Judging by the other replies so far my opinion will fall
in among the minority views. Nevertheless a discussion
in which everyone agrees isn't so much as discussion
as it is a mutual fan club. Hopefully my contribution
will add some flavor to this subject.
First I think it's important to point out that I am 46
years old and have been working in the IT support field
for 20 years. I had numerous jobs in other blue collar
positions prior to starting my IT career. Some of those
jobs involved joining a union. So I have direct
experience of the subject.
I believe that history clearly shows that unions are
necessary. Yes I said that they ARE necessary. Pure
capitalism inevitably leads to people becoming wage
slaves. The pressures of the job market do NOT assure
people a reasonable wage or civilised working
conditions. That said I'll now present my point.
I've worked in a number of unionised shops. In all
cases I found that the union had an overall negative
effect on the job experience. The relationship between
managers and union members was always hostile.
Managers and union members always played games
about what would and would not be done by any
individual. This "You can't make me./Yes I can."
attitude created an undercurrent of hatred that
permeated everything that you would do all day long.
Managers would think of unpleasant or pointless tasks
for union members to do. Union members would
always talk among themselves about retaliation of one
form or another. It didn't take long before I would hate
going to work spending the shift doing something that
I knew the next shift would undo or some other
pointless pass time.
Union contracts often have provisions which state that
malfeasant employees cannot be fired. Having this kind
of situation only demoralises the other people around
the bad person. There is no structural incentive to do a
good job. The productive employee is often chastised
by his/her peers for doing a full day's work. I have
often heard the expression "This isn't piece work."
meaning "Slow down. You're making the rest of us
think you're a brown nose." Doing to much work was
likened to being disloyal to your peers.
Unions create a new level of political power in the
workplace. The shop foreman could be your friend or
your enemy. The shop foreman in one place that I
worked was just a patsy for management. He was a
liability to the union employees. Other places I've
found the shop foreman to be ineffective or the union
itself to be ineffective. I had one job where my job
didn't enjoy the benefits of the union contract even
though I had to join the union and pay dues. I read the
contract. It clearly identified my job as being exempted
from certain benefits that the other employees enjoyed.
Lastly many heavily unionised fields have seen jobs
outsourced to foreign countries. The IT industry is
already experiencing this. Unionising will only speed
this process and will convince employers that would
have kept their jobs in the United States to outsource
to India. Software development is currently
experiencing this. It would not be difficult to outsource
system administration. Instead of hiring a system
administrator an employer could have the brain work
done overseas and have a lower paid computer
operator on hand to press the power button when
requested.
In summary I believe that unions may look attractive
in hard times but they ultimately cause a lot of
problems. I would resist any effort to unionise the IT
support industry. We're not making minimum wages.
We're not working in a dangerous environment.
Unpaid 'overtime' is a misconception. We are paid a
higher salary, in part, to compensate us in advance for
working extra hours.
