OK, I will bite (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Personal experience with unions in Europe?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The company I work for is based in Europe, and I work in their US based headquarters. In the last year we have had five rounds of layoffs resulting in a massive (measured in thousands) number of US employees losing their jobs. With each round of layoffs the company had to spend tons of time negotiating with the unions in Europe before they could do anything. From the people I know overseas they tell me that (because of unions) it takes an act of god for someone to lose their job. Most of them are shocked to find out that 1) we get no vacation time compared to them, 2) we have to pay for our own education, and 3) we can get fired without any notice in most US states.
If unions can improve the quality of life and make it easier for us (in the US) to get training (for example) then what is wrong with that? I think we can learn from the mistakes of the auto industry unions and do better. After all we are talking about a totally different class of people here. How many people that worked on a car assembly line have graduate degrees? How many people that worked on a car assembly line started intellectual revolutions like open source and Linux? A majority of us are people who enjoy challenges, want to constantly improve ourselves, and want to work hard to see our employers succeed in the marketplace!
Of course all of this becomes a moot point when you consider that there are countries like India where people are willing to take our jobs and do them for something like $4 an hour.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stop whining (Score:5, Interesting)
great words from someone that has ZERO clue.
I did start a business, I did have employees. everything went well until I sold out to another company for a tidy profit. My employees broght home more than I did because I did something silly... I invested back into the business to ensure that it did very well in the face of bad business times. Over 5 years before I was made an offer that I couldn't refuse.
so now I can hear you... "selling out on your employees, you're no better!" Yup.. they each recieved a healthy part of that tidy sum. as a reward and a thank you for doing me a favor oaa those years by working to make my business bigger and stronger.
Any business man that does not recognize that he is nothing without his employees and does not pay them well is a thief, shiester and a crook.. and NEEDS to have a union form in his business.
the problem is that lately the people starting the businesses have ZERO business sense or are not interested in doing anything but a rape-n-pillage run.
Re:Stop whining (Score:4, Insightful)
If you disagree, state your "better" ideas. You sound like the usual progressive who says "I don't know the answer, I only know that this isn't it."
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Re:Stop whining (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Labeling something "Marxism" gets you nowhere and effectively stops the reasonable discussion.
I can too label the current state of the affairs "Wild Capitalism".
Nobody is "exploiting" you. If you work for what they pay, then its a business deal, and done.
That's right.
If you don't like your pay, renegotiate, quit, or SHUT UP.
And that's not, except "renegotiate". However, the problem is that you're not ABLE to negotiate, because there are some 10 people outside, waiting for the same job and they have all to insist in same benefits.
Because your company founder put his brains, personal capital, and personal life on the line to start a company, WHICH PUTS THE FOOD ON YOUR TABLE, and now makes more $$ than you, doesn't mean he's "exploiting" you.
Yes, it means. Because I put my brains too, I put my personal capital too (be it time or knowledge or abilities) and I put my personal life too for the company, WHICH PUTS THE FOOD ON HIS TABLE, and in addition puts the mannor, the spa, the limousine, the jet, etc.
It is OK, if he makes more than me, but making 500 times more is RIDICULOUS.
If that bothers you, start your own company.
This is just outrageous. You effectively claim the workers have no rights, and if they want rights they must become employers first !
~velco
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
-Accept your current working conditions
-Work out new ones with your employer
-Leave and find new sources of work
Our industry is in a slump, and a bad one. We just came off one of the biggest booms of the modern economy, and we're hurtin'. It'll turn around, it always does. But while it's bad, it's going to suck. And people are very eager to find new work. You don't like your current job? Go find a new one. Oh, wait, none out there? Tough shit. This is what the market will bear, if you think you can do better, go do it. With the employment market so tight, you probably can't, unless you're Just That Good. It's reality, nothing more.
But get this: we did the SAME THING to our employers not two years ago. Don't want to pay me $100K/yr., pay my cell phone, and let me wear ripped jeans to work? Tough shit: go find another techie. Oh, they're really hard to find? That's too bad. The shoe's on the other foot, and we don't like it. It'll all even out, but until then, you put up/shut up, or bide your time. Stop whining about corporate greed/getting it from your boss. It's a symbiotic relationship.
Personally, I've been laid off twice this calender year, by two separate companies. Do I begrudge the executives? In the end, no: they're making business decisions, and while some of them are really stupid, in the end, their responsibilites are to their shareholders, and the greater good. I notice folks here screaming away about the burgious executives of the world trampling the masses. News flash, people: IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY. Now, we simply have more visibility and awareness of the robber-barons, that we actually have a chance to get pissed off about it.
Take it from this perspective: do some research about starting a small business, or work for a small business (50 people). I have, on both accounts. Some of my best knowledge and insight into a business was from watching my bosses (the president and another officer) sweat payroll. And when you look at the sheer amount of effort in management and planning, administritivia, guiding the vision, hiring/firing, sweating the money, the details, the long hours, *plus* actually producing for the company...
I'll tell you what: if I'm ever lucky/good enough to put that business together, you're goddamned right I'm gonna be one of the highest, if not *the* highest, paid SOB in the group. And I'll do my best to treat my employees like gold. But this is not a charity-fucking-ball. Corporation exist to make money, and for no other reason. The balance will swing the other way. In the meantime, sharpen your skills, build that resume, and wait.
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
But get this: we did the SAME THING to our employers not two years ago.
That was, in fact happening a few years ago. However, the average techies were working 60-80 hour weeks. I also notice that H1-B was more than doubled to increase the supply of captive tech workers.
I further note that when the dot-coms crashed, nobody did anything to reduce the supply of tech workers to match.
I do agree that tech work sucks a whole lot less than factory work. I've done that and never will again.
Other professions have their own brand of problems. In sales, you don't know how big your check will be from week to week, clerical work is generally boring, lawyers have to be workaholics and have a lot of stress related disease. Entrepaneurs suffer from long hours and financial uncertainty (often going from minor disaster to minor disaster).
Perhaps the real problem is that our economic system is fundamentally incapable of meeting our goals (most people want security and work that doesn't suck).
Corporations Exist to Make Money (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
No problem. I'll just quit, lose my health insurance, my paycheck that feeds my family, and risk a poor reference because my boss doesn't want me to quit. Oh, and in this great economy I'm sure I'll find a better job right away. Of course the founder is allowed to make more money, like you said, that doesn't mean he's "exploting". However, don't act like employees have the power to renegotiate resonable wages, because most of the time they don't. Sure, his personal capital may have started the company, but the ongoing contributions of employees is what grows it and what really generates the profit.
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a good point - in moderation. It is not reasonable for people to expect all their employment goals to be handed to them by a legal framework. It does take some pushing and stretching yourself outside your envelope. And certainly the law ought include ample provision for the work and effort put in by the founder(s) of a company to be rewarded. But this goes too far:
That really depends on who you are. For the programmer/engineer types that haunt
On the other hand, most people in this world start with so few resources that they are subject to a lot of exploitation. Factory workers (god forbid you toil in a high-production, low-cost place like China or Singapore), retail, data-entry, office support drones, and an endlessly long list of other jobs involve skills that are perceived as basically interchangeable, and most everyone knows this.
And the fact that someone with brains, brawn and balls started a company ought not to give her the right to exploit people, nor does it grant her the right to a mighty river of money just cause she did some good work at the outset, nor should it excuse her from the duty we have to other human beings to give them a little help in this life. Upper management's sense of entitlement is just as honed as the worker bees, and just as bogus.
An IT workers coop - not quite a union, but with some of the same goals - that helped take some of the rough edges off of life as an IT worker could be a great thing, to keep things in balance in the workplace.
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a tight market, though, you are forced to take what you can get, and employers know this.
That's because, in a tight market, you're worth less. Supply and demand: when supply exceeds demand, as in a tight market, price will decline, because there are more options available. It's called "competition," and it's amazing how certain Slashdotters call it a good thing when there's competition in the consumer goods market (lowering prices), but a bad thing in the employment market (lowering wages). The world is not structured to benefit you (the collective you) all the time; sometimes, you have to take your lumps, suck it up, and survive until you get another chance to thrive. Matter of fact, that's been a pattern in life since, oh, about the time life began. Famine and feast. You want to improve your value? Reduce supply. No, that doesn't mean getting rid of other techs, it means making yourself more valuable. If you add to your skillset, you move yourself to a new market, essentially the Skill +1 market. That's smaller than the Skill 0 market. Do it again, moving to Skill +2, and there are even fewer people against whom you'll need to compete. As you do so, you make yourself more valuable; you're worth more, and you'll get paid more. Just don't sit and whine because you're not living in a permanent "feast" time, and able to pull down the same salary you were five years ago because the supply was tight relative to demand.
Re:I'm really intrigued. WTF did this come from? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it was in the episode "There's Something About Paulie" but I could be wrong.