A most long overdue question on whether Techies should form a union is being asked on InfoWorld.
Sixty-hour work weeks with no overtime or comp time, a BlackBerry hitched to your belt 24/7, mandates from managers who have no clue what you actually do – all for a job that could be outsourced tomorrow. Is it finally time for technology workers to form a union and demand better working conditions?
I say hell yes. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics…Programmers, System Administrators and Web Designers all have one thing in common, they are being labor arbitraged and treated like disposable people.
And…they do not stand up for their own interests and join forces! Why not? Honestly do you really believe that the world is simply going to reward you on your personal brilliance? That a high IQ cannot be a commodity item just as much as physical labor is?
One of the main issues with forming unions for Professional workers is the reality that people are free agents plus skills are so diverse it’s very difficult to perform wage negotiations as an aggregate work force.
One person might have support skills, another might be a PhD level researcher with decades of investment in their skills, unique in multiple respects.
The question is not should Professionals in the Sciences organize. That’s a given. Right now, both Presidential candidates have promised to increased offshore outsourcing your job by raising the H-1B Visa cap and open the flood gates to labor arbitrage through other manipulations of the United States immigration system. As it is, the United States cannot employ the Science graduates who are U.S. citizens. Clearly on the corporate agenda thus now on both the Democrats and Republican platforms is to guarantee to sell outyour job. Your career will be lost, it’s one of the top priorities of the ITAA, Compete America, NASSCOM and the US Chamber of Commerce.
As it is, the largest Professional society the IEEE has dominated the United States branch and forced policies which are against their members career interests.
Here is a list of current groups trying to give labor representation to Professionals and Techies:
ONE QUESTION FOR ALL UNIONS WHO HAVE ENDORSED OBAMA -
How to Justify and Create Collective Bargaining:
Sites like No Slaves, Economic Populist should do some scientific polling on the question of forming Unions. Identify those who browse the site with ‘Do you work in STEM?’ then if so, ‘Could you support a Union or Trade Group to speak for the Issues of STEM Workers’.
Follow this question with specific questions on Immigration, Trade,
Outsource Visas.
If the poll meets the numeric levels of over 1200 random entries,
the poll may be scientific. Scientific polling can justify the claims of EP, or Programmer’s Guild.
I think the model should be “licensed professional societies” that other US occupations like actuaries, medical doctors, pharmacists, etc have. These orgs perform the functions of unions, in that they protect their workers by
1 limiting supply of new workers entering the field
2 legislating that particular tasks legally must be done by licensees, thereby guaranteeing a stable demand for jobs.
The licensing process should be very tough, but fair, a meritocracy.
I am a professional mechanical engineer.
We have the power and we just don’t realize it and we just will not cooperate. Engineers could be getting higher pay and rewarded for our intellectual property.
I am a contract engineer and part of my pay goes to the “job shop”. Why don’t the engineers own the job shops.
The lawyers have a union it is called the bar association. $300/hr
Doctors have a union and it is called the AMA. $300/hr
Even teachers have the NEA. $55,000 for 9 months of dumbing down our kids.
If any of the above stop working the country is better off. Deaths actually go down when doctors go on strike. If we stop the country comes to a halt.
The members in the trade unions are really are closest allies not management.
Why are you attacking Obama for selling out. The Neocon republicans have been doing it for years. Outsourcing. There is one company who brings in temporary workers from the Phillipines Lake Charles, LA by the thousands. Even the Mexicans are leaving this country. I want to leave too. I have already learned Spanish.
There is a shortage of engineers in the US and now is the time to strike. We organize and cooperate or we die.
Osama Bin Ladin is a civil engineer.
How about patterning the name of the new organization
representing the interests of technology related
professionals, similar to the:
the American Medical Association (AMA)
the American Bar Association (ABA)
call it, very simply
the American Technological Association (ATA)
It fits very nicely alongside the other 2.