Do programmers need a union?
stackoverflow.com
stackoverflow.com
It's pointless for programmers to do collective bargaining - our skills are simply too diverse. But to have a professional association that can create standard contracts, assist it's members in negotiating out of stupid IP clauses, perhaps create some certifications etc. isn't a bad idea.
It's a bit less of a problem if you're at a company, usually a smaller one, where you can actually negotiate one-on-one with a manager or boss who has individual authority to negotiate a wide range of terms. Then you might be able to get objectionable terms removed, if the manager's reasonable and you're willing to compromise on other things (say, accept lower pay for more favorable terms). But if the manager's highly constrained by higher-ups and policy, you don't have a real negotiation.
Negotiation begins with shopping around. Any particular company may be unwilling to negotiate with you. That doesn't mean you can't negotiate, it just means you need to move on.
Incidentally, big companies do respond to these issues. When people start leaving in droves, hiring policies are reviewed, and changes are made (or the company dies).
But I don't think it's a useful point, because there is a market and societal use for bad/new programmers and it doesn't really hurt the profession as a whole.
Arguing for a standing body to help guide/regulate education and certifications could be a potential benefit, especially in the area of life-critical engineering, like software for hospital equipment, nuclear reactors, or space shuttles. Alternatively, a giant regulatory body could result in nothing but additional fees for students and prospective employees if they have any hope of being hired.
Edit: I also find it very interesting that my above remark swung from one to four, and now is down to zero. Difference between gut reactions and thinkers?
Additionally, less onerous IP terms for employment, standard non-competes and a reduction of the idea of absurd overtime being the norm are all good things.
California can thank their non-compete/IP laws for part of Silicon Valley's success.
As for IP terms/noncompetes/overtime, I'm not sure why you need a union. Why not just negotiate for that yourself?
For games industry in general a focus some sort of standardisation for credit would be useful. How long does one have to work on a project to be in the credits for example? People get screwed out of credit all the time.
Royalties is another point of contention. Some sort of standardisation for minimums would be useful. Call of Duty 2 has made well over a billion in revenue, yet there was all sorts of drama regarding royalties and the studio collapsed as a result and likely many walked away with nothing.
Because certain portions of our field have jobs that people are willing to be whipped and beaten for if they can get the jobs (entry level game programming, I'm looking at you).
There isn't anything about programming that makes it reasonable to require unpaid overtime exemptions, etc, unlike most other fields have. It's merely poor management demanding it.
Game programming, especially, would be nice, as there is no reason to make games come out faster, they're pure entertainment without just recompense for hours worked. A heavy preponderance of unions would deescalate the field, making everyone do less over a given period of time (or pay people much better than they do for the overtime they demand).
There is nothing preventing a game programmer from quitting to work at a bank, a rails shop or google. If a game programmer stays, it's because he/she enjoys game programming so much that it's worth the long hours and poor pay.
I'm not sure why you consider unions reducing productivity to be a good thing.
Productivity is not god. Productivity does not trump the health of the people who work there. Programming jobs currently do horrible things to the health of IT's practitioners, especially ones with stupidly long hours, including game programming.
Saner hours would employ more people (or the games would do less). No one can say "games are essential enough to damage people's health over" but guess what: their development largely damages their health of their programmers.
And productivity doesn't drive medical research, so:
>(and living 2.8 years less)
is unlikely
You can do the inflation calculation yourself. Income is a poor measure since it excludes non-wage compensation (e.g., medical spending) which have gone up significantly relative to income.
I'm not sure why you conclude life expectancy went up due to medical research. Wealth increases life expectancy, but not due to medical spending.
GDP growth is not related to income growth of normal people. For the last 20 years, something like 85% of the growth has gone to the very very rich. It was only really in the postwar period did the middle class ever really grow large (in that period of time we had the only factories in the world), and income growth has been pretty stagnant since the 80's.
According to the US Census Bureau, the median is "considerably lower than the average, and provides a more accurate representation."
"While the median household income has increased 30% since 1990, it has increased only slightly when considering inflation. In 1990, the median household income was $30,056 or $44,603 in 2003 dollars. "
Sources: http://www.demographia.com/db-stateinc2000.htm
I bring you to the censuses conclusions about our largely stagnant american wages (which peaked in 1999): http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p60-226.pdf
Most of that GDP is going to very very rich people.
A lot of them choose that environment just people involved in movies and television work crazy hours. Entertainment seems to require massive amount of work in relatively short bursts. Those who can figure out a way to not need this will quickly get the best talent and destroy their competition.
What would a union do? Take their money? Have them go on strike? Bankrupt the company? Make it harder to fire crappy programmers (as if it isn't hard enough already).
And almost everyone in the movie industry is union as well. For the same reason (highly desired jobs allowing for crazy abuse of the workers). Actually movie industry programming (Special effects, etc), are actually very tame compared to many other forms of programming as far as hours go, especially compared to video games, which is another place some of those skills they have could be applied.
The point would be to require sane amounts of hours, feature cuts rather than overtime, etc.
Creating games in under 40 hours a week: http://archives.igda.org/qol/IGDA_2005_GDC-QOL-Lecture.ppt
The point would be to harm society for the benefit of union members?
If that truly was the choice, yes, I'd be all for giving less of a benefit to society over actually harming programmers.
I don't think that is true however. As many people have successfully developed software in general, and games in particular, with 40 hour weeks, I believe the overtime shops are throwing hours at a problem that has other solutions. By forcing game companies to have the same overtime type regulations that almost every other sort of company has, you make those solutions mandatory.
If you think I'm full of it, perhaps you should look at EA: They peeled back from massive overtime, and now "only" do stupid hours 2 months a year (down from 4-8 months a year). Evidently, those stupid overtime hours weren't needed.
Holywood has unionized. Notice movies are still made. Sitcoms are still made. Nothing stopped there. Occasionally there is a strike or something, and we watch reruns.
I'm sorry, but forcing everyone to work at union levels of laziness is a bad idea. The net result will simply be that we produce lower quality video games, a few more lazy people become game programmers, and a few hardworking people are crowded out of game programming and go work on wall st.
As for Hollywood unions, to show they are not harmful, you must show we would get the same number/quality of movies at the same price. GM makes cars in spite of having a union, they are just crappier/more expensive than Toyota. Many supermarkets still sell food in spite of a union, they are just more expensive than Walmart.
They are voluntarily are harming themselves. It's still harm. Their marriages don't last/are very strained, their health declines from long amounts of chair time, bad food and long hours. If the collectively bargained for normal working hours, I bet most of them would be ecstatic to get it.
> The net result will simply be that we produce lower quality video games
Perhaps? Perhaps we'll just produce them differently! And even if we do, they're just video games. It's okay if we create less of them in order to produce them without harming everyone involved to do so. I'm sure if we took off all the safety regulations, employee regulations, and negotiated employee agreements we'd have cheaper oil and more of it. Doesn't make that a good either.
I'm not a game programmer, but I do work long hours. Why would losing one of my competitive advantages would make me happy?
Perhaps we'll just produce them differently!
If this can be done, there is nothing preventing you from doing so now and gaining a competitive advantage over other companies (better working conditions + equal productivity == better employees). So why aren't you getting rich by doing this right now?
One of them got an 90% pay increase by moving to a company doing kernel level development. They also got normal working hours. Hmmm, tough call.
[0]This is not my idea, but I can't find the original source to cite it.
But the life of a programmer is typically not so bad to start with.
Besides that, I have to ask how long this collective experience of programmers enjoying happy lives will last. My general observation is that the accepted value of that labor is cheapening rapidly, whether from scarcity of jobs, glut of available talent, or the general difficulties in remaining competitive when the skillset is often globally portable.
My friend who basically left his engineering field to make more money cleaning pools strikes me as a demonstrative example.
Simply look at this flowchart to see the steps required to fire a New York City teacher. It is outrageous. http://commongood.org/assets/attachments/firing_chart.pdf
Unions have so much leverage over a company that they negotiate themselves out of a job. There is a reason GM went bankrupt, there is a reason the public school system is failing. Why the hell would I want to join a programmer's union?
From my experiences, programmers are dynamic, inventive, independent, and the type of people who would be willing to stay up two days straight to get done what they need to be done. Would you really want a union around to tell you how many hours a week you could work? Could you imagine a start-up hiring unionized programmers?
I wish people would stop down voting comments that they don't disagree with.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opi... (just a quick link -- i once saw a great list of pensions and their obligations but can't find it now)
I don't want a union that tells me I can't work more than 40 hours a week, but I wouldn't mind a union that forces my company to pay me for overtime when it's necessary. In the case of a start-up, that payment can be in the form of something deferred, like partial ownership of the company. As a start-up programmer I'm willing to take on some of the risk that the owners do, and contribute my time and effort towards making the start-up a success. But I expect to be rewarded for that too.
The other thing I'd like a union for, and maybe this is more of a professional organization with some teeth, is to enforce some basic standard practices. I'm a mechanical engineer by training, and I find it appalling how seldom basic engineering practices are followed in the software development world. There's a wide variety of tools, practices, and processes in software development so I wouldn't want anything specific to be required, but some things are generic:
- Use version control
- Have and use a requirements definition process
- Have and use an estimation process
- Have and use a scheduling process that tries to keep a sustainable level of productivity
- Provide developers with opportunities to improve their skills (as simple as a book budget and company time to study, up to in-house or out-of-house training)
- Provide a career path, including both management and non-management tracks. (Programmers who don't want to manage shouldn't be stuck in dead-end positions.)
A "professional organization with teeth" could be an organization that developers can join, which could audit employers work practices at the employers request. A positive audit could lead to a certification of that employer, which could make it easier for the employer to hire better developers from among the ranks of the organization. The organization could also provide training and certification to the developers for basic software engineering practices, relevant legal practices, etc, making them more appealing to the employers.
You don't need a union to force your company to pay you overtime. You just the willingness to walk when you don't like the terms.
Note that "willingness to walk" is all that the company has.
> Provide a career path, including both management and non-management tracks. (Programmers who don't want to manage shouldn't be stuck in dead-end positions.)
Ah yes - the geek director job, handed out as patronage.
People make it to real higher positions by providing the relevant value, not by coming from a particular background. Mandating folks with a background just leads to a "make work" position.
In this regard, there is complete equality between parties.
The union has the power to use threats of violence (at the hands of the government) to prevent any third parties from undercutting them. In contrast, the employer is forbidden from colluding with other employers regarding the hiring of employees. The union is permitted to withhold their services from the employer. The employer, however, is forbidden from withholding employment from the union.
Near as I can tell, all a union does is shifts power completely from employers and workers into the hands of the union. Not to mention that it deprives third parties (non-union workers) of their rights.
There are other things to be offered besides money. Unfortunately, these are often faked by employers.
Well, as long as it doesn't get out of hand, isn't violence violence, Western governments in general have extended their monopoly on the use of force to unions.
In the US if you have a complaint about a union engaging in violence against you (vs. individually identifiable members), it is my understanding it isn't subject to the rule of law, you have to bring it before the political NLRB instead of taking it to the courts.
WRT to your last point, unions are a conspiracy of some workers against others. Think about it, which do they hate more, "scabs" or "management"?
Anyway, imagine a world where in order to begin your startup you've got to negotiate with a union to set up a union shop with a union steward. You personally are doing (some) management as well as coding ... no can do! Etc.
I believe that programmers already have such a unique skill, that is extremely un-commoditized, that it seems unnecessary.
I can't see it happening, because most programmers are savvy enough to negotiate their own terms with employers on an individual basis if they care enough. Programmers, as a group, aren't usually as ignorant as groups who are protected by unions.
There is something similar in the home school community: An organization that in addition to providing general support, coordination, recommendations, etc., also has professional attorneys specializing in that field, and who will defend their members in court when necessary.
If people wants to form a union, fine with me, but don't drag me into it.
It looks like possibly the Unions had something to do with weekends in the US, so perhaps you're thanking them for that. I think globally the practice of resting on the sabbath goes slightly further back.
Everyone has a choice. Either they decide to take a job or they don't. Unions are all about blackmail and holding employers to ransom.
Unions are sort of a fun idea, but they end up as a 'them' vs 'us' mentality which quickly escalates to strikes and blackmail.
Strikes hurt the strikers far more than the negotiations they are an alternative to. No one wants strikes.
If you decide to strike, you should be sacked. Simple. You've broken your side of a contract to work.
Funny how the site there kinda glosses over the disastrous Union woes of the 70s, how the country was brought to its knees.
Of course I'm not a Labour Party supporter at all, which is perhaps another reason I dislike Unions. The two go hand in hand. The Labour party is after all, bankrolled, and totally controlled by Unions. I disagree completely with the philosophies of both of them. They're about waste. Unfairness. etc etc
Do you know the answers to the above? Until you do, you're missing out on important parts of British history.
I do not think unions are an unadulterated good, and I think many times the law goes silly trying to make it hard for companies to weasel out of their agreements (which is where many of the laws benefiting unions come from), but to act like they don't ever do good things, you really have to have not looked at what Great Brittan was like before they came about.
You're looking at something without the perspective of history when you look at the state of modern labour without looking at it's history and thereby missing 90% of their reasons for doing what they do the way they do it. Lots of the structures and behaviors are there to combat the shenanigans of the companies employed against the workers in the past.
They hold their employer to ransom, trying to blackmail cash out of them, while the public/customers suffer.
Also read up on Walt Disneys biography. Unions pretty much destroyed Disney for a decade.