The biggest obstacle to unionizing in tech, none of the unions know how to represent technology workery. 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.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
The biggest obstacle to unionizing in tech, none of the unions know how to represent technology workery. I have been in a couple unions as a tech worker, but those unions were historically representing different classes of workers.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Image That’ll happen.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
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?
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
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.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
So it sounds like we just need to start a union from the ground up built for tech workers?
GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 6 months ago
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.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
That’s a good example if you’re in California