5 ms·

Should IT unionize?

• andreyf 18y ago
  No.
• tomjen 18y ago
  So the idiots can leech of me? Fuck that.
• enki 18y ago
  god no!
• tjic 18y ago
  Cartlization / collusion of labor makes sense when the differential between the best and worst performers is relatively small. The best coal miner might swing his pick 50% or 75% faster than the worst. The best janitor might do a 40% better job of emptying trash cans. Given that it's the conventional wisdom around here that some engineers are 10x as productive as others, why would any good techie want to join a union? If one ever did form (and this is far from the first call for it, and they've never come anywhere close to success), you're going to get adverse selection - only the weakest techies (those who worry that they can't cut the mustard and will be fired without a union) will join. In that way, a union - if membership was optional - would be a great thing: it would let us identify the bottom 50% of the labor pool in seconds.
  • olefoo 18y ago
    Cartelisation also takes other forms, not just unions, but also professional organizations. The best doctor is 100s of times better than the worst (incalculably better since you may be avoiding catastrophic outcomes), and yet doctors have a professional cartel that regulates who can get in and what you have to know to be considered a doctor.
  • gaius 18y ago
    It's the same reason certification is often negatively correlated with practical ability.
  • gaius 18y ago
    Tho' having said that - isn't there a huge disparity in ability between Hollywood writers?
• danielrhodes 18y ago
  Unionizing would be like saying that programmers/IT is a commodity. I think we would all agree that this isn't the case.
  • turkishrevenge 18y ago
    If you produce labor for your employer and you are paid wages according to labor rendered, you are a commodity. Well, not "you" specifically, but the labor time you sell to the employer.
    • danielrhodes 18y ago
      Not entirely true. A commodity is basically saying that every unit (e.g. a programmer) is the same, in the same way that every piece of rice is the same or every steel worker is the same. With programmers there is a wide range of different skills and experiences which deserve different levels of pay. A union would be a good thing to have if there were not a lot of differences between them.
      • turkishrevenge 18y ago
        "A commodity is basically saying that every unit (e.g. a programmer) is the same, in the same way that every piece of rice is the same or every steel worker is the same." So what about, say a car. Some cars are affordable, some extremely expensive. They are all still commodities. Why then is there such a price disparity? Some cars are more complex, and thus require a greater degree of skill during construction. Others may be composed of exotic or rare materials, which take more manpower and a larger amount of capital to produce than a cheaper material. The same applies to IT. Some jobs in IT are relatively simple, such as a Help desk attendant, while others are more demanding in terms of knowledge and application. Each worker, though is paid in proportion to the degree of skill he/she exhibits. Your skill and ability to work for a wage, although unique to living individuals, is still a commodity, regardless of whether you want to consider it as such.
        • fharper1961 18y ago
• fharper1961 18y ago
  Unions in the US appear to be pretty screwed up. I see a union as a way of obtaining a balance of power between powerful corporations and individual employees. The reason US unions are bad are - you can't generally choose between competing unions - unions monopolize industries and/or professions In other first world countries you generally have a choice about which union you join and there aren't any jobs which require union membership. Unions can be useful to - have qualified people on your side in case of a problem with your employer - influence political decisions to protect and improve employees rights I'm pretty sure the lack of functioning unions is the reason the US is the only 1st world country that doesn't guarantee health care for it's workers, and that wages have stagnated over the last 35 years or so. Of course the system is so entrenched it seems very unlikely anything will change in the foreseeable future.
• gamble 18y ago
  Historically, the most successful 'unions' have been the professional medical, legal, and engineering associations, since they've been delegated the right under law to control the number of practitioners. For IT unionization to work, you'd need to persuade government to treat it as an engineering profession and require licensure. Personally, I think the window of opportunity to professionalize IT has long since closed.