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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday July 02 2017, @06:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the unionize-now dept.

Computing is notorious for not having a worthwhile professional association. Some practitioners join the IEEE, the IET or the ACM. However, membership typically costs hundreds of dollars per year and offers little practical help to computer professionals working in small companies. If you're working for government or a large corporation or you're a super programmer in a well funded start-up then you probably have a union or you don't need a union. However, if you're the sole techie in a small business, appreciation for your dedication is just the start. What happens when you're asked to do something unethical or illegal? Where do you turn when a job goes sour? How do you avoid the problem? How can you avoid really toxic employers?

Rather than paying hundreds of dollars per year for talks and conferences, you require local experts who have first-hand experience of local employers and local employment problems. How can this be achieved reliably and cost-effectively? This is where our expertise should shine. Firstly, union entry should be at least as stringent as the conceirge union. Secondly, there should be a web-of-trust within each metropolitan region (and ideally between regions). In the best case, the network distance between all members should be four or less. Thirdly, an obligatory website should incur less hits than SoylentNews and therefore an upper bound for costs can be established for a volunteer effort. Essentially, it should be possible to run a union from donations of US$3000 per year or significantly less. Indeed, the major cost to members would be food and drink expenses when informally meeting other members.

So who wants to join a computer professional union with sensible fees and obligations?


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @05:17AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @05:17AM (#534349)

    The president can not fire the vice president, anybody in the judicial branch (does not include the Attorney General or FBI), or anybody in the legislative branch. This isn't very much. There are some security guards, people to give supreme court tours, etc.

    He also can't literally fire contractors, but the distinction isn't terribly important. Federal contracting rules are very 1-sided against the contractors. Getting rid of contractors is easy.

    For everybody else in the federal government, he sure can go on a firing spree. He might prefer to fire via subordinates, but he doesn't need to. With one executive order, they could all be gone. Every last federal employee, aside from the few listed above, could be made unemployed with the stroke of a pen. That includes the EPA, the military, the FBI... everything.

    I don't know where you are getting this idea that the president isn't the boss, but it is very wrong.

    Hiring is slightly limited. There are a few dozen positions for which congressional approval is required. Of course, it is easy enough to work around that limitation in most cases. Simply hire a person at the rank below, leave the desired rank empty, and let the desired person be the "Acting Secretary of X".

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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday July 03 2017, @09:31AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday July 03 2017, @09:31AM (#534389) Journal

    With one executive order, they could all be gone.

    As would you, fuzzy arsed AC! Just Loving the Unitary Executive, are we? Ah, Dick "Dick" Cheney, the gift that just keeps on giving. But, you completely miss the point. Lawyers have professional ethics, not presidents. Some presidents even grab people by the genitals, but, um, that is wrong. You know this, right?