[Discuss] [OT]Discuss - Software Engineering union

[Jerry Feldman]

Let me add my $0.02.  (Yes it is a bit off topic, but still of interest
to IT folks. )
I have dealt with unions from the standpoint where I was in a shop where
one could not even move a monitor from one side of a cube to another. I
was also a union member when I worked for the IRS.

Ideally unions should represent labor in a general sense. But... there
are some issues:
First, unions are organizations and the union's goals may not coincide
with the goals of its membership.
Secondly, unions get into some nasty interjurisdictional disputes.
Thirdly, work rules are set up that tend to prevent real work from being
done, although that is not the intent. One laughable thing was in
mainframe days where the computer operator would not allow the
programmer to type in the commands to debug his program.

The bottom line, IMHO, that some companies deserve to be unionized
because they do not treat their employees well, but software engineers
and other computer programmers are creative and that does not work well
with a union environment.


-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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