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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) by Beau Slim on Sunday July 02 2017, @05:02PM (9 children)

    by Beau Slim (6628) on Sunday July 02 2017, @05:02PM (#534183)
    Yes, we've all seen out-of-control union leadership go a little nuts and make unrealistic demands and end up having companies shut down plants. And corruption (or even mob involvement) steal funds. This is nothing compared to all the good unions have done. The 1% has been trying to convince people that unions = socialism, but the american labor movement has always been about fair wages and has never been about "control of the means of production". If you look at the history, unions brought us the 40 hour work week, paid overtime, and health benefits and created the middle class as we know it. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_Lawrence_textile_strike [wikipedia.org] -- my grandfather was there at the age of 12) Wiith the middle class shrinking fast, soon there won't be anybody left to buy anything. Labor organizations need to be looked at again. Sadly, the software industry is probably one of the most difficult to unionize, and nothing can happen while the H1B foreign-worker insourcing continues to allow employers to replace entire departments in one blow.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @05:44PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @05:44PM (#534188)

    Unions are worse than you have been told. When I was young, I worked in a non-union sawmill across a creek from a union sawmill. When they went on strike, we would have mysterious fires in the middle of the night. Also, we would start to find metal spikes in the logs. Fuck unions and fuck union members who would trade my life for a 20 cent an hour raise.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @06:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @06:45PM (#534206)

      mysterious fires

      ...whose cause you can't identify with any certainty.

      metal spikes in the logs

      ...whose source you haven't identified with any certainty.
      Your "evidence" wouldn't hold up in a court of law.
      This is commonly called "slander".

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @06:09PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @06:09PM (#534197)

    american labor movement has always been about fair wages and has never been about "control of the means of production"

    Wrong. You need to read your deep union history. Especially pre-WWII there was a substantial marxist undercurrent, and it's hardly surprising when you remember that in those days it was kind of cool to be a socialist.

    After WWII, the mob figured out that the special union protections (such as immunity to antitrust legislation) were a really great way of extracting cash.

    Unions need to be completely redefined to be useful in the USA. The reason union membership is dropping like a rock? Very little to do with evil management snake oil merchants, and a hell of a lot to do with blue collar workers giving them the collective finger.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @06:29PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @06:29PM (#534202)

      1) No serious action to repeal Taft-Hartley.
      2) Additional anti-union legislation at the state level.
      3) Companies moving to The South, which doesn't have a history of union activity.
      (Southerners identify "union" with the army that swept through their area in 1865 and destroyed everything it could find.)
      4) "Trade deals" that disallow tariffs and enable easy offshoring of jobs.

      Your simplistic explanation ignores all the big stuff that has happened post-Reagan.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 02 2017, @07:50PM (2 children)

        Southerners identify "union" with the army that swept through their area in 1865 and destroyed everything it could find.

        If that wasn't a bit of tongue-in-cheek snark, you are epically uninformed and should STFU now before you further embarrass yourself.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @02:40AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @02:40AM (#534315)

          One assumes your hometown wasn't on Sherman's route.
          Mine was.
          A century later, the work "Yankee" wasn't heard without it being preceded by "damned".

          The word "union" definitely has a related foul connotation to this day.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 03 2017, @10:27AM

            Context, my gradeschool-failing friend, context. Even southerners are capable of using and understanding it.

            And, yes, Yankees should be preceded by "God damned, carpetbagging, snare-drumming". Unless you're talking about the baseball team.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @08:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @08:13PM (#534229)

      Wrong. You need to read your deep union history. Especially pre-WWII there was a substantial marxist undercurrent, and it's hardly surprising when you remember that in those days it was kind of cool to be a socialist.

      And it's cool again! Feel the Bern!

      Unions need to be completely redefined to be useful in the USA. The reason union membership is dropping like a rock? Very little to do with evil management snake oil merchants, and a hell of a lot to do with blue collar workers giving them the collective finger.

      Read history, you say? You will find that after WWII, it was not just Wall Street, but Madison Ave and the Mad Men who went after Unions. I am always amazed at idiots who have been so brainwashed with the fake history that is appearing on this site that they will give themselves the finger, individually, and wonder why wages are static or falling and the middle class is dead in America. Cool story, bro! Good luck with that!

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @08:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @08:07PM (#534226)

    Yes, we've all seen out-of-control union leadership go a little nuts

    No, we haven't. Some have been conditioned by the capitalist class to see such things, where the working class has seen threats of plant closures, off-shoring, Pinkerton thugs, and the National Guard. Who was it who was a "little out of control"? Pharma bro, that you?