7 ms·

I have a friend who's a long-time engineer at Boeing (in Washington). He'd always complain that union rules were strict to the point of ludicrousness, eg. if he

I have a friend who's a long-time engineer at Boeing (in Washington). He'd always complain that union rules were strict to the point of ludicrousness, eg. if he got a new desktop computer he was prohibited from plugging it in himself; he had to file a ticket and get it plugged in by a member of whatever union had staked a claim to that task. Not really related to the article, but yeah, I can't imagine that level of union-driven bureaucracy is good for productivity.

jamroom 10y ago
This isn't union - this is just how huge corporations work. I worked for Verizon and they did the same thing - everything was locked down and you had to file a Remedy ticket to get anything done (ugh).
- mentat 10y ago
  Verizon is union too.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    Perhaps, but the point is true. Large, traditional companies do this sort of thing. Sometimes because of unions. Others times for "security reasons" or "3rd party contract" reasons, etc.
- kcorbitt 10y ago
  I don't know... I work for a (non-unionized) company about half the size of Boeing, and we don't have anywhere near that level of bureaucracy, so I have a hard time accepting the premise that "that's just how things have to be." I'm sure there are a lot of contributing factors, but I don't have a hard time imagining unions contributing to process creep by mandating the allocation of tasks in a non-optimal way. I'm no hardcore anti-unionist, but this particular situation seems like a very plausible late-stage union failure mode.
  - drewrv 10y ago
    But your company is smaller. I work for a company smaller still and the amount of dumb bureaucracy is even less than yours probably. Also, culturally the aerospace industry is very rule and procedure heavy, for good reason.
    - flukus 10y ago
      I've seen it in big and small (10 people companies), it just depends on having someone in HR that cares about shit like this and the authority to do something about it. Sometimes you can't change a light bulb at a small company, sometimes at a big one you're first job is to assembly you're own desk.
  - pilsetnieks 10y ago
    I could easily imagine an incident where someone plugged something in the wrong socket, something got destroyed, and it was codified in policy that only the people who certifiably know what they're doing are allowed to plug stuff into sockets. It takes just one to ruin it for everyone.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      Like plugging a vacuum cleaner into a UPS.
      - walshemj 10y ago
        Which actually happened at a subsidiary of British telecom I worked at - the cleaners unplugged the accounts receivable unix system. It was a POS system the finance director brought and caused no end of problems at one point we were unable to cut a BACS tape for over 6 months
- runT1ME 10y ago
  I work at Verizon and they gave me a MBP with root access...so this is not universal at the company.
bigtimeidiot 10y ago
I think both sides think it's ridiculous. But it serves a purpose for the union: job protection. Corporations want as few people doing as much work as possible. And they will have no qualms about laying people off to achieve that (TFA). Putting absolute restrictions on tasks puts a floor on employment. It's not ideal, but somewhat effective.
- tacostakohashi 10y ago
  It is indeed effective, and interesting. Whenever people talk about unionizing or professionalizing software development, I think things of this. Even if it ridiculous for both sides, it is indicative of a group of workers, and an employer, who have decided exactly what their job is (and is not), and what the rules and training pertaining to that job are. Contrast with software development, which is a free-for-all - mainly for good, but the complete absence of standards or authorities doesn't always seem like a good thing. Just occasionally I find myself thinking that some baseline standards for, say, source control or testing would do everyone a world of good.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    You get to appreciate the idea more as you get older too. There's a reason you see more older (and expensive) aircraft mechanics working on the latest greatest tech, as opposed to older developers.
    - metaphor 10y ago
      >> There's a reason you see more older (and expensive) aircraft mechanics working on the latest greatest tech, as opposed to older developers. What do you suspect those reasons may be? Also, what would you describe as latest greatest tech in the context of aerospace industry?
      - sangnoir 10y ago
        > What do you suspect those reasons may be? Not gp, but in the context of this thread, the answer is obvious: Unions.
revelation 10y ago
Ah yes, lets all gather for some ol' union tales. The evergreen of US politics, taught to high school students all over the country. Meanwhile there is a mandatory arbitration clause in your contract and the Department of Labor says you are exempt from overtime pay because ??? But not to worry, all switchboard operators working for a company with less than 750 stations also don't get paid for all hours worked. There is no fairness and reason to the Fair Labor act, it just means someone who is probably long gone lobbied to royally fuck computer specialists over. And here we are today. Can you imagine police unions agreeing to arbitration?
- guelo 10y ago
  Not sure what your point is but police union contracts have arbitration clauses.
WalterBright 10y ago
When I worked at Boeing as a design engineer, at one point my design was put on a test rig out at the factory. Some adjustment was required, and I stepped forward to do it. Some union rep stepped in front of me, and told me I wasn't allowed to touch a tool. I was supposed to direct some union guy to turn a wrench this way or that.
guelo 10y ago
That's not union, any place I've ever worked the bigger the IT department grows the tighter the computers and networks are locked down.
dhruvrrp 10y ago
This reminds me of an article about unions in hollywood i read sometime ago. It wwnt somewhere along the lines of a guy talking to an actor on a set, and he brushes some dirt off the actor's shoulder. Later, he is approached by a women who asks him never to do that again because it was her union approved job to brush the casts clothing. union driven bureaucracy is known to have extreme consequences in the name of job security
- jfoutz 10y ago
  Movies are different. That could be a continuity problem. Actors are clean or dirty for a reason. 24, for example put a lot of effort into costume continuity. Shot over months, 10 copies of the same clothes, looking slightly worse as the day wears on.
- intrasight 10y ago
  For every anecdote one unearths about bad union work rules, I'm sure that you can find a hundred about a union successfully looking out for the interest of a member. Is best not to be distracted by anecdotes.
  - Johnny555 10y ago
    Speaking of anecdotes, my best union anecdote was when I was working at a construction company as a seasonal general laborer. One day my job was to clean out some office trailers out in the back lot so they could haul them to a new site in a few days. To do this I needed a vacuum cleaner (which they had) and a generator to run it (which they also had). No problem, I said. Until I found out that the generator was so low on oil that it wouldn't start due to the low oil cutoff switch. The oil was black and needed to be changed. No problem again, I knew where the oil was, and I knew how to change it so I started to do just that. Until a union mechanic yelled at me and asked me what the H I was doing and that only a mechanic could do that job. I said "Ok, I'll just top it off so I can start it" ,and he said "Nope, you can't do that". I thought he was joking and kind of laughed until he called my boss over to explain it to me. The mechanics, of course, were busy, so wouldn't get a chance to change my oil until next week, so I told my boss that I wouldn't be able to do my job. He said he'd take care of it. And take care of it he did -- he said to go to the trailers and wait, and sure enough, a union driver showed up with a tractor trailer towed generator -- it must have been a 500KW generator, maybe larger. The union generator operator showed up soon after and started it up for me, and said he'd be back at quitting time to shut it down. So all day long a 500KW generator sucked down 10 (?) gallons of fuel per hour (not to mention the wear and tear on that huge generator and the cost of the driver and generator operator)... just so I could run a shop-vac. All because I wasn't allowed to put a few dollars of oil into a 5kw generator due to union rules. That is when I lost all respect for unions.
dhruvrrp 10y ago
This reminds me of an article about unions in hollywood i read sometime ago. It wwnt somewhere along the lines of a guy talking to an actor on a set, and he brushes some dirt off the actor's shoulder. Later, he is approached by a women who asks him never to do that again because it was her union approved job to brush the casts clothing. union driven bureaucracy is known to have extreme consequences in the name of job security
sesteel 10y ago
I worked at Boeing as well with a few guys that had been programming since the 60's. They did a pretty good job of walling us off from the rest of the company so we could get things done ourselves. We ran everything. Version control, Jenkins, our computer lab, etc. It was great, but the best part was getting to pick the brains of people who'd been in it for 40 years. Them being in the missile warning field, they witnessed, up close, communication networks and related technologies grow from the beginning.
gech 10y ago
But we shouldn't dissolve worker protections entirely just because you don't like some of the rules
okreallywtf 10y ago
These anecdotes are always fun but do they really provide much insight into the role played by a union? I've never worked a union job but I have family that do (railroads in US) and while they complain about these kind of things and wish they didn't have to be in the union, when something bad happens the union is basically the only thing keeping them from getting canned for something not their fault. My cousin got hurt on the job because of another worker just making a mistake but he was going to get canned for it anyways. The union prevented it and saved his job (and healthcare etc). But at the same time there are a ton of anecdotes about similar silly-sounding situations, so where is the truth? I feel like union bashing has just become part of our culture, just like complaining about state road crews (always 1 guy working and 5 guys standing around!) but the joke may be on us when we allow our infrastructure to be privatized and our unions to be killed and we realize that we work for the market, not the other way around.

jamroom 10y ago

This isn't union - this is just how huge corporations work. I worked for Verizon and they did the same thing - everything was locked down and you had to file a Remedy ticket to get anything done (ugh).

mentat 10y ago
Verizon is union too.
- tyingq 10y ago
  Perhaps, but the point is true. Large, traditional companies do this sort of thing. Sometimes because of unions. Others times for "security reasons" or "3rd party contract" reasons, etc.
kcorbitt 10y ago
I don't know... I work for a (non-unionized) company about half the size of Boeing, and we don't have anywhere near that level of bureaucracy, so I have a hard time accepting the premise that "that's just how things have to be." I'm sure there are a lot of contributing factors, but I don't have a hard time imagining unions contributing to process creep by mandating the allocation of tasks in a non-optimal way. I'm no hardcore anti-unionist, but this particular situation seems like a very plausible late-stage union failure mode.
- drewrv 10y ago
  But your company is smaller. I work for a company smaller still and the amount of dumb bureaucracy is even less than yours probably. Also, culturally the aerospace industry is very rule and procedure heavy, for good reason.
  - flukus 10y ago
    I've seen it in big and small (10 people companies), it just depends on having someone in HR that cares about shit like this and the authority to do something about it. Sometimes you can't change a light bulb at a small company, sometimes at a big one you're first job is to assembly you're own desk.
- pilsetnieks 10y ago
  I could easily imagine an incident where someone plugged something in the wrong socket, something got destroyed, and it was codified in policy that only the people who certifiably know what they're doing are allowed to plug stuff into sockets. It takes just one to ruin it for everyone.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    Like plugging a vacuum cleaner into a UPS.
    - walshemj 10y ago
      Which actually happened at a subsidiary of British telecom I worked at - the cleaners unplugged the accounts receivable unix system. It was a POS system the finance director brought and caused no end of problems at one point we were unable to cut a BACS tape for over 6 months
runT1ME 10y ago
I work at Verizon and they gave me a MBP with root access...so this is not universal at the company.

bigtimeidiot 10y ago

I think both sides think it's ridiculous. But it serves a purpose for the union: job protection. Corporations want as few people doing as much work as possible. And they will have no qualms about laying people off to achieve that (TFA). Putting absolute restrictions on tasks puts a floor on employment. It's not ideal, but somewhat effective.

tacostakohashi 10y ago
It is indeed effective, and interesting. Whenever people talk about unionizing or professionalizing software development, I think things of this. Even if it ridiculous for both sides, it is indicative of a group of workers, and an employer, who have decided exactly what their job is (and is not), and what the rules and training pertaining to that job are. Contrast with software development, which is a free-for-all - mainly for good, but the complete absence of standards or authorities doesn't always seem like a good thing. Just occasionally I find myself thinking that some baseline standards for, say, source control or testing would do everyone a world of good.
- tyingq 10y ago
  You get to appreciate the idea more as you get older too. There's a reason you see more older (and expensive) aircraft mechanics working on the latest greatest tech, as opposed to older developers.
  - metaphor 10y ago
    >> There's a reason you see more older (and expensive) aircraft mechanics working on the latest greatest tech, as opposed to older developers. What do you suspect those reasons may be? Also, what would you describe as latest greatest tech in the context of aerospace industry?
    - sangnoir 10y ago
      > What do you suspect those reasons may be? Not gp, but in the context of this thread, the answer is obvious: Unions.

revelation 10y ago

Ah yes, lets all gather for some ol' union tales. The evergreen of US politics, taught to high school students all over the country. Meanwhile there is a mandatory arbitration clause in your contract and the Department of Labor says you are exempt from overtime pay because ??? But not to worry, all switchboard operators working for a company with less than 750 stations also don't get paid for all hours worked. There is no fairness and reason to the Fair Labor act, it just means someone who is probably long gone lobbied to royally fuck computer specialists over. And here we are today. Can you imagine police unions agreeing to arbitration?

guelo 10y ago
Not sure what your point is but police union contracts have arbitration clauses.

WalterBright 10y ago

When I worked at Boeing as a design engineer, at one point my design was put on a test rig out at the factory. Some adjustment was required, and I stepped forward to do it. Some union rep stepped in front of me, and told me I wasn't allowed to touch a tool. I was supposed to direct some union guy to turn a wrench this way or that.

guelo 10y ago

That's not union, any place I've ever worked the bigger the IT department grows the tighter the computers and networks are locked down.

dhruvrrp 10y ago

This reminds me of an article about unions in hollywood i read sometime ago. It wwnt somewhere along the lines of a guy talking to an actor on a set, and he brushes some dirt off the actor's shoulder. Later, he is approached by a women who asks him never to do that again because it was her union approved job to brush the casts clothing. union driven bureaucracy is known to have extreme consequences in the name of job security

jfoutz 10y ago
Movies are different. That could be a continuity problem. Actors are clean or dirty for a reason. 24, for example put a lot of effort into costume continuity. Shot over months, 10 copies of the same clothes, looking slightly worse as the day wears on.
intrasight 10y ago
For every anecdote one unearths about bad union work rules, I'm sure that you can find a hundred about a union successfully looking out for the interest of a member. Is best not to be distracted by anecdotes.
- Johnny555 10y ago
  Speaking of anecdotes, my best union anecdote was when I was working at a construction company as a seasonal general laborer. One day my job was to clean out some office trailers out in the back lot so they could haul them to a new site in a few days. To do this I needed a vacuum cleaner (which they had) and a generator to run it (which they also had). No problem, I said. Until I found out that the generator was so low on oil that it wouldn't start due to the low oil cutoff switch. The oil was black and needed to be changed. No problem again, I knew where the oil was, and I knew how to change it so I started to do just that. Until a union mechanic yelled at me and asked me what the H I was doing and that only a mechanic could do that job. I said "Ok, I'll just top it off so I can start it" ,and he said "Nope, you can't do that". I thought he was joking and kind of laughed until he called my boss over to explain it to me. The mechanics, of course, were busy, so wouldn't get a chance to change my oil until next week, so I told my boss that I wouldn't be able to do my job. He said he'd take care of it. And take care of it he did -- he said to go to the trailers and wait, and sure enough, a union driver showed up with a tractor trailer towed generator -- it must have been a 500KW generator, maybe larger. The union generator operator showed up soon after and started it up for me, and said he'd be back at quitting time to shut it down. So all day long a 500KW generator sucked down 10 (?) gallons of fuel per hour (not to mention the wear and tear on that huge generator and the cost of the driver and generator operator)... just so I could run a shop-vac. All because I wasn't allowed to put a few dollars of oil into a 5kw generator due to union rules. That is when I lost all respect for unions.

dhruvrrp 10y ago

sesteel 10y ago

I worked at Boeing as well with a few guys that had been programming since the 60's. They did a pretty good job of walling us off from the rest of the company so we could get things done ourselves. We ran everything. Version control, Jenkins, our computer lab, etc. It was great, but the best part was getting to pick the brains of people who'd been in it for 40 years. Them being in the missile warning field, they witnessed, up close, communication networks and related technologies grow from the beginning.

gech 10y ago

But we shouldn't dissolve worker protections entirely just because you don't like some of the rules

okreallywtf 10y ago

These anecdotes are always fun but do they really provide much insight into the role played by a union? I've never worked a union job but I have family that do (railroads in US) and while they complain about these kind of things and wish they didn't have to be in the union, when something bad happens the union is basically the only thing keeping them from getting canned for something not their fault. My cousin got hurt on the job because of another worker just making a mistake but he was going to get canned for it anyways. The union prevented it and saved his job (and healthcare etc). But at the same time there are a ton of anecdotes about similar silly-sounding situations, so where is the truth? I feel like union bashing has just become part of our culture, just like complaining about state road crews (always 1 guy working and 5 guys standing around!) but the joke may be on us when we allow our infrastructure to be privatized and our unions to be killed and we realize that we work for the market, not the other way around.