Want to stop outsourcing? Join a union.
Want to stop outsourcing? Join a union.
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 6:56 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
One of the mysteries that has never been adequately answered is the
question of why high-tech workers have been so opposed to forming
unions to protect their careers and improve their working conditions.
Many theories have been proposed but none of them totally add up.
So here it goes: Why would a Java programmer be less willing or able to
join a union than a sheetmetal worker? The answer can't be pay because
most unionized sheetmetal workers earn more.
This article once again takes up the issues of unions, and makes a
point that seems to be lost on technical workers:
individually, each person has little power to make things
different for him- or herself. It makes a person wonder:
In the face of longer hours, cuts in pay, and the outsourcing
of jobs overseas, why haven't more I.T. workers organized
themselves into unions?
I included some interesting "letters to the editor" following the
article. The letters are hard hitting, and unfortunately true.
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/06/unionize/
Want to stop your job from being outsourced? Join a union.
At least one systems administrator has had enough: It's time to hit the
picket line.
By Joel Keller
Nov. 6, 2003 | When I was a kid, my dad's pager was the least
favorite item in our house. When he was on-call, my family couldn't go
to dinner or a movie or Grandma's house, for fear that the contraption
would go off and call him away to the office. When it did go off, and
there weren't many weekends when it didn't, my dad would trudge to the
phone, speak into it using loud and profane words, and then, if needed,
put on his coat and shuffle off to the location of the latest
emergency. Things got so bad, I seriously considered running over his
beeper with my neighbor's Big Wheel.
Was Dad a doctor, volunteer fireman or paramedic? Nothing of the sort.
He was in I.T., before the term "information technology" ever existed.
As a mainframe technician, he would be called in at a moment's notice
to replace a defective board or swap large DASD units in order to keep
a customer's big iron running.
Although he endured many lost weekends and dirty looks from his wife
and children, he did so knowing that his sacrifices would be rewarded
with overtime pay, at time-and-a-half rates on many occasions. His
sacrifice enabled my family to live a comfortable middle-class
existence and provided my brother and me with quality college
educations. In fact, both of us have followed in his footsteps, working
as system administrators to pay the bills.
Of course, in the modern world of I.T., emergencies still occur. When
an Internet worm like last summer's MSBlaster cascades through the
networks of unprepared corporations, knocking servers off-line, admins
like myself put in 16-hour days for as long as needed to get things
running properly again. When the network goes down or the power goes
out, we are the first ones on the scene to bring things back online, no
matter what time of night it is. Holidays, vacations and personal
commitments are secondary to our availability to work in an emergency.
We are asked to work mandatory unpaid overtime and be held prisoner by
our pagers, all under the constant threat that our jobs may be
eliminated or sent to some distant and cheaper land.
Unfortunately, for most people in I.T., the days of getting overtime
pay have ended. So, what do we now get in return for sacrificing our
time? A small raise in our base pay? Sometimes. Extra bonus money? Not
in this economy. Compensatory days off? Yes, but it never makes up for
the time put in. A pat on the back? Maybe, but those "attaboys" are
quickly forgotten. The only thing that information technology workers
can count on getting in return for their efforts is insomnia, ruined
weekends, angry families and stress-induced heart conditions.
During this post-boom era in the technology industry, managers have
been telling their underlings that they are lucky to even have jobs,
and that they should just take what they can get and wait for the
market to improve. But they say these things knowing that,
individually, each person has little power to make things different for
him- or herself. It makes a person wonder: In the face of longer hours,
cuts in pay, and the outsourcing of jobs overseas, why haven't more
I.T. workers organized themselves into unions?
The technology sector is grossly underserved by organized labor.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 10.8 percent of the
over 4 million people working in technology in 2002 were members of
unions. The only lower percentages were seen among categories that are
traditionally perceived as not needing union representation: managers
and executives, salespeople, farmers and general service workers.
Meanwhile, according to Forrester Research, 3.3 million white-collar
jobs will be permanently sent overseas by 2015, the leading category of
which will be I.T. workers. Other estimates suggest as many as 14
million jobs may be at risk from offshoring.
A massive unionization of information workers would put them in a
position to collectively bargain with companies about hours, wage
increases and benefits. Workers would no longer be ordered to work
mandatory unpaid overtime; if there was a call for their services on
weekends, holidays and overnights, they would be able to sacrifice
their time knowing it will be duly compensated. Limits on layoffs can
also be negotiated into a collective bargaining agreement, assuring
workers that their jobs won't suddenly be shipped where labor is less
expensive (at least until the CBA comes up for renewal). Through
collective bargaining, I.T. workers will receive time flexibility,
something they have not had in quite a while.
Of course, there are several drawbacks to unionization. Since the pay
and bonuses are structured by the CBA, top performers cannot be
rewarded as highly as they might be now, while bottom feeders will be
equally rewarded for substandard work. Deadwood cannot be cut by
layoffs without the union getting involved. CBA negotiations, as
Verizon workers found out this past year, can be contentious, played
out through mudslinging media campaigns. Union workers may end up on
strike, without pay, for long periods of time. Finally, unions that
have gotten too much power have been known to stand in the way of
efficiency, as their negotiated rules of what work they can and cannot
do become more restrictive over time. This breeds tension and
resentment between the nonunion workers who just want to get the job
done and the union workers who are constantly filing grievances when
they are asked to do work not in the contract (or, conversely, when a
nonunion worker performs tasks union workers are contracted to do).
Even with all the caveats that come with joining a union, I.T. workers
need to seriously consider this option. Without the strength in numbers
that collective bargaining provides, conditions for technology workers
are bound to get worse, especially if there are fewer jobs to be had.
There's always going to be a crisis. Someone will unleash another
always, we in the I.T. ranks will be there, working late into the night
to get things back to normal. It's a part of the job we can't avoid.
The time has come, however, for us to get something back for our labors
other than just a handshake and acid reflux disease. It's only fair.
salon.com
About the writer
Joel Keller is a New Jersey-based IT specialist and freelance writer.
jkeller@thecafe.com
Every time I mentioned to my (mostly) libertarian I.T. geek
acquaintances that, gee, maybe we should organize and fight back on the
unpaid overtime hours issue, I got laughed at. Every time I said
unionization would allow us all to negotiate consistent pay, I was told
to leave the room. Times were uncommonly good. It was every geek for
himself, and if I thought we should look out for each other, maybe put
pressure on The Man to do things sanely, I was obviously some kind of
liberal loser who didn't want to take responsibility for my own career.
After 20 years in the I.T. business, I'm leaving. I worked my ass off
from the early '80s on, putting LANs into resistant corporate glass
houses, deploying firmwide integrated systems (which, thanks to
overworked programmers, never worked right), and put up with the
bullshit amateur hour of the Internet. For all those years of 60-hour
weeks and on-call weekends, I got exactly nothing, except an aversion
to beeping sounds and the fun of watching my boss get bonuses for my
work.
Screw everyone in the arrogant, self-centered, socially backward
baby-fest that is the I.T. business. Take "personal responsibility" for
your careers now, dirtbags. Oh, that's right, you don't have jobs
anymore. Poor babies. At least now you have time to work on those bug
lists, right? And you can brush up on those interpersonal skills so you
don't treat everyone like they're pond-scum.
Too late now, suckers. Your jobs have been Walmarted, baybee. Good
riddance.
-- Rob Oakley
Thank you, Joel Keller! I'm not an I.T. worker, but my fianci is.
Yes, he gets paid a lot of money. But since he started this job, over a
year ago, his hours have gotten longer and longer, management has
demanded more and given less, and those little extras that companies
give their workers to let them know they're appreciated (muffins for
breakfast, the occasional beer hour) have disappeared.
My fianci regularly works 60-70 hours a week, and sometimes as much
as 90 hours. He goes in to work every weekend, often on both Saturday
and Sunday. In order for us to take the occasional weekend trip, say to
go visit family, he has to beg his supervisor for a weekend off. There
is an unwritten rule that holidays are not actually days off. The
company recently instituted mandatory attendance at meetings on
Saturday mornings.
In addition, the company treats them like children. No matter how hard
they've been working, and how much they've gotten done, the question is
always, "Why haven't you done more?" The assumption seems to be that if
the company doesn't constantly watch them and keep the pressure on at
all times, the employees will slack off at any opportunity. Come in 15
minutes late one morning (because you were at work until 2 a.m. the
night before) and you get a talking-to about what it means to be
responsible, and how the company doesn't pay you to slack off. The
company is miserly with sick time and personal days, and never seems to
cut the employees any slack. A few months ago, I had to have emergency
abdominal surgery, and was in the hospital for five days. The company
grudgingly allowed him to take the day of the surgery off, but refused
to let him take any more time off, and made him make up the day he
missed during the next week, while I was home alone.
What does he get in return for working so hard, in such a hostile
atmosphere? Not overtime pay. Not extra pay for all those extra hours
he works. Not comp days. Not extra vacation or personal days. Not the
ability to occasionally come in late or leave early. It seems that in
return for paying his salary, they got complete control of his life.
With all that money he makes, all he has the time and energy to do is
come home, watch TV and fall asleep.
I work a lot too. I get paid less than half what he makes, and I have
more degrees than he does. But my company is understanding when I need
to take a few hours off for personal business. My company is generous
with comp time when I work overtime. My boss pats me on the back when
I've been working hard, and although he can't afford to pay me more, he
makes his gratitude known in other ways -- a lunch out, or a box of
chocolates, or simply a nice e-mail.
I.T. workers need to unionize, if only to force companies to treat them
as human beings, instead of slave labor. They burn their employees out
at an outrageous pace, and then dump them and hire new people, because
right now there are a lot of out-of-work I.T. people desperate for
jobs. This has got to stop. Being paid a generous salary does not mean
that you should give up on having a life, and work yourself into an
early grave or a nervous breakdown.
-- Name withheld by request
I'm writing in response to Joel Keller's piece regarding labor and the
technology industry. I applaud Keller's research -- the technology
industry, among others, suffer from non-unionization. Further, the lack
of overtime pay is equally disturbing. As a former organizer for ACORN
and the Fund For Public Interest Research, I encountered numerous
difficulties, especially when I and others brought up unionization.
Groups like these claim to fight for low-income workers and just
causes, but refuse to pay their workers overtime, reimburse their
workers for travel and office expenses, and above all, require their
workers to work ungodly amounts of hours for extremely low pay, all in
the "fight" for those who are underrepresented. It's time to bring this
problem to light -- it's been going on too long, and literally hundreds
of workers are forced to suffer each year.
-- Name withheld by request
Once again the liberal brain can't grasp the level of meanness and
hatred of the average Joe Six-pack American. It's the inability to deal
with and marginalize this psychological group that will eventually lead
the U.S. to a fascist state.
Anybody that's been in I.T. for any length of time knows that I.T.
people are the most introverted, mean people around. Perhaps more than
accountants even! We are "engineers," after all, just with less formal
education skills. The American mythology of "survival of the fittest"
is worshipped among these kinds of people. A union doesn't have a
snowball's chance in hell with a group of people that would rather die
than accept "help" from anyone and, more important, is loath to give
help to anyone (especially "those" people [moving the eyes up to the
left]). And anything related to "group power" is the antithesis of
everything mean people believe in.
So, it's time to stop fantasizing about "unions" in a country full of
mean haters. I don't know what the solution is, but fantasies won't do
it -- that's for sure!
-- John
Unionizing information technology workers? A day late and a dollar
short, guys. The time to unionize was when we were strong.
I durn near got drowned when I suggested this in a hot tub at a
sysadmin conference in 1991, of course. Everyone in I.T. knew that
unions were Bad -- synonymous with the old abuses of the AFL/CIO. But
now the horse is gone, and folk are looking at the barn door in dismay
...
-- Stephan Zielinski
I want to commend Salon and Mr. Keller for illustrating a possible
solution to the growing trend of outsourcing white-collar labor. Mr.
Keller outlines some potential drawbacks to unionization, which I
believe may be mitigated. I don't believe there are any rules for how
union contracts need to be structured. So it might be possible for a
well-organized and creative union to structure an agreement that
maintained protections for salary and outsourcing while also allowing
for a more dynamic partnership with management around performance pay
and bonuses. I have been somewhat disheartened by much of the union
actions lately, and it seems that this sort of solution is entirely
possible and actually in the best interests of the membership. Perhaps
I.T. is the place where this could begin.
-- Michael Tuck
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