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Unions could be mis-used that way. Like anything, they could also be misused in any way. The point of a Union is to protect employees from employers period. It

Unions could be mis-used that way. Like anything, they could also be misused in any way. The point of a Union is to protect employees from employers period. It is not to limit their own membership by restricting entry into a field nor to be a front for the mob nor to eat babies. Licensure is also a good idea. Of course no legislature will ever pass it nor any company ever honor it with out the clout of very large tech worker organization. More practical but less honorable would be an organization that fiercely funds large numbers of tech worker lobbyist since that is the only way the system actually works now. Also, since much of their lobbing would align with tech company interests, it would not be crushed with the same zeal.

icebraining 12y ago
Unions could be mis-used that way. Like anything, they could also be misused in any way. The point of a Union is to protect employees from employers period. It is not to limit their own membership by restricting entry into a field nor to be a front for the mob nor to eat babies. When you're in a country where you have to get a license to braid hair, design interiors or manicure, you can't dismiss it as some exception that can be ignored. Licensure is also a good idea. Sure, if you're already in the industry, it's great. Lots of money to be made by keeping out those who can't afford to jump through the hoops. It's not like poor people really deserve to be programmers anyway.
- whybroke 12y ago
  Is the job of braiding hair only for rich people in your country? Should your argument apply to doctors too? No restrictions on entering because people who don't go to med school will be locked out? But do come over to the US, you can work as a serf under H1B, have no protections and many legal restrictions, accumulate no pension and be fired on your 35th birthday. But you will love the fact the manicurist don't have to have to fill out any paperwork.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    In my country? No, I'm talking about the US: it cost a tuition of $16000 and two years to braid hair in Utah. In my left-wing European country we can braid hair without a license, thankfully, especially for the (mainly) African immigrants who find a job that way. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-illegal-to-braid-hair-without-a-license http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-...
    - whybroke 12y ago
      Utah is an extreme right wing theocracy. Whatever happens in Utah is most certainly _not_ the work of unions.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        You should note I never mentioned "unions" once in my posts. I wrote about professional associations and licensure. But licensure is licensure. The effects are not any less harmful because the people pushing for it are good unionists and not evil right-wingers. Besides, This isn’t just a random Utah law. There are more than 1,000 licensed professions in the United States, partly a result of more than a century of legal work. As the country industrialized, state governments wanted to protect their citizens and create standards not just for lawyers and doctors but also for basic services. It didn’t take long for professional groups to find that they also stood to benefit from the regulations. Over the years, more and more started to lobby for licensing rules, often grandfathering in existing professionals while putting up high barriers to new competitors. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/so-you-think-you-can-be-a-hair-braider.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all& http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/so-you-think-you-...
        whybroke 12y ago
        Your link is based on the "findings" of a libertarian law-firm and lists the 10 most inappropriate licensees. These include: Preschool teacher, Optician, Midwife, Veterinarian Technologist. Even these "worst" cases have miniscule license fees and minimal competence requirement. So small they in no way keep out competent people however poor: if you can afford a cheap TV then you can afford to be a Midwife. And the idea that a Midwife should have absolutely no experience or that the preschool Teacher have zero background or your Optician have no education what so ever is pretty nearly crazy. The only reason to get rid of it is so large companies could emerge to replace your midwife with a minimum wage incompetent. True, maybe there should not any be requirements for hair braiding. This hardly means all licensing is a bad idea. To stretch one wild story about Utah hair braiding into "all professional associations are bad" takes more imagination than I have. Eliminating all licensing across the board is shear libertarian crackpot-ism.
dbingham 12y ago
I think a much better way to protect employees would be some form of enforced employee ownership. Stay somewhere for 3 - 5 years? Great! You get voting shares of stock and a voice in how the company is run. We don't see this very much, but people don't really demand it either. If people started striking for ownership instead of salary and benefit increases, I'd bet that'd change.
- danudey 12y ago
  I highly doubt that would be at all practical. You're basically suggesting that if you hire someone and they stay past a certain time, they will own part of your company forever. This removes the agency that owners have over their own businesses, and makes it so that no one would want to keep employees longer than 3-5 years (or whatever the threshold would be), resulting in guaranteed turnover.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    It also gradually removes the barriers between workers and capital in a positively Jeffersonian way. Owners who weren't comfortable with that could, of course, fire people every 3-5 years, but firing and hiring isn't free either. I've always thought that it might be an ideal solution to wage capitalism to force owners to sell equity to their employees at some predictable rate.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  Pfft, there are so many restrictions on stock usage such as proxy agreements to the CEO, founder stock with 10x voting rights and so on that it might as well be useless for that.

icebraining 12y ago

Unions could be mis-used that way. Like anything, they could also be misused in any way. The point of a Union is to protect employees from employers period. It is not to limit their own membership by restricting entry into a field nor to be a front for the mob nor to eat babies. When you're in a country where you have to get a license to braid hair, design interiors or manicure, you can't dismiss it as some exception that can be ignored. Licensure is also a good idea. Sure, if you're already in the industry, it's great. Lots of money to be made by keeping out those who can't afford to jump through the hoops. It's not like poor people really deserve to be programmers anyway.

whybroke 12y ago
Is the job of braiding hair only for rich people in your country? Should your argument apply to doctors too? No restrictions on entering because people who don't go to med school will be locked out? But do come over to the US, you can work as a serf under H1B, have no protections and many legal restrictions, accumulate no pension and be fired on your 35th birthday. But you will love the fact the manicurist don't have to have to fill out any paperwork.
- icebraining 12y ago
  In my country? No, I'm talking about the US: it cost a tuition of $16000 and two years to braid hair in Utah. In my left-wing European country we can braid hair without a license, thankfully, especially for the (mainly) African immigrants who find a job that way. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-illegal-to-braid-hair-without-a-license http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/21/154826233/why-its-...
  - whybroke 12y ago
    Utah is an extreme right wing theocracy. Whatever happens in Utah is most certainly _not_ the work of unions.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      You should note I never mentioned "unions" once in my posts. I wrote about professional associations and licensure. But licensure is licensure. The effects are not any less harmful because the people pushing for it are good unionists and not evil right-wingers. Besides, This isn’t just a random Utah law. There are more than 1,000 licensed professions in the United States, partly a result of more than a century of legal work. As the country industrialized, state governments wanted to protect their citizens and create standards not just for lawyers and doctors but also for basic services. It didn’t take long for professional groups to find that they also stood to benefit from the regulations. Over the years, more and more started to lobby for licensing rules, often grandfathering in existing professionals while putting up high barriers to new competitors. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/so-you-think-you-can-be-a-hair-braider.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all& http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/so-you-think-you-...
      - whybroke 12y ago
        Your link is based on the "findings" of a libertarian law-firm and lists the 10 most inappropriate licensees. These include: Preschool teacher, Optician, Midwife, Veterinarian Technologist. Even these "worst" cases have miniscule license fees and minimal competence requirement. So small they in no way keep out competent people however poor: if you can afford a cheap TV then you can afford to be a Midwife. And the idea that a Midwife should have absolutely no experience or that the preschool Teacher have zero background or your Optician have no education what so ever is pretty nearly crazy. The only reason to get rid of it is so large companies could emerge to replace your midwife with a minimum wage incompetent. True, maybe there should not any be requirements for hair braiding. This hardly means all licensing is a bad idea. To stretch one wild story about Utah hair braiding into "all professional associations are bad" takes more imagination than I have. Eliminating all licensing across the board is shear libertarian crackpot-ism.

dbingham 12y ago

I think a much better way to protect employees would be some form of enforced employee ownership. Stay somewhere for 3 - 5 years? Great! You get voting shares of stock and a voice in how the company is run. We don't see this very much, but people don't really demand it either. If people started striking for ownership instead of salary and benefit increases, I'd bet that'd change.

danudey 12y ago
I highly doubt that would be at all practical. You're basically suggesting that if you hire someone and they stay past a certain time, they will own part of your company forever. This removes the agency that owners have over their own businesses, and makes it so that no one would want to keep employees longer than 3-5 years (or whatever the threshold would be), resulting in guaranteed turnover.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  It also gradually removes the barriers between workers and capital in a positively Jeffersonian way. Owners who weren't comfortable with that could, of course, fire people every 3-5 years, but firing and hiring isn't free either. I've always thought that it might be an ideal solution to wage capitalism to force owners to sell equity to their employees at some predictable rate.
mahyarm 12y ago
Pfft, there are so many restrictions on stock usage such as proxy agreements to the CEO, founder stock with 10x voting rights and so on that it might as well be useless for that.