Discussion on:

Should IT be unionized?

In Canada, the teachers are all in unions (at least in the public sector). Belonging to "professional" organizations wouldn't have given them the high salaries, wonderful benefit packages and early retirements they enjoy today. All my university friends who went this route are retired now, while I am still toiling away in IT. I'm being told by my banker that I can retire in 6 years, as long as I don't live past 80.

The issue that I have with the teacher's unions is that even if they are not teaching students correctly they still have a job. Here's a for instance I asked my geometry where we would use Pythagorean theorem in the real world, she said that its something that is not used in the real world, builders use it all the time (rise/run of a roof)

I work in a local community college district (in the US). Our teachers are unionized. I do software support for faculty, and I've spoken with professors teaching IT/Computer Literacy courses who have never heard of clearing cache and cookies! THEY CAN BARELY MAKE THEIR WAY AROUND A DESKTOP!!
Unions, in general, are an idea who's time has passed. In a less enlightened era, where peoples employment choices were limited and employers regularly exploited their employees, unions were a neccessity. Nowadays, with all of the government regulations, OSHA, and numerous other employee protections in place, unions are no longer needed in most cases.

Just MHO...

Corporations in the US still continue to exploit employees on a day to day basis, and IT contractors get some of the worst treatment .

Yes, some executives abuse employees, and all union thugs abuse workers. Adding layers of crooks has done nothing to defend us from crooks, nor to reduce the numbers of crooks, nor to reduce the degree or extent of their abuses.

Yes, STEM workers are often required to work over-time that not only is not compensated at 1.5 times the regular rate, but is not compensated at all. We're also discouraged from strict recording of actual time worked. Time for cycles of experimentation to work out new ways to do things are commonly not factored into plans and dead-lines, though everyone is aware that they are needed.

"Exploit" is a neutral term -- neither positive nor negative. I exploited a microwave this morning. I exploited a cup, and exploited a spoon. I exploited another member of the household to keep the cat busy while I tended to the pet rabbits, and others exploited me for getting the cable TV working again and getting it set up the way they wanted. No human or animal or tableware or appliances were abused.

I think you're unclear on how unions work. Unions are among the most democratic (small D, please note) institutions they are. The people in the union vote for the stewards, for the officers. They contracts are voted on by the workers themselves, not imposed from above. No "thugs" involved, except when you listen to Fox Noise. Which, may explain why you are so unclear on what unions actually are.

STEM workers are not exempted from overtime laws. The people who are exempted are scientists who do creative work.

Those who work long but don't get overtime are actually robbing themselves of their wages. The basic overtime law is that hours in excess of 40 hours per week are compensated at 1.5 rate, or there needs to be some kind of comp time arrangement. Employers are entitled to require workers to request overtime before working overtime.

There was an attempt to reclassify programmers as creative workers, but that didn't fly. There is a compromise law that says well paid programmers (don't know the exact amount, but it's probably 6 figures) are exempt. If you're not highly paid, then you are supposed to request permission to go over 40 hours, and get paid 1.5 time.

An IT union would demand stricter adherence to the law.

People's employment choices are still limited. Around here, there are usually only one or two large employers (if that many) within a reasonable driving distance.

Reasonable is subjective, but for me, where I live now, it's a 25-mile radius. If I lived closer to, or in, a city, it might be 10 miles.

When was the last time you saw someone file an OSHA claim or demand that overtime laws for IT workers be honored? I didn't know it - that there are OSHA laws about noise, and that a typical data center is in violation of these laws. My colocation facility was in violation for years. How many sysadmins there had their hearing damaged because of inadequate facilities that would have mitigated the noise?

and not the teacher's union.

Why should anyone rick change if a union protects the status quo?

to teach teachers exactly how their subjects apply in the real world? Wouldn't it be better if they knew? That way they wouldn't lose half their students by saying "I don't know when you would use it, but you'll need it."

The current status quo is "accountability" as measured by standardized tests, which, you may remember, were opposed by the teacher's unions because they would not be effective measures of student achievement. Now the same twits who forced the tests down the throats of the teachers and students are surprised that teachers started teaching to the tests the minute they found out they were going to be evaluated on the results. Not only do the "accountability" crowd not understand human nature, they apparently wouldn't have the sense to roll downhill if they were rocks.

I agree completely with the idea of run your career like a corporation. I do not believe unions would help. In reality they seem to promote "averageness" and make management / worker relations worse. For those who want to excel, the union will not help.

Exactly. Unions always impart an us-against-them mentality with the employees. I can't think of a worse poison infecting an organization.

...utopia where the management have never thought about displacing you or your peers.

Unions ruined the auto industry and caused car prices to skyrocket. Unions, along with the DOE, ruined our education system. If they forced this on every IT shop, no telling what the costs of IT would be to an organization, and us consumers would pay the price. In addition, I would not to be forced to pay union dues to would get filtered to a political party that I don't support. This would kill the professionalism of IT.

...4.50 a gallon usd...

This line of thinking is not logical

Its $8.30 per gallon where I live, and a base model VW Golf costs $110k. It also costs $70k just to get a permit to own a car for 10 years.

...Europe...because they work when ran smartly

would recommend a crooked union.
I don't know if the US has non-crooked unions, though.

has been a crook-magnet since its inception. I say, "shame on crooks"; not "shame on pension funds".

Who else can 'downvote-and-run' a comment that blames crime instead of its target?!

Damn pensions, funding those old people with their loud rock'n'roll music! Let's cut the bottom out of their pension funds so they'll have to get jobs!!! Let's hear them party after doing paper routes all night!!!

1a. Inflation and the cost of living caused prices to go up. It was an upward spiral and now we have a downward spiral, as adumbrated in 1b below:

1b.Managers now take advantage of this by exploiting other countries. Do note that the only jobs not being offshored here are managerial type jobs.

1c. When our workers keep losing jobs, or pay cuts, who will buy this stuff? People making 50 cents an hour?

1d. We're told these nations are making middle classes, so if 50 cents/hr works for them, why isn't it working for us and - if prices for products went down to match those countries', who loses in the end? That's right, the same management that left this country to begin with. (See another point below, they got taxpayer-funded help in the gutting of this nation, and both reasons helped in part to create the national debt and trade deficit we currently enjoy today.)

2. US customers (note the difference in title) will pay time and again because a company has no sense of ethics. They would rather say "you're holding it wrong" than to admit what they were told by engineers before releasing the product that it was poorly made and should have gone to the drawing board instead, at the cost of the company since the company screwed up. I could be here all day citing dozens or hundreds of points where the customer had to pay the difference so a company and its lazy shareholder investors wouldn't lose out because the company screwed up

3. Why does any political party deserve support, especially how they gave taxpayer money to companies that offshored in the first place (www.ontheissues.org has a few things, and they're hardly partisan)

but you are probably still living in your parent's basement and are part of the "occupy something" movement, right?

A) it's a process of continual learning, so you either can be reinvigorated by the changes over time or completely burned out by trying to keep up with the pace. I've actually experience both, and the burn out seems to linger longer now that I'm getting up in age.

B) I would love to get my hands on all that OT I put in over the past 25 years, but since IT staffers are typcially salary we don't get OT. The flip side is that we typically have higher salaries BECAUSE we have skills and do get spot bonuses and annual performance bonuses if we work for firms that offer these.

Mkogrady, you are correct on both counts. I believe that most people in a technical field are there because they like what they do and as such keep up with technology. I have not met an engineer which is not an avid learner yet. I recall when corporations had co-up programs and sent employees back to school to learn more and especially if the job required it such as aerospace and defense industry.
As far as the overtime, the problem is that 99.9% of professional people do not know anything about ???Labor Law??? and believe that just because they are ???salary employees??? they are not subject to get paid for over-time. So you know the so called salary employee is also subject to ???Labor Law??? and there are rules which must be met to determine if the person should get paid on an hourly basis or not even being a ???salary (Non-exempt) employee??? and hence get over-time pay. What you talk about is seen a lot in the IT industry, employees not being paid for the extra hours worked. As it is, lots of companies have been sued because of that misconception and guess what? They lost the litigation and had to pay the employee the over-time they had coming to them. Look into the Federal and State Labor Law and especially for California which is more stringent than the Federal Law.

More "one-size fits all" nonsense. If I was an IT worker in state government, in a dead-red state, with a maniacal governor, such as Wisconsin or Maine, I would sleep much better with a union representing me... hence Wisconsin's action to illegalize public worker unions and Maine has seen several lawsuits against the state for negotiating in bad faith. You know unions are needed when they get outlawed.

First point, did he work on run activities, or project activities? Projects will always have a stint where one has to work stupid hours to get things done by a pre-determined date. This is usually compensated for the times when the project is slow, so one can "skive" at bit.

If it is truly run we're talking about, then perhaps those early years of long hours might teach newbies how to negotiate pay and/or hours better, ie does one get exploited, or does one let one get exploited? (which in fairness to the author, he raises that point and suggests strategies to deal with it).

The place I work at is probably the best IT job I've ever had. Unionizing it would kill it.. and piss me off too.. lol.. I would walk out if that ever happened.

...displace you then that's it.

Sue them cause displacement in the US is illegal? Nope, can't do that either...

When someone else decides what your pay is, and even whether or not you stay in your job, you're a wage slave and subject to loosing your livelyhood at the whim of your boss. This can apply to unionized workers, also.

Control your own income - CONTROL YOUR DESTINY!

That is part of the Union system if there is a strong union in an industry, then more companies will provide better work environments to the employees so they will not vote to join the Union. Good shops will not go Union, bad shops will and we will have a better baseline. It is not about the best IT jobs they will stay the same, it is about the shops, mostly large ones the use contract labor more than direct hires in order to not deliver benefits.

And Boeing is moving to NC?

Of course I know why, don't have to pay for bennies, moving back to slave labor wages, if that's you thing than by all means jump on it.

We would be better off

Increase the price of something and people buy less of it. Unionize IT and it'll cost business more. As a result they'll buy less of it.

I suppose if we want to bolster Indian economics we could seriously consider unionization...

Pass.

...of thinking people persist here regarding unions is not logical given the facts

You want a union, convince your fellow workers of the unions merits, that is how they get formed.

If your fellow workers disagree, then you should look elsewhere for employment, since you are the 'displeased/mistreated' worker?

Yah, your right, we need to better ???compete??? with the slave labor markets in China and India. 24/7 at a 1.50 an hour.
Sound like fun?? You go first- Make mine union!

And maybe they should experience what you are posting.

Then things might be different.

Unions are a necessary evil. They are not perfect, but neither are the corporations whose actions led to the creation of unions in the first place...

Unions are run by the workers, IT workers can have a union that works for IT.

Some workers' unions seem like they are there to help workers not work, that's true.
But the professionals' unions are all there to help professionals work. There are even unions for managers, because managers sometimes need help clearing obstacles to their work too.
Unions can also be storehouses for know-how on how to use a certain type of employee to proven effect, if for example IT pros feel that they're being used wrong, to the detriment of their work efficiency, then these are things a union might be able to address. They can also help people waste less time on wage negotiations that turn sour because management don't really know what their employees are worth, or what the job is worth to the employees.

But it requires that the members want it, and work to have it.