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Microsoft Bug Testers Unionized, Then They Were Dismissed
- erentz 8y agoAnother example of how Medicare for All would help business. Just remove healthcare as an employee benefit entirely.
- jamroom 8y agoNot sure why you're getting down voted - tying health care to employment is a burden on both companies (at least small ones) and workers.
- noobermin 8y agoI'm sympathetic but I'm not sure how it's related.
- coltonv 8y agoProbably because he didn't make it clear that the reason he brought up Medicare for All was because the whole reason contractors are so prevalent is so you don't have to pay for healthcare for them, effectively separating your workers into two classes. Medicare for All would be beneficial in this example as it would totally remove the burden on company to provide a healthcare plan. Without that crucial context, it sounds like he's just randomly bringing up hot-button political issues.
- colechristensen 8y agoIn countries with socialized medicine already, how many people are covered by private health insurance and is it paid for by the employer? The answers are "lots" and "mostly"
- keithnz 8y agoI'm in NZ, it's not too common. There is private health insurance, but it mainly is for extra beyond what the state provides and to short circuit wait lists for certain elective medical procedures. It's also pretty cheap, a few companies will pay for it, mostly employees get a discount through their work places. Most small small businesses wouldn't offer it at all. According to stats around 35% of NZ adults ( from 2015 ) have private insurace.
- WaylonKenning 8y agoMy private health insurance in NZ costs $1650 USD a year, including dental and optical, and nearly unlimited hospital care. On earnings of $~100K USD, you'd pay $26.5K USD in income tax, $1.2K in compulsory accident insurance, for a total tax rate of 28.12% (https://www.paye.net.nz/calculator.html https://www.paye.net.nz/calculator.html).
- ejstronge 8y ago> In countries with socialized medicine already, how many people are covered by private health insurance and is it paid for by the employer? > The answers are "lots" and "mostly" I would appreciate citations for this statement. As it is here, I suspect the 'lots' actually are a wealthier subset of the overall population; indeed, I imagine the subset of employer-paid insurance beneficiaries is smaller in most other countries. If you'd like to read more about this topic, NEJM has published a series on the healthcare systems of many countries[1]. 1. See 'Related Articles' here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1413937 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1413937
- chongli 8y agoThe difference is that it's a perk, not a necessity. If you get diagnosed with cancer and then subsequently fired, you don't have to remortgage your home (if you have one) in order to pay for your treatment.
- walshemj 8y agoYeh but its shit (in the UK) from experience I had a major operation and having Bupa gave me zero benefits. All it means is you have a" benefit" that is supposedly worth "800 quid) costs you 400 in tax I would rather have had an extra £800 in my pension. Its interesting my current employer does not do private health for this reason.
- robocat 8y agoI would like to see some facts back that up. Perhaps for the richest quartile, but surely not the poorest quartile... The point of socialised healthcare is to provide some cover to the otherwise least fortunate in your society.
- flukus 8y agoIn Australia it's ~50% and I've never heard of anyone getting it paid by the employer, it's an alien concept. Even that 50% is with the government abusing the tax system to force people to take out basic private insurance.
- Tehdasi 8y agoMy company does actually give a subsidy to health care, so it's not a totally alien concept in Australia. But it's pretty rare.
- maxxxxx 8y ago"The answers are "lots" and "mostly" Where would that be? Name examples. In Germany you certainly don't get it paid by the employer.
- colechristensen 8y agoCountries with socialized medicine still have jobs with private health insurance benefits. The publicly funded health care ends up being mediocre for some reason or another. For example, about 60% of Canadians are covered by some form of private health insurance.
- ryneandal 8y agoIf it's anything like France, the private insurance hooks you up with "perks" compared to basic, or even shared room care. Edit: Found what is covered by private insurance in Canada: >About 27.6% of Canadians' healthcare is paid for through the private sector. This mostly goes towards services not covered or partially covered by Medicare, such as prescription drugs, dentistry and optometry. Some 75% of Canadians have some form of supplementary private health insurance; many of them receive it through their employers.
- 0x4f3759df 8y agoI've heard that the UK does this as well, still get insurance from work because the free one is terrible.
- unreal37 8y agoNo, that's not how it works. The free one is all you have. The insurance from work covers drugs, massages, eyeglasses and dentistry.
- walshemj 8y agoNot in my experience the UK isn't like the European ones where they are dual funded from general taxation and compulsory employer and employee contribs.
- tialaramex 8y agoYou can, I had BUPA for a while earlier in my life. IMNSHO It's basically just a waste of money unless you really care about aesthetics. I put up with it because my mother insisted, she worries. With a public system right there, it makes no sense for private providers to waste a penny on anything that doesn't generate profit. So e.g. if you have an emergency while you're physically at a private hospital, they will almost certainly phone for an NHS ambulance, because the NHS does emergencies and they don't. Heart attack? Not their problem. Broken arm? Not them. Car accident? Nope. Those can all go to the NHS. But if you need a routine or even cosmetic minor operation, they're happy to take your money and offer you a slightly nicer experience, air-conditioned room with fresh flowers, branded products instead of whatever was cheapest for the NHS to source, that sort of thing. Some of the private schemes are literally insurance. So you get the exact same NHS treatments as everybody else, but your insurance means e.g. you get a $50 cheque for the inconvenience of seeing a doctor to treat that nasty infection, that sort of thing. This is a bit trickier for them to implement since obviously the NHS doesn't want its doctors doing paperwork for some insurance company on tax payer time, and the insurer isn't keen to pay a doctor's hourly rate to fill out a form saying "Yup, your customer had a nasty infection, I prescribed ointment". But if you really wish you got a cheque every time you spent time in a doctor's waiting room I guess it's an option.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago> Another example of how Medicare for All would help business. Just remove healthcare as an employee benefit entirely. The problem there is that the existing Medicare system is predicated on paying less for the same things than private insurance and then letting high private insurance premiums subsidize the Medicare system. Which obviously doesn't work when everyone is on Medicare, so the cost per Medicare patient would go up at the same time as you're adding hundreds of millions of people to it. So the Medicare tax would have to increase dramatically, but the Medicare tax is pretty regressive. Meanwhile a lot of companies would then get away with discontinuing their private insurance coverage without increasing employee compensation by the same amount. So you're basically talking about a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to corporations. We should probably look into some other method of dismantling the employer-provided healthcare system. Maybe something that involves primarily catastrophic coverage as a baseline.
- jedberg 8y agoPresumably we would still have private insurance, just like Medicare patients have private insurance now. You'd use your private insurance to do things like skip ahead in line or not see your primary care provider first or getting drugs that aren't on medicare's schedule. We would also presumably still have doctors who don't take Medicare and can charge whatever they want, and then you'd want private insurance to see those doctors, who presumably would be the best doctors, and the ones that could get away with such things.
- AnthonyMouse 8y agoYou can't get the same amount of cross-subsidy out of that because nobody is going to want to pay a ~20% Medicare tax plus $5000/year for $1000 value in supplemental insurance with $4000 in cross-subsidy.
- Tyrek 8y agoI'm not sure that's how Medicare is 'predicated' - the fundamental assumption is that you get to a) reduce administrative overhead due to a centralized system, and b) using the power of a single-payer system to negotiate lower fees - it's reducing the profit margin of private insurers, not relying on them to subsidize Medicare.
- zdragnar 8y agoWe actually have employer sponsored health insurance because of unions, and the effect that has had on the insurance market is part of why insurance on the individual market is so dang expensive. Not entirely, as it's expensive no matter how you get it, but it is a factor. Heck, the Affordable Care Act ruined a lot of insurance policies held by union members because they covered too much. My best friend's employer was stuck with the Faustian choice of massive increases to employee contributions, paying massive penalties to the government, or renegotiating for shittier coverage.
- kiliantics 8y agoA good set of strong unions could make that a reality
- infocollector 8y agowow! Can't they sue Microsoft and get reinstated? Perhaps using courts?
- LeoPanthera 8y agoIt is important to read the article before you react to the headline.
- justboxing 8y ago> Can't they sue Microsoft and get reinstated? Please stop with this. The last time temp workers sued (and won) [1] the rippling effect it has had on 100s and 1000s of contractors since then, is that companies (in Silicon Valley and Bay area atleast) no longer employ contractors for more than 18 months at a time. And due to this a lot of contractors since 1998 have had to leave lucrative contracts at software companies, because the companies that hired them specifically put this max limit after this lawsuit to shield themselves from such a law suit. Personally, I've had to leave 3 separate contracts since 2006 in San Francisco, solely because the clients had this policy of not hiring temp workers/ contractors for more than 18 months, so as to avoid any lawsuit from temp workers suing for employee benefits. [1] Source: [2000] Microsoft to Pay $97 Million to End Temp Worker Suit http://articles.latimes.com/2000/dec/13/business/fi-64817 http://articles.latimes.com/2000/dec/13/business/fi-64817
- IanDrake 8y agoDitto. I make much more as a contractor than any FTEs I’ve worked with. This has bitten me a few times.
- mjevans 8y agoThe best fix for this is to eliminate the "benefits" corporations see by hiring temps/part time over just hiring for a full time job. If a job is really a partial job require pro-rated benefits (and favor the worker slightly so that it encourages just having full-time jobs). That might also encourage businesses/the rich to put their political pressure towards socializing those costs instead of outsourcing them to individual (temp/part time) employees.
- sushid 8y agoI realize that it's the article's title, but this seems misleading. The bug testers were contractors working under the temp agency Lionbridge Technologies Inc. After they won their right to unionize, they were eventually laid off because Microsoft required fewer bug testers for their dwindling Windows Mobile app store and their agency, Lionbridge, couldn't find additional work for them.
- noobermin 8y agoIt seems convenient and frustrating, but it did seem like Lionbridge specifically targeted them for laying off.
- dsr_ 8y agoThat is the political line from Lionbridge and Microsoft. Do you think there's something special about QA for Windows Mobile that makes them unhireable for other QA jobs?
- scarface74 8y agoIf Microsoft’s review process is anything like Apple’s for apps, I would assume it’s a lot different from testing internal Microsoft products.
- jacquesm 8y agoSo then you retrain your workforce in order to keep them employed.
- EpicEng 8y agoIt's not their workforce
- dsr_ 8y agoIt looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck being held off at a distance by an intermediate party whose sole purpose is to let Microsoft have all the benefits of full time employees without the protections that we award to full time employees.
- dsr_ 8y ago"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" -- attributed to Mao. The union expected to be dealt with fairly and according to the law; the law failed them, because the mechanisms of the law were controlled by politics and Microsoft has political power; the union did not.
- walshemj 8y agoI think Cornett Joyce predates that :-) when arresting Charles I the king asked on what authority he stepped to one side and pointed to the men with guns behind him.
- Sag0Sag0 8y agoI'm not sure why this is being down voted, it's true.
- ntsplnkv2 8y agoPeople are not quite at the point of revolt. If the path we are currently on continues, though, it will happen. It's only a matter of when.
- CydeWeys 8y agoA similar thing happened to SWEs at Lanetix. I was coworkers with several of them at my previous job. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/SF-tech-company-fired-software-engineers-seeking-12541301.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/SF-tech-company... Fortunately I've never worked anywhere that had conditions so bad that organizing was worth thinking about, but I won't rule it out as a possibility in the future.
- noobermin 8y agoAs a lesson for people who want to unionize, this is why larger is better when it comes to unions.
- zdragnar 8y agoUnless you live in MN, where they push tthrough legislation so they can take medicare money from disabled people. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattpatterson/2017/10/02/in-minnesota-historic-revolt-against-the-seiu/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattpatterson/2017/10/02/in-min...
- acd 8y agoBig company A wants to pay less for a general service, Large company A outsources the service to smaller company B. Smaller company B in order to make the service cheaper than Company A could do it themselves, company B cuts on things like pay, vacation and social benefits. There is no work safety in company B and everything is by demand "contract" work. In fact employees of company B is often self employees. This is usually how it goes around and in globalization it is there is often someone willing to the work cheaper but with no health care, pensions etc.
- devhead 8y agoShould tech workers unionize?
- sremani 8y agoTech workers are a global force! Instead of unionizing you would do better by getting security clearance and become a fed contract worker. That is the closest thing to building a worker moat, I know of.
- kiliantics 8y agoThe purpose of a union is to pool the power of all the workers together and use that combined power to achieve things which the individuals themselves never could alone. Really big things. Like, we have weekends, maternity leave, and OSHA thanks to unions big. Tech workers are indeed a global force and in a world that increasingly requires global solutions - think climate change, migration crises, etc. - a union that leverages the power of all tech workers would be really useful right about now.
- walshemj 8y agoYes why not? many well paid professions do even in the USA.
- exabrial 8y agoWere the bug testers working in conditions where said testers were in physical or psychiatric danger from job hazards? If not, I don't really see an issue with this.
- alokitr 8y agoJust as an fyi, there are countries where companies like lionsbridge are not even allowed to exist. e.g. France.
- brightball 8y agoCheck on the number of companies that exist in France with 49 employees.
- cpeterso 8y agoThought experiment: what if the US government limited companies to a maximum number of employees, say 5000? There would be new inefficiencies, but it might decrease the possibility or impact of monopolies and encourage competition. There would be a lot more specialized contractor companies. How much of, say, Google's search service or Microsoft Windows could be maintained or developed with just 5000 people?
- xeromal 8y agoThere would be 5000 car manufacturers
- true_religion 8y agoWe would end up with massive conglomerates who owned 500+ companies of 4999 people, and if that didn't work you'd just get simple collusion where everyone knows company A and B are owned by the same person so they try to cooperate even without being explicitly ordered to.
- wgerard 8y agoIt would likely just encourage convoluted corporate structures that would function more-or-less equivalently to the ones we have today.
- jedberg 8y agoCanada too.
- 8y ago
- kitanata 8y agoHonestly, I think we should just unionize everyone in the tech field. A single Union that handles and accepts all software developers, IT operations folks, software testers, etc and we protect our own and lobby for the laws to benefit us and our profession. The things these companies do to get around basic worker rights is deplorable and we need to organize and fight back, and befor you say you make a ton of money and love what you do so why unionize, ask yourself how many hours you worked overtime and didn’t get paid for it. Ask yourself how many times you’ve seen a colleague let go because they had some medical troubles. Ask yourself how many times a colleague on a visa told you they felt trapped. Ask yourself how many times you’ve heard of a colleague get fucked out of their vacation due to a critical issue. Ask yourself how much power you have to effect change when it comes to just general process and how we go about our day to day. Ask yourself how many times you’ve felt you’ve been asked to do something that was unethical and didn’t want to risk the financial implications and consequences of saying “No”. We need a union. Call it whatever you want, a guild, a bar, a union. Whatever. The point is, it’s time to organize and it’s time to start fighting back.
- throwaway080383 8y agoI'm sure this is not true for everyone reading this, but for me the answer to all those questions is zero times.
- phillc73 8y agoNonetheless, if such a Tech Workers Union existed, joining as an act of solidarity would benefit all fellow members and offer you a level of protection to insure you never experienced any of the aforementioned scenarios.
- eiieirurjdndjd 8y agoNot interested, personally. I can only picture being made worse off by being in a union. Fortunately, it’s insanely difficult to get well-paid ambitious people to join a union, so there is little danger I’ll come closer to experiencing a tech workers union than reading about the idea in impractical internet comments.
- leke 8y agoI used to work for LionBridge. They did have quite a few full time positions when Nokia was flourishing, but when things started to go south with Nokia, they put pressure on LionBridge to cut their costs, else lose their business contract. When Microsoft took over Nokia, nothing changed for the better. People who were forced out of their full-time jobs didn't get them back, and the people who had permanent zero hour contracts kept the same deal. This is when I left (because I was only getting a couple of days work a month). I feel bad for LB because it was Nokia and MS that turned the screws, even though I think they had the funds to support LB's employees. I also have no idea why LB couldn't then get the reason Nokia and MS lost their product support, ie. the Android vendors' business contracts.
- r00fus 8y agoI had to look up what a zero-hour contract is [1]. Seriously sounds like a setup ripe for worker abuse - I mean, yes, according to the standard zero hour contract, both employer and employee can decline work offered/accepted, but who do you think has power in this relationship? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-hour_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-hour_contract
- leke 8y ago> according to the standard zero hour contract, both employer and employee can decline work offered/accepted, but who do you think has power in this relationship? In my particular case, I was still eligible to unemployment subsidy, if my monthly earnings were lower than that of unemployment benefit, but it came with a condition. Even though I was allowed to decline offered work, I would forfeit my unemployment subsidy for three months each time I declined it. This of course was a condition of the unemployment office, not the company, but the company knew about it, so yes, the company indeed had power over those who needed at least the minimum living allowance. We actually had a homeless guy working there for a while, until they found out he was homeless.
- randyrand 8y agowhat’s the difference between a union and a bunch of small 1 person companies all deciding to price fix?
- chimeracoder 8y ago> what’s the difference between a union and a bunch of small 1 person companies all deciding to price fix? Is this a riddle? The answer: Both were outlawed by antitrust laws, but labor unions later lobbied to except one (but not the other).
- RachelF 8y agoI guess this would explain the low quality of Windows updates recently. Almost every patch Tuesday we patch, and then something that should have been caught by Microsoft QA breaks. The increasingly low quality of Microsoft products makes it hard to use in the enterprise.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoIf these people can form a union, what's to stop them from forming their own agency and finding clients? Software testing isn't exactly a capital-intensive business.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- torgian 8y agoHuh. Article cant be found now?
- torgian 8y agoArticle can't be found now?
- Apocryphon 8y agoCould we at least agree that tech workers in the video game industry should be unionized? The anti-union detractors always talk about how cushy engineers have it and that unions are unnecessary. Well how about the notoriously horrendous working conditions in games?
- throw2016 8y agoThere is a general lack of empathy for these workers and even for those who get laid off due to globalization and now under a opioid/meth epidemic. Free market proponents always talk about 'retraining' and other up in the air initiatives but there is no follow up or details about how these will actually work in the real world with some base accountability, processes and studies about how well they worked in the past. And yet all these trade deals without exception have claw backs and multiple processes protecting their investments and profits. In this case all the details are covered carefully and it is not left 'up in the air'. There are no easy answers here as opinions will shift depending on which side of the equation you or someone you care about finds themselves in. This is really about the kind of society and community you want to build and how you see yourself as a country.
- mg794613 8y ago"... gave up on what had been, for people in the software world, an almost unheard of unionization victory" The 'software world' is not just America, thank you. Almost every other civilized country thinks this is normal.
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