The biggest obstacle to unionizing in tech, none of the unions know how to represent technology work. I have been in a couple unions as a tech worker, but those unions were historically representing different classes of workers.
The senior staff at most unions are people who have thought about physical labor and the skilled workers who do production work. Programming as a profession is still relatively new career path.
My first union tech job was in the medical industry and we had to jump in with the nurses to find representation. It was good enough but our jobs were dramatically different. And our pay and benefits were much better than the nursing staff. The union had a hard time being able to deal with both of our different problems.
I think that Hollywood provides an example: cast, crew, writers, and directors are all unionized, and there are so many different types of jobs at such different rates of pay within those unions.
The biggest obstacle to unionizing in tech, none of the unions know how to represent technology work. I have been in a couple unions as a tech worker, but those unions were historically representing different classes of workers.
That’ll happen.
I mean just represent programming for starters and go from there? It’s the stuff that’s most engineering like, or do I misunderstand the issue?
The senior staff at most unions are people who have thought about physical labor and the skilled workers who do production work. Programming as a profession is still relatively new career path.
My first union tech job was in the medical industry and we had to jump in with the nurses to find representation. It was good enough but our jobs were dramatically different. And our pay and benefits were much better than the nursing staff. The union had a hard time being able to deal with both of our different problems.
So it sounds like we just need to start a union from the ground up built for tech workers?
I think that Hollywood provides an example: cast, crew, writers, and directors are all unionized, and there are so many different types of jobs at such different rates of pay within those unions.
That’s a good example if you’re in California