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>Imagine if unions were strong and IT were unionized. How would you imagine the progress we've seen in information technology? The following would likely happe

>Imagine if unions were strong and IT were unionized. How would you imagine the progress we've seen in information technology? The following would likely happen: * Wages would be higher, tech behemoth profits would be lower. * Vastly more attention would be drawn to some of the worse outsourcing disasters (some of which are currently covered up). * Those egregious IP agreements would be less common. * Employee share options agreements would probably be fairer. Not like this: https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/26/skypes-worthless-employee-stock-option-plan-heres-why-they-did-it/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/26/skypes-worthless-employee-... * Wage fixing cartels like this would be busted quicker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... >they also have externalities we need to acknowledge. So acknowledge them?

stale2002 9y ago
Oooh how about these ones: Your pay would be pegged to seniority, not ability to contribute. Better pay your dues, newbie. You don't deserve as much money as I do, solely because of your age. You wouldn't be allowed to do anything outside your extremely limited job description. That's someone else's job, don't take it away from them! No more wearing many hats. Unless you literally kill someone, you are immune from being fired. Irregardless if you suck and are holding the team back. Find a good way to make your job more efficient? Sorry, you can't use that. It is not in your contract. And for that matter, doing things more efficiently means that there is less work to go around! Got to save jobs, by creating useless work! Don't work too hard. You are making everyone else look bad! The contract says that we are only supposed to solve 1 bug a day. You'd have to get some sort of union sponsored certification/significant barriers to entry, Because the union does not care about NEW workers. They want to keep them out so that they don't compete on wages with them. No more being a self taught engineer! No more switching to a different part of tech. You need a certification for that. Collective bargaining means that you won't be able to negotiate on an individual basis. No matter how good at negotiating you are or if you could get 2-3X the pay, or if you think the union contract sucks. Don't like the union? Too bad! You are forced to join it. Fuck you, you free rider! It doesn't matter if you believe that the union provides significant negatives, is corrupt, is destroying your industry and you shouldn't exist. Free rider! Free rider! Free rider!
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >Your pay would be pegged to seniority, not ability to contribute That's pretty much how it works now. I've never had a boss who was able to accurately (or even non-accurately) gauge my productivity and I'll bet that unless your job is mind-numbing, you haven't either. I've had bosses who have counted SLOC though and stupidly tried to use that to gauge my productivity. Unions usually agree to formalize the existing peg to seniority so that the company doesn't use pay/promotion structure as a means to punish active union members. >You wouldn't be allowed to do anything outside your extremely limited job description. That's someone else's job, don't take it away from them! I'm strangely ok with my bosses not firing my coworker and then dumping all his work on me, which has happened to me. >Find a good way to make your job more efficient? Sorry, you can't use that. It is not in your contract This idea makes no sense to me. Furthermore, at a lot of the companies I've worked at, middle managers haven't given a damn about efficiency and they often purposefully reduced it so that they could increase their headcount (read: their power). >Don't work too hard. Am I supposed to be terrified of a company that makes me go home at a reasonable hour rather than implicitly pressuring me to stay at work until 10pm every night? >The contract says that we are only supposed to solve 1 bug a day. No it doesn't. >You'd have to get some sort of union sponsored certification/significant barriers to entry, Because the union does not care about NEW workers. Which may help separate some of the wheat from the chaff as it does with doctors. Are you in favor of this type of thing or would you prefer it was prevented? http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer... >Collective bargaining means that you won't be able to negotiate on an individual basis. Yes, and that means higher pay overall. Divide and conquer isn't good for you as an individual. >No matter how good at negotiating you are Didn't you just say that you thought pay should be linked to your ability to contribute? Why now are you so keen on "ability to negotiate"? Are you morally opposed to seeing my equally skilled friends earn as much as me because they don't drive a bargain quite as hard as I do? >Don't like the union? Too bad! You are forced to join it. Fuck you, you free rider! So are you pro-free rider? You seem to be saying that individual agreements with the company are "good" but collective agreements with the company (which are used to eliminate said free riders) are "bad". Why are collective agreements intrinsically bad? >It doesn't matter if you believe that the union provides significant negatives It does, which is why unions are run on a democratic basis. On the other hand, did you vote for your boss? Thought not. Unions serve as the only really reliable check on corrupt corporate power running roughshod over workers. Sometimes they are corrupt. That does not mean that eliminating them will improve your situation. And, of course, if you really don't want to work for a unionized workplace you can go and work at a non-unionized workplace.

stale2002 9y ago

Oooh how about these ones: Your pay would be pegged to seniority, not ability to contribute. Better pay your dues, newbie. You don't deserve as much money as I do, solely because of your age. You wouldn't be allowed to do anything outside your extremely limited job description. That's someone else's job, don't take it away from them! No more wearing many hats. Unless you literally kill someone, you are immune from being fired. Irregardless if you suck and are holding the team back. Find a good way to make your job more efficient? Sorry, you can't use that. It is not in your contract. And for that matter, doing things more efficiently means that there is less work to go around! Got to save jobs, by creating useless work! Don't work too hard. You are making everyone else look bad! The contract says that we are only supposed to solve 1 bug a day. You'd have to get some sort of union sponsored certification/significant barriers to entry, Because the union does not care about NEW workers. They want to keep them out so that they don't compete on wages with them. No more being a self taught engineer! No more switching to a different part of tech. You need a certification for that. Collective bargaining means that you won't be able to negotiate on an individual basis. No matter how good at negotiating you are or if you could get 2-3X the pay, or if you think the union contract sucks. Don't like the union? Too bad! You are forced to join it. Fuck you, you free rider! It doesn't matter if you believe that the union provides significant negatives, is corrupt, is destroying your industry and you shouldn't exist. Free rider! Free rider! Free rider!

crdoconnor 9y ago
>Your pay would be pegged to seniority, not ability to contribute That's pretty much how it works now. I've never had a boss who was able to accurately (or even non-accurately) gauge my productivity and I'll bet that unless your job is mind-numbing, you haven't either. I've had bosses who have counted SLOC though and stupidly tried to use that to gauge my productivity. Unions usually agree to formalize the existing peg to seniority so that the company doesn't use pay/promotion structure as a means to punish active union members. >You wouldn't be allowed to do anything outside your extremely limited job description. That's someone else's job, don't take it away from them! I'm strangely ok with my bosses not firing my coworker and then dumping all his work on me, which has happened to me. >Find a good way to make your job more efficient? Sorry, you can't use that. It is not in your contract This idea makes no sense to me. Furthermore, at a lot of the companies I've worked at, middle managers haven't given a damn about efficiency and they often purposefully reduced it so that they could increase their headcount (read: their power). >Don't work too hard. Am I supposed to be terrified of a company that makes me go home at a reasonable hour rather than implicitly pressuring me to stay at work until 10pm every night? >The contract says that we are only supposed to solve 1 bug a day. No it doesn't. >You'd have to get some sort of union sponsored certification/significant barriers to entry, Because the union does not care about NEW workers. Which may help separate some of the wheat from the chaff as it does with doctors. Are you in favor of this type of thing or would you prefer it was prevented? http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer... >Collective bargaining means that you won't be able to negotiate on an individual basis. Yes, and that means higher pay overall. Divide and conquer isn't good for you as an individual. >No matter how good at negotiating you are Didn't you just say that you thought pay should be linked to your ability to contribute? Why now are you so keen on "ability to negotiate"? Are you morally opposed to seeing my equally skilled friends earn as much as me because they don't drive a bargain quite as hard as I do? >Don't like the union? Too bad! You are forced to join it. Fuck you, you free rider! So are you pro-free rider? You seem to be saying that individual agreements with the company are "good" but collective agreements with the company (which are used to eliminate said free riders) are "bad". Why are collective agreements intrinsically bad? >It doesn't matter if you believe that the union provides significant negatives It does, which is why unions are run on a democratic basis. On the other hand, did you vote for your boss? Thought not. Unions serve as the only really reliable check on corrupt corporate power running roughshod over workers. Sometimes they are corrupt. That does not mean that eliminating them will improve your situation. And, of course, if you really don't want to work for a unionized workplace you can go and work at a non-unionized workplace.