5 ms·

>Until the tech industry wakes up to the reality that they _are_ labor Never going to happen. The great conceit of the tech world peons is believing they're a

by parfe 11y ago

>Until the tech industry wakes up to the reality that they _are_ labor Never going to happen. The great conceit of the tech world peons is believing they're above the simple garbage man or postal worker. After all they create such value. Admitting a union would help acknowledges they're not special.

oldmanjay 11y ago
When you feel like you can sum up a few million opinions as the result of a stupidity that you personally do not suffer, the odds that you are correct in your assessment approach zero.
- draw_down 11y ago
  On the other hand, anti-vaxxers exist. Many of them.
- parfe 11y ago
  Programmers eagerly work in EA style sweatshops producing games and other software with massive unpaid overtime, or count themselves lucky that IBM kept them for just a few extra months to train their replacements. IT workers could demand protection from the same abuses that custodians and delivery drivers fought for and earned decades ago. But then the industry might need to admit their collars aren't as white as they pretend.
  - untog 11y ago
    Some programmers do that, most don't. But more to the point, if you desire a work/life balance you absolutely can find a programming job that will allow it. It'll pay less than the unpaid overtime job, but it exists, and will still pay more than most occupations.
  - Chlorus 11y ago
    > But then the industry might need to admit their collars aren't as white as they pretend. You're fucking insane if you think the plight of the average programmer is anywhere near what custodians go through. I used to work for one of these IBM-like offshoring firms before I knew better and the quality of their work is simply garbage(there's some good people in there of course). For example, I was called in to troubleshoot a faulty URL - I asked them for it; they linked me to a localhost page. Other joys included network engineers who didn't know what port SSH runs on and Java programmers who literally copy-pasted straight from the web.
  - pattisapu 11y ago
    In the US most such programmers are likely exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA [1]. [1] http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17e_computer.pdf http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17e_computer.pdf
thenewwazoo 11y ago
I disagree - I think that the right-wing opinion machine has been successfully busting unions and scapegoating labor for so long that the tech industry doesn't see the value-add of the union itself. I view it a bit like the anti-vax movement. Nobody today is dying of polio, so the necessity and urgency are lost. (And Americans are spectacularly bad at learning from history because exceptionalism)
- Chlorus 11y ago
  > (And Americans are spectacularly bad at learning from history because exceptionalism) Because the union scandals of the 60s and 70s never happened, of course.
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  > bad at learning from history I assume you're referring to the current fascination with socialism? You know, that great political innovation that lead to a hundred million murders in the 20th century. Sorry, couldn't resist. You should look into the history of unions. You might be surprised at their non-progressive / non-egalitarian origins. You don't need a "right-wing opinion machine" to besmirch the name of unions; you simply have to look at the long history of state-union corruption.
  - yardie 11y ago
    Socialism did what? Some despot puts Socialist in the state name and that makes it socialist? So North Korea is a shining example of democracy because it's right there Democratic People's Republic. Does your 100million lives include the many millions the USA has helped see to their deaths? I couldn't resist.
    - clarkmoody 11y ago
      Don't get the idea that I'm defending the US government's actions in any way, since I disagree with most of its actions, especially in foreign policy.
nosuchthing 11y ago
Has anyone ever tried an open source guild / jobs / recruiting / organized labor software system? Maybe a mix of Glass Door with Adhocracy or Liquid Feedback https://liqd.net/software.html https://liqd.net/software.html http://dev.liquidfeedback.org/trac/lf/ http://dev.liquidfeedback.org/trac/lf/
obrero 11y ago
I used to work in IT at an investment bank. We got no overtime, and had to work all hours - 9 hours a day, sometimes starting at 7 AM, weekend work, pages in the middle of the night. The electricians all left at 5 PM. They belonged to the IBEW and had pension plans, job security with seniority etc. IT used to bitch about how they'd leave at 5 PM when we had to start doing some work. They would have stayed past 5 PM, but the super wealthy bank would have had to pay them (not us) overtime, and they almost never did that. The other IT people would also moan about how stupid they were compared to us. How stupid are they? They leave at 5 PM, or get overtime if they do, they have job security, they don't have to work all hours or are paid well if they do any how, they had pensions and job security based on seniority. Who were the real fools?
- draw_down 11y ago
  Yes, that sounds like tech workers for sure. (Everyone besides me is so stupid, which is why I work twice as hard as them and earn less.)
- mason240 11y ago
  To be fair, I would much rather have a 401k than a pension.
gaius 11y ago
The funny thing is companies are quite honest and open about this; they call you "a resource" for a reason...
levemi 11y ago
I've never met anyone nor worked with anyone who thought they were better than someone else because of their job. Maybe that's something you want to believe, but it isn't true. A great deal of the engineers I work with in the bay area are socially conscious to the tech sector's impact on the community. And really they're harmed by it too, a software engineer can't afford to buy a house either. If what you really believed was true there's no way that someone like Barbara Lee could be in office with such huge wins every two years when so many of her constituents are the same people that work in the area you think is so terrible. Why are you even posting on HN? This is a technical news site.
- gist 11y ago
  I am not a programmer (although I can program) but I do a fairly important job at the company (that I own) that takes a great deal of thought, training and experience. So yes I do feel that I am "better" than a postal worker or a garbage man a job that doesn't take a great deal of thought, training, intelligence or experience or quite frankly in most (but not all cases) motivation. Of course there are people who are garbage men or postal workers that are there because of luck not intelligence or effort, but there are also people who grew up middle class like I did that aren't doing anything significant in their career either. This idea that all of us are equal (we are not even factoring in luck) is really just a modern day PC version of the way the world is not.
  - matwood 11y ago
    You're better in what way? Thinking? Are you physically better than the garbage man that is outside in 100 degree heat all day picking up your trash? As an aside, I always leave the garbage man Gatorades because frankly the job looks like it sucks.
    - gist 11y ago
      Yes in a thinking way.
    - yardie 11y ago
      LOL. I'm friends with sons of a garbage man. They are highly unionised with a bulletproof health plan, pension plan, college savings plan, etc. And if the city tries to take away even one of those things... ever see trash spontaneously combust when its been left to sit in its own juices for weeks. The guys that haul trash have got it exactly right. It's a hard job that no one wants to do so they know their worth and when they demand they get it. If I lose Facebook for an hour its a bummer. If the trash isn't hauled away its a health hazard.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
tosseraccount 11y ago
Doctors have the AMA bargain for rules in statehouses and Congress. Same with lawyers and the American Bar Association. The trial lawyers are particularly adept at lobbying and "campaign contributions". I'm pretty sure people in these professions consider themselves pretty special.
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  Perhaps if there's so much resistance to the idea to an IT union, we should buff up the IEEE so it can be a "professional association" on the level of the AMA or the ABA, at least.

by parfe 11y ago

oldmanjay 11y ago

When you feel like you can sum up a few million opinions as the result of a stupidity that you personally do not suffer, the odds that you are correct in your assessment approach zero.

draw_down 11y ago
On the other hand, anti-vaxxers exist. Many of them.
parfe 11y ago
Programmers eagerly work in EA style sweatshops producing games and other software with massive unpaid overtime, or count themselves lucky that IBM kept them for just a few extra months to train their replacements. IT workers could demand protection from the same abuses that custodians and delivery drivers fought for and earned decades ago. But then the industry might need to admit their collars aren't as white as they pretend.
- untog 11y ago
  Some programmers do that, most don't. But more to the point, if you desire a work/life balance you absolutely can find a programming job that will allow it. It'll pay less than the unpaid overtime job, but it exists, and will still pay more than most occupations.
- Chlorus 11y ago
  > But then the industry might need to admit their collars aren't as white as they pretend. You're fucking insane if you think the plight of the average programmer is anywhere near what custodians go through. I used to work for one of these IBM-like offshoring firms before I knew better and the quality of their work is simply garbage(there's some good people in there of course). For example, I was called in to troubleshoot a faulty URL - I asked them for it; they linked me to a localhost page. Other joys included network engineers who didn't know what port SSH runs on and Java programmers who literally copy-pasted straight from the web.
- pattisapu 11y ago
  In the US most such programmers are likely exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA [1]. [1] http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17e_computer.pdf http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17e_computer.pdf

thenewwazoo 11y ago

I disagree - I think that the right-wing opinion machine has been successfully busting unions and scapegoating labor for so long that the tech industry doesn't see the value-add of the union itself. I view it a bit like the anti-vax movement. Nobody today is dying of polio, so the necessity and urgency are lost. (And Americans are spectacularly bad at learning from history because exceptionalism)

Chlorus 11y ago
> (And Americans are spectacularly bad at learning from history because exceptionalism) Because the union scandals of the 60s and 70s never happened, of course.
clarkmoody 11y ago
> bad at learning from history I assume you're referring to the current fascination with socialism? You know, that great political innovation that lead to a hundred million murders in the 20th century. Sorry, couldn't resist. You should look into the history of unions. You might be surprised at their non-progressive / non-egalitarian origins. You don't need a "right-wing opinion machine" to besmirch the name of unions; you simply have to look at the long history of state-union corruption.
- yardie 11y ago
  Socialism did what? Some despot puts Socialist in the state name and that makes it socialist? So North Korea is a shining example of democracy because it's right there Democratic People's Republic. Does your 100million lives include the many millions the USA has helped see to their deaths? I couldn't resist.
  - clarkmoody 11y ago
    Don't get the idea that I'm defending the US government's actions in any way, since I disagree with most of its actions, especially in foreign policy.

nosuchthing 11y ago

Has anyone ever tried an open source guild / jobs / recruiting / organized labor software system? Maybe a mix of Glass Door with Adhocracy or Liquid Feedback https://liqd.net/software.html https://liqd.net/software.html http://dev.liquidfeedback.org/trac/lf/ http://dev.liquidfeedback.org/trac/lf/

obrero 11y ago

I used to work in IT at an investment bank. We got no overtime, and had to work all hours - 9 hours a day, sometimes starting at 7 AM, weekend work, pages in the middle of the night. The electricians all left at 5 PM. They belonged to the IBEW and had pension plans, job security with seniority etc. IT used to bitch about how they'd leave at 5 PM when we had to start doing some work. They would have stayed past 5 PM, but the super wealthy bank would have had to pay them (not us) overtime, and they almost never did that. The other IT people would also moan about how stupid they were compared to us. How stupid are they? They leave at 5 PM, or get overtime if they do, they have job security, they don't have to work all hours or are paid well if they do any how, they had pensions and job security based on seniority. Who were the real fools?

draw_down 11y ago
Yes, that sounds like tech workers for sure. (Everyone besides me is so stupid, which is why I work twice as hard as them and earn less.)
mason240 11y ago
To be fair, I would much rather have a 401k than a pension.

gaius 11y ago

The funny thing is companies are quite honest and open about this; they call you "a resource" for a reason...

levemi 11y ago

I've never met anyone nor worked with anyone who thought they were better than someone else because of their job. Maybe that's something you want to believe, but it isn't true. A great deal of the engineers I work with in the bay area are socially conscious to the tech sector's impact on the community. And really they're harmed by it too, a software engineer can't afford to buy a house either. If what you really believed was true there's no way that someone like Barbara Lee could be in office with such huge wins every two years when so many of her constituents are the same people that work in the area you think is so terrible. Why are you even posting on HN? This is a technical news site.

gist 11y ago
I am not a programmer (although I can program) but I do a fairly important job at the company (that I own) that takes a great deal of thought, training and experience. So yes I do feel that I am "better" than a postal worker or a garbage man a job that doesn't take a great deal of thought, training, intelligence or experience or quite frankly in most (but not all cases) motivation. Of course there are people who are garbage men or postal workers that are there because of luck not intelligence or effort, but there are also people who grew up middle class like I did that aren't doing anything significant in their career either. This idea that all of us are equal (we are not even factoring in luck) is really just a modern day PC version of the way the world is not.
- matwood 11y ago
  You're better in what way? Thinking? Are you physically better than the garbage man that is outside in 100 degree heat all day picking up your trash? As an aside, I always leave the garbage man Gatorades because frankly the job looks like it sucks.
  - gist 11y ago
    Yes in a thinking way.
  - yardie 11y ago
    LOL. I'm friends with sons of a garbage man. They are highly unionised with a bulletproof health plan, pension plan, college savings plan, etc. And if the city tries to take away even one of those things... ever see trash spontaneously combust when its been left to sit in its own juices for weeks. The guys that haul trash have got it exactly right. It's a hard job that no one wants to do so they know their worth and when they demand they get it. If I lose Facebook for an hour its a bummer. If the trash isn't hauled away its a health hazard.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

tosseraccount 11y ago

Doctors have the AMA bargain for rules in statehouses and Congress. Same with lawyers and the American Bar Association. The trial lawyers are particularly adept at lobbying and "campaign contributions". I'm pretty sure people in these professions consider themselves pretty special.

Apocryphon 11y ago
Perhaps if there's so much resistance to the idea to an IT union, we should buff up the IEEE so it can be a "professional association" on the level of the AMA or the ABA, at least.