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by Frondo 3039 days ago
As I said in another comment, there are other groups working to help lower-paid service workers organize. They're better suited to that task than I'd ever be. (And I'm not even a part of any union, I just think we in the tech world are long overdue for organized negotiation.)

And, so, you do agree with me, but don't like some of my word choices? Can you maybe put that stuff aside and see that, organizing and negotiating together in our very individualistic field starts somewhere?
1 comments
antisthenes 3039 days ago
Yes, I do agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, in my own environment, any attempt to organize among workers has fallen upon deaf ears.

The workers themselves seem to be resistant (or perhaps fearful) to organizing in a manner that would give them more rights and fairer compensation.

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Frondo 3039 days ago
Awesome.

And yeah, I think there's a big element of fear to it--fear of losing what is, right now, a pretty sweet deal for a lot of technical folks. That fear isn't entirely misplaced, anyway; individually, any of us could get fired for almost anything at almost any time. And there's a long and storied history of firing folks when they even whisper about organizing.

So I don't think the fear of organizing is irrational--but it is a fear that, I think, should be overcome, because the benefits are, of course, huge.

I dunno, I don't think it's all fear, I just think that's a much larger underlying force than people really want to recognize. If the risk were minimal, why wouldn't people be lining up to do this stuff?

OH, and FYI I am all in on addressing CEO/worker pay disparity. And, while we're at it, on how low-paid workers (janitors, call center stuff, etc.) get outsourced to another corp, etc.

Those are just problems that, I think, would need to be addressed directly through the political system, and not one that workers can take on in an organizing campaign of their own. They're all part of this constellation of "the American worker is getting screwed" but I feel like I gotta pick my battles, at least when I'm posting on the internet.

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