EA: The Human Story

[kandrathe]

Three Words. 

Collective Bargaining Unit. 

In numbers there is sometimes strength.  Your position, which strikes me as rather anti human being and does not seem to fit with Bishness, is a reflection of laize faire attitudes that were very popular in the late 19th century, the age of predatory capitalism and monopolies.  I am not a Marxist, but the reason we have labor laws in my country is due to the dynamic struggle between labor and ownership/management that was paid for in blood, sweat, and tears . . . and a heck of a lot of lawsuits.

This situation is one more lawsuit regarding man's inhumanity to man.

Ever heard the term "wage slave?"

Occhi
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Unfortunately, unions are run by the people I would never want in charge of anything. I've seen enough of the dark side of unions for a lifetime, and I would never support one. But, I can agree with the ideology of collective bargaining and workers organizing for decent pay or decent working conditions. It is just that that is never how union power has been expressed when I've seen it played out. My experiences are that seniority protects the incompetant and younger better workers are shut out. The biggest loser is quality. The business cannot hire the best work force, and the best workers are not rewarded for their excellence but instead are treated adequately en masse. I would rather that the incompetant worker is encouraged to change ways or professions, and that bad businesses either root out their problems or suffer the ravages of capitalism and fail.

I still think my advice for any techno geeks who are looking to get into a large or small company would be, a) get some information on the place you are applying at, and b) never accept the unusual as usual. Think of your relationship with your employer as a marriage. The interview is dating, and the hire is the marriage. Then you both let down your hair, warts and all, and decide if you can actually live with each other. Will they follow through with their commitments to you and are you willing to commit to them? The more you learn about them before the hire, the better for both of you. If you find once you are there that it is not right for you, move on and don't look back. It is better for you and better for them.

For the bread winner who is looking for a stable paycheck to support the spouse and kids back home, well, find a stable, thriving but not overly competitive business to start your long term relationship with. Still, I've never found the company yet that has no competitive pressure or is not threatened with obsolescence by emerging technologies. I've worked at about 5 seemingly stable firms in my career that have had the legs cut out from under them due to failure in the global marketplace, or mergers. From my perpective, job security is related to your marketability within the global market. The more strings that you have tie down your options and limit the choices you have.

We all have those lines we will not cross. Mine is working more that 50 hours in consecutive weeks. An infrequent push to reach a close finish line is undertandable, or extra effort to shore up a crisis. I would say that if a project is messed up to require overtime as the norm, then it is worth reworking the schedule or starting over with more realistic timelines. All in all, even with a family, I would leave a place rather than be a wage slave or be forced to join a union.