Executing a Mass Departmental Exodus in the Workplace? 1190
rerunn asks: "The recent story about the consultants from JBOSS walking out couldn't have had better timing. I'll save the drama and cut to the scenario: You and a few close co-workers make up the core grunts of 'the department'. The company relies heavily on your department for many services, some of which, other departments cannot provide. You like your job, it provides great satisfaction. Suddenly, the company realizes its in deep financial shit, and starts making cut backs. This impacts the department. You suddenly find yourself working 50-60 hour weeks, put on call with no compensation, given unreasonable amounts of work and generally treated like dirt. You get the feeling that the company is just going to take advantage of you no matter how and what happens. You get together with the rest of the department for a 'fsck this company' meeting and decide to walk out. Have you ever done this?? (We are so close!) What was the outcome?"
No, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Haven't done this myself but ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The complete technical department from the "old" left the company within days.
Management will never learn
Could be risky in this market, but . . . . (Score:2, Interesting)
I do know of a group that pulled it off very nicely, and they - - as well as the former (university)employer were, and are, happy. The spinoff group was able to take on consulting jobs while, at the same time, selling their services back to the university. The university was happy because they no longer had to offer benefits, do payroll, etc. After more than two years, this arrangement is still working out for everyone involved. Sorry, I can't give names, but the university in question is a top-rated one in the southeast, and the IT group in question primarily provided web and data management services.
Mo' Money Mo' Money (Score:5, Interesting)
Gato
don't quit--slow down instead (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a thought..
Cool, I need work (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The IS version of Johnny Paycheck (Score:3, Interesting)
Something similar happened to me once. I explained to my next employer that if put in the same position again, I would simply leave again.
They were cool, it was all good.
Maybe they should form a Union (Score:2, Interesting)
sometimes you just think you are important (Score:2, Interesting)
probably this doesn't apply in your case but i think it is a good idea to double-check wheter you and your departement are really that important for the company or if the company just wants you to think you are important to make you work even harder (some form of motivation).
i used to work for a small software company and me and a few of my coworkers (basically half of the development departement) decided that it was time to move on. it was really hard to quit as the boss made promises and tried to persuade each one of us to stay telling us how important we were. well, eventually we all quit and quickly found new jobs and afaik all of us are happy with the new jobs - and guess what? the old company still exists and is better than ever, even during this economic crisis.
so, at least from my point of view the bottom line here is: if you feel it is time to move on, move on. this is your life and you have to take care of it, not your company. and it is not that unlikely that both sides will profit from that.
This worked for us (Score:5, Interesting)
A number of years ago, I was working at a really innovative company. The technical chalenges were great etc... However, I and my fellow engineers began to realize that our immediate manager was a jerk (made false statements to management, political, concerned more with his image than the product).
One of us talked with the manager about these perceived shortcomings, and he reacted _very_ defensively and hostile. We then lost confidence we could improve his management style.
Two of our team quit and returned to their former company.
The rest of us were considering doing the same, but we liked the company. Instead of quitting, we went to our department head. We explained our problem, and why our peers had quit. We said, either the lying fellow goes or we go.
Two weeks later we had a new manager and were from then on as happy as clams.
This was a 'pre dot com boom' time, but I would do the same thing now if the problem reoccured. If your team is _really_ valuable, then the company will do what is necessary to keep you happy. If your team isn't that valuable, improve your skills and contribution until it is valuable.
Re:The real solution... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds kinda like the definition of a strike. Which leads to another thought: unionize? You get to keep your job, and maybe you'll be able to bargain for better working hours as well.
Organization (Score:2, Interesting)
The scenario your suggesting is trying to 'collectively bargain' with the company when you only have a 'collective' of one department.
Call up a CWA (communication workers of America) local in your area, organize your department and as many of the other company employees as you can to join the union. Take 6 months to build the organization and plan a collective action. This way you'll have support in other departments, and union support externally.
Re:Result (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually I manage to work around 6 month a year, and get 6 month unemployed since 4 years. It's good to stay home, have a beer with friends, read a book, visits some places, etc... For me, unemployment is synonym of good time. And since i work on contract I'm getting unemployment funds while not working. Even have a t-shirt "Work to Live, Don't Live to Work". (The true story is also that I got fired once
Best of all, each time you change jobs, you're facing new problems and it's really challenging sometimes.
Re:What's really important for you? (Score:3, Interesting)
You owe no-one else at the company a job, that is job of the CEO / President / Founders / Partners, and to say that if so-n-so leaves the company is going to fail, so you canâ(TM)t, well, youâ(TM)re being dishonest then to the realities.
Iâ(TM)ve seen the key people leave companies and watched them fail, and in hindsight, it isnâ(TM)t the person(s) who leaves which caused the failure, it usually was other factors that lead up to the key people leaving.
Companies fail, itâ(TM)s life, and nothing is a given, but for taxes and death.
There is a middle road... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in a situation like this a few years ago, only the company wasn't in financial problems at all. We were posting a strong profit and higher-ups were taking nice bonuses. Meanwhile our bonus plan got trashed, we were working 70-80 hour weeks including stat holidays, and getting nothing for it. Also management was accepting contracts with deadlines we could not make without working double-time. After they asked us for the estimates and we gave them the correct amount of work.
We were in a position where our group of 5 developers were working with custom-built software. There was a ramp-up time of several months to get new people to the point where they could be productive developers. And of course no docs :) So if we left they would have forfeited on some large contracts and they had no hope of bringing in replacements.
We did the extra work for about 6 months, including getting screwed two quarters in a row on bonuses, before we took action. Instead of all quitting we simply announced that since the company refused to acknowledge our extra efforts on their behalf they would no longer get extra effort. We worked hard for our regular hours but no late nights, no weekend work, no coming in on holidays. Our lives all got a lot better and we still had jobs.
Of course that was in a market where we all knew that we could walk out the door any morning and have several job offers by the afternoon :)
I Would Keep In Mind... (Score:3, Interesting)
There are three certain outcomes. The first is that you will be out of work. The second is that if for some reason the company agrees with your demands, you will be replaced as soon as possible. The third is that you will never get a positive reference from this organization again, possibly hurting your chances for other work.
You're not too busy if you have time to post on slashdot and spend energy discussing this with your coworkers.
I would caution you against doing anything as a group. It is unlikely that your needs and motivation completely line up with those of the rest of the group.
Remember, all jobs stink. That is why we call this "work", after all.
Ultimately, you need to decide your needs, your career goals, whether you agree with the mission of the organization, and if your position in the organization lines up with what you want to do (or your path to get to what you want to do). If you decide its time to move on, move on. But move on with pride and in a way that respects the feelings of those that want to stay. You want the company to remember you as a good person who would be an asset to any organization, and not a person ranting as they go out the door.
Partly your fault (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's what happened to us... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is important to realize that we were effectively irreplacable (unique job-specific skills, nothing to do with computers). Or so we thought...
Three of us (not including myself) went ahead and set up a company, and offered our services to the larger company directly. The smaller company then started on a campaign of threats, allegations, lies, and FUD that would make Microsoft blush. The larger company used us as a lever for negotiating a better contract with the smaller company, then unceremoniously dumped us.
So would I do it again? Hell, yes. In fact I would do it sooner, and with less restraint. This is important to realize: if we had realized what was coming we would have been less galant towards our former boss (not keeping the systems going while we were setting up our new company, for example - the price would have been high, but it would also have put tremendous pressure on our boss). And we wouldn't have believed the (verbal) assurances the larger company gave us regarding our soon-to-be contract with them.
The story is far more complicated than this little message (I could write a book about that period), but the general idea I think is clear: we were in a bad situation, we fought, we lost, and we have no regrets.
Some lessons you may want to remember:
- Your former colleagues may suddenly turn into your worst enemies. They'll lie to you. They'll try to make you fail in all ways that count. And they may pretend they are still your friend while they are at it.
- Individual members of your group may be bribed by your former boss to come back into the fold, thereby bringing back all that irreplacable knowledge.
Are you ready to fight? Can you afford to lose? If so, go for it.
Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why, even though I've been given the opportunity to become a salaried employee (with a ~5k/year raise) at the current job, I've declined. I end up working enough overtime that the pay raise really isn't that spectacular, and the ability to leave my work at the office is actually quite refreshing.
Reality (Score:5, Interesting)
At my current job, when I got fed up, I went to my boss, and said "Look, this is not what I got into this business to do. Either find me some work like you promised me when I signed on, or, with no malice between us, I will seek employment elsewhere." Note, this was at one of the scariest times in the current depression, companies were imploding everywhere you looked, where as the company I am at is a stable, established business that isn't going away for a long time. The safe route would have been, "please sir, may I have another."
I ended up with a job that was more like what I wanted to do, and I got a big increase in salary. It was scary, though, I had made up my mind to leave if I didn't get what I wanted. Things are far from perfect now. (I'm still trapped in a big bureacracy and bored out of my mind most of the time.) However, I can tolerate the situation now where I couldn't before.
So, basically, I think everyone has a breaking point. Everyone has a point where they say, "I've had all I can stands, I can't stands no more," even in a truly frightening economy like this one. Of course, it is easy to end up in a situation where you regret your actions, but I haven't yet.
Or maybe I should have kept my old job, working for stock. I'm sure I'd be a rich man today (snicker.).
Re:as good as it sound.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Been there (Score:5, Interesting)
All of us researchers and technicians were ok, nice to work with, producing very good stuff and feeling utterly exploited. One day the trio of morons that tried to manage the company sacked the only sane person in the company outside of the techs. There was a general walk out of all the employed techies, one by one in the space of 1 month.
Nobody got unemployment benefits (this is in Europe). 1 year later, some people still do odd jobs to survive. The fucked up company has just 3 employees: the trio of morons!
The moral of the story is:
You need to have the proper qualifications.
I could just go to management and say "fuck you". I knew I could start another job one week later. Very comfortable.
I once knew.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Karma : Bad ??? What the hell ?
Re:Run *when* you can (Score:1, Interesting)
Are they playing with people's lives to make a profit? Yes. Is it a good thing? A resound "yes".
Consumers win. That's the nature of capitalism. Lawsuits are only there for unfair treatment of employees. Demanding more from your salaried professional workers in hard times (or simply because you can) is not an unfair treatment.
Re:Welcome to America! (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know about Walgreens, but Walmart has a long history of pulling crap like that.
Man, don't get me started. I worked there about 10 years ago, and they really did lock the doors and force you to work off the clock.
Re:Result (Score:5, Interesting)
In my previous consulting job, I was one of two people who had any knowledge of any *nix flavor (and thus I had one of the only Linux laptops) in the major city where we worked. Most of the issues I delt with were with our server side program, and required something *nix comparable for problem resolution and minor fix authoring (shell scripting, etc.). Everyone else, including area IT staff (cept the one other person) was NT background only.
I had the guts of one major project along with sole copies of other work items including several client's maintenance scripts, the New Hire Setup and Installation Guide, SQL for finding database incosistnecies, the only UNIX installer for our software, etc. on my laptop.
I was called out of the middle of meeting with the major project people to be laid off. My laptop was taken on the spot "to prevent destruction of important data".
The rest of the project people never received the DB design I was going to present with them. As best I heard from other people afterward, no one knew how to recover the data from the laptop but the one remaining person and they nixxed his job ~3 days before the laptop was supposed to get to him (he was at a different office in the same city).
Last time I checked up on my former company (less than 1 year after I was laid off), it was bought out by a competitor
Re:Maybe they should form a Union (Score:2, Interesting)
Common unions also divorce pay from skill/effort, and instead you must accumulate years rather than say, do good work, to get your raise and extra vacation.
A little extra bitter, as my wife the teacher was hired five days before the school year, and per union contract is first on the chopping block. BTW, the union will be fighting for a 2% raise for the remaining teachers in the district. Do the math, and that's most of the cut teachers' salaries. A union looks out for its interests, not necessarily those of the employees.
Re:Result (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of just walking out, and facing almost certain termination, take it a different way. IANAL, but I do not think a company can put you on call 24x7 without compensation. ESPCIALLY if it is not in your job description that you should hav signed when you started (or when it was last updated). Now, as far as the 50-60 hour work weeks, you ARE getting paid overtime for them? If not, I KNOW the law says something about that. But again, IANAL and I dont know if the law says something about the ammount of hour a company and make you work.
But back to the On-call business. You have every right to say "no" to your company if they call you at home. Your personal life is your personal life and they are NOT allowed to ask you why you cannot come into work. You simply have to tell them you are unavailable. Or simply, screen your calls. If the company decides to get stupid and fire you becasue you would not answer their call-ins, you have legal grounds for an unlawful termination suit.
Or, in troll terms...
1. Blow of company call-ins
2. Get fired by company
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
Now, dont quote me on this... becasue laws vary from state to state, and even city to city... CHECK before you decide to do anything. Doing your homework is the best bet for fighting any tyrannic company.
Here are two stories to add... (Score:3, Interesting)
I also know of another company that again had, a similar problem. Instead of walking out, the core development team got together and started their own company. They sold their services to the company they left at a lower rate than it cost to employ them. The company they started has been around for 9 years now and is still growing.
Re:Result (Score:5, Interesting)
To make a long story short, after exhausting what we felt was all means available to us we went looking for employment. In a matter of days we both found another job at the same company. We turned in our resignation letters within 20 minutes of each other.
To our surprise our manager didn't understand why we would leave. Unreal.
From what I hear, the manager didn't get his bonus/raise as a result of our leaving. Loosing half your department hurt a great deal and I was sorry but felt we had no choice.
If it's right for you and your co-workers then do it. Walkout but make sure you have the next job ready
Re:The IS version of Johnny Paycheck (Score:1, Interesting)
A better way to formulate the answer (if true), would be something like:
A: We hit hard times and the few of us left had to work overtime constantly. After a year of doing everything I could, things still looked like they were only getting worse, and the demands from the company kept getting even more unreasonable. I decided that my future had to lie elsewhere.
Crapshoot (Score:5, Interesting)
Weeks later, three core people left, started their own consulting firm, and contracted with the employer to do their old jobs on a consulting basis! They somehow sold managment on the idea that it would be cheaper for the company to pay them as consultants than the pay them as employees. The consulting business has blossomed with new clients, and the old employer is in a well-publicized chapter 11.
These guys won, and are still doing well, but this started in late 1998-early 1999 at the height of the bubble. They managed to create solid customer releationships that they have built a solid business on.
Look before you leap, and make sure you know where you are going to land.
Re:What if it DID work...for a while? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hard to get branded a troublemaker when your primary job reference walks out the door right in front of you.
i did it, and so could you! (Score:2, Interesting)
My situation was similar to what the poster described- company tanking, workhours skyrocketing, and managers' heads migrating up their asses as unstoppably as tectonic motion. Even with all that, the decision to leave was TOUGH, especially "with the current job market." (everyone's favorite buzzphrase)
I'll spare the drama, but suffice it to say the camel's back finally broke and I simply packed up my shit and walked out. It was weird, almost surreal, but despite the enormous risk I intuitively knew I couldn't spend another day under that employer's stunning incompetence. And it's not even that I'm some young kid with no obligations. I'm mid-30ish, was right in the middle of buying a house, had a dog, yada yada...
So I left, and couldn't have been happier with how it turned out. After 'just' 2 rather unsettling months, I was picked up by another company: better pay, better people, reasonable hours, and actaully making a profit. I attribute my relatively quick pickup partly to dumb luck, but also (IMHO) a great education and experience.
Vital: for everyone that says education doesn't matter, think again. Paper opens doors. Get those degrees AND be able to show you have more than book smarts.
Moral of the story: it's tough to leave, but *absolutely* possible to land on your feet, even better than before. But it takes balls; the safe bet is always with staying with the status quo.
Re:I took the shit, the result? (Score:3, Interesting)
Totally OT, but what the hell. Hospitals are not run by the pros who make them work. Ever talk to a nurse? I'm married to one. The patient/RN ratio is insane, and they keep cutting back on staff. Almost the exact situation the article poster described. And their union doesn't seem to be much help...
Re:Communicate, people! Communicate! (Score:2, Interesting)
I have personally been through a situation where I was "management", hired to modernize an engineering organization, but did not wield "executive" power, and disagreed with the "executive" decision to (illegally) overwork the staff. I left after stating my reasons before it went to hell. I was told "this is the way our industry works", and advised that If I wasn't willing to do 80 hours a week, I didn't belong.
After I departed, the "management" left knew that they would have a high attrition rate, and they cajoled (but you signed the loyalty oath), threatened (you'll never work in this industry again, and you know we can make that stick), and bribed (look at the bonus!) the employees to stay to the end of the project...Then, as the project neared completion, and before they bribes were contractually due to be paid they started firing the people who had gone through hell, and pressured others to leave by obliquely letting them know they were next.
And before you say "yeah, but this was probably a bunch of losers who made a crappy product, so they were fired for failing", this was the #1 selling product for the top company in a very prominent (one of the few growing in tech nowadays) industry upon release.
The moral of this story is that there is no "one size fits all" answer. Sometimes (often) management would just as likely to tell you "You're fired" for communicating on them, so when you find the exception, nurture it and enjoy it while it lasts.
Re:Communicate, people! Communicate! (Score:3, Interesting)
Managers have to juggle constantly to satisfy a number of stakeholders: the board, the shareholders, the customers, and the employees. It's no coincidence that I list employees last; sadly in these times the employees often get the short end of the deal. Not because management is unfeeling or because they don't care about employees, but it is felt that the employees can be pushed the most without breaking. Piss a client off and he'll take his business elsewhere. Disappoint the stockholders and they'll dump the stock or ask all sorts of nasty questions at the Stockholders' Meeting. But piss of your employees and they'll just keep going. Sure they'll grumble, but they won't quit on you unless you really go too far.
Also, some managers do not like you to bring them trouble. Oh they like feedback and all, but if you're the only one to come to them to "Find out what the problems of the company are, and talk about how the company is dealing with them", they might label you as "the troublesome one". You may even find that ephitet duly noted in your personnel file (oh yes...) Instead of just doing your work, you come to them to tell them how to do their work, with a bunch of issues that frankly are a big headache. Well, that depends on your boss, and how you approach him. Still, the easiest (and therefor the most common) reply would be "Just do your job like everyone else".
Getting no results from your boss, you decide to see his boss. Your problems already start even before you enter his door. For one, your boss will probably be pissed for going over his head. Managers don't like it when their people speak with their supervisors. Second, your manager's boss will already be on a personal level with your manager. He probably works intensively with him on a day-to-day basis, whereas you are just an entry on the budget sheets. If your manager has reported that everything's fine, he might think you're exaggerating and wasting his time. Then again, if you keep running into a blank wall like this, you could consider switching departments rather than quitting.
I do realise I paint a bleak picture here. Sure, there are good companies with good management, but my guess is that the people considering to quit en masse are not working for one of them.
Re:What if it DID work...for a while? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a small world out there (Score:5, Interesting)
I also wonder if a particularly successful fscking of an IT infrastructure couldn't put you at some risk for a lawsuit claiming sabotage. Even if it didn't have a chance of success, you're unemployed and having to defend yourself in a civil suit. That $25k in savings will disappear in a blink just getting a bogus suit dismissed, one with a shade of merit? Hello, homelessness!
My personal "extreme quitting" plan would be to submit a letter to my boss outlining my reasons for leaving, as well as outlining my availability on a contract basis to provide continuity on these NON-NEGOTIABLE terms:
1) Work will be billed at a rate of $200 per hour with a four hour per day minimum, including telephone consultation, travel and offsite work.
2) All expenses, including meals, parking, travel, supplies and equipment required will be billed and provided by the vendors of my choosing. I will seek approval for all purchases over $500 and all materials will become the company's property when my consulting term is over.
3) The company will indemnify me against any damage or losses resulting during my contractual employment.
4) An up-front non-refundable retainer of $5000, payable in cashier's check or cash ONLY, is required before any work, including telephone consultation, will take place. The first 25 billable hours will be subtracted from this retainer.
5) Payment for all hours is due via cash or cashier's check on the Friday of each week before any further work will be performed.
This prevents them from saying you fucked them to harm them and won't help, you have a better basis for arguing you didn't like the job/pay/whatever. The frequent cash payment requirements keep them honest and from getting work and just not paying, important if there's financial problems with the company or if they just have no choice.
Of course in my personal fantasy I get a call from my ex-boss 72 hours later saying they agree to all these terms and that if I will come in today that they will have a cashier's check for $5k waiting for me. I work for about 40 hours and make two months salary.
Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)
can't a company let you go for no particular reason at all in states that have at-will employment?
Pretty much, unless you're a member of a recognized minority group, or old (which is relative). If you fall into one of these categories you can probably sue succesfully, claiming discrimination -- unless a bunch of non-minority types were let go as well.
The flip side, of course, is that in at-will states, you can also leave at any time and the employer has basically no recourse, regardless of what pieces of paper you may have signed. In particular, non-compete agreements are worth very little in at-will states.
My situation (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem that is arising with management (Management really consists of one person. It's a small office) is that we are supposed to maintain high levels of work, come in on the week-ends, stay late, even though we are only working 4 days a week. We are all feeling taken advantage of, but the job market is so bad, there is not a lot we can do to at this point.
I swear to GOD I had a point when I started writing this post, but I have no idea what it was now. Maybe I just needed to get that off my chest.
Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)
Stand up for yourselves (Score:3, Interesting)
What you've really done is formed a union or basis for a union, though that word has a specific bureaucratic meaning in the U.S. Some people here have said it might be bad form to just say screw you and leave. Perhaps, if you're all together on this, perhaps you should approach your employers and tell them what you're unhappy with and what you want - no unpaid overtime or oncall, and in terms of being treated like dirt, perhaps more control over your work and some type of grievance procedure. If you're so sick of it you feel you just want to leave, just demand exactly what you all want and don't give in, then they can't say you just walked out - they just didn't pay attention to your demands.
Some people have said the job market is bad. It wouldn't be if more people did this - 2 people working 60 hour weeks without overtime pay is the same as 3 people working 40 hour weeks - they've put someone out of work with their lack of value for their time. But in terms of that, if one of you walks out you are easily replaced - if all of you threaten to walk out, or strike or whatnot at once, then that becomes less so - all of a sudden you become on more equal footing with the company. It depends on the situation, but in many cases something like a strike is exactly equal - you are hurt by not getting a paycheck, but the company operating without an IT department, or with IT scabs who have no idea what they're doing.
Decades ago, when people were treated like garbage, had work dumped on them and were told to work 60 hour weeks and be oncall 24/7, they used to do what you're doing almost naturally. That's why things didn't go to garbage. This is supposed to be a white collar profession for pete's sake. Half the people here are telling you to consider only the things that go wrong, that you should live like a coolie. It's a disgusting mentality that's crept in - be a man, especially if you're under 35 and don't have kids. I can see people in bad spots (H1-Bs, big families with little savings) being fearful, but if you're a 23 year old programmer, being a patsy for some company owner who is squeezing you dry is insane.
There are also other tactics that have been mentioned here like a "slow down". There are all kind of tactics like this, it's unfortunate that the community is so weak that it is difficult to learn things like this. It's helpful to all of us when people in your situation can talk to other IT workers and get some good ideas and community support. The employers sure as hell do it with organizations like the ITAA, that's one of the reasons we're in the boat we're in. There are organizations like the Programmers Guild and Washtech and so forth.
Have some backbone! In solidarity there's strength. If you're all together you DEFINITELY have leverage over the company. That's one thing the company and people of a certain mindset want to convince you of - they are all-powerful, you are weak and scared. Bullshit. In Europe, they are putting through crap people don't like with pensions and guess what - 80% of the workers in the country are going on strike. You can be certain Faux News doesn't cover that story - it might give people ideas. And guess what - the government and people pushing for that junk back off. That's why they have education systems where they don't have to import 1 million H1-Bs because supposedly there's not enough educated people in the US to do the IT jobs. When those European workers walk out of their jobs en masse, all of a sudden the shoe's on the other foot - the rich, and the bosses and the owners, and the government can't do a damn thing, THEY'RE the ones shaking in their boots - not the workers. What are the bosses going to do, fire all of the workers in the country? The reality is that the people who do the work in the company are the ones with all of the power, the owners and managers have po
Re:Result (Score:3, Interesting)
That may be an unpopular sentiment, but it is not a troll - firstly, it is advice (clearly sincere) directed at the story author, and secondly, in so far as factual assertions are made, they are well documented in the literature on the subject; when the same group of people were in charge in 1980-1992 this is exactly what they did.
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/9708-UD-re
Clinton had very similar policies, as I'm sure we're all aware, but failing to criticize past administrations the same breath hardly constitutes a Troll. If I had moderator access at the moment I'd report this as an abuse.
Personally, since there seem to be only about half a dozen workers in this case, collective bargaining seems un-necesarry. The story author and his coworkers should just walk out.
Re:Some questions and observations... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is incorrect. If you have 6 months worth of living expenses saved up ($15,000+ for me), just sitting in an account somewhere, "just in case," then you're an idiot.
That's what a line of credit is for.
Sure, of course you should be investing and everything. I've got money invested in plenty of places. But if I were to lose my job tomorrow, I've got a $15,000 line of credit I could live off of for a couple of weeks or more, while I did some paperwork to liquidate some of my investments, as necessary.
I get at the money, pay back the line of credit, and live off of the retirement money I need, until I get another job. In the meantime, that money was working hard for me in interest-bearing investment vehicles, instead of just sitting in an account somewhere, not even keeping up with inflation (thus, becoming worth less and less).
Now, if you've been employed for a while, and don't even have a retirement fund big enough to support you for 6 months in an emergency, then I'd agree, you'd be an idiot.
Sitting on a pile of cash, not gaining interest, is stupid. Plain and simple.
Unions - Not a bunch of bull (Score:5, Interesting)
From the worker, you have a job, get a decent wage, get training, and get placement. Good workers look for good companies. A good company will always have work and treat their employees well. Lazy louts will have a harder go of it, and will wind up on furlough (Laid off) more often.
From the manager (my side) it's good too. If I hire a union electrician, he or she has to come with tools, and prepared and able to do a certain level of work. If this person cannot do that, I send them back. One of the big complaints about non-union work is a lack of training. And I've seen it happen. A guy shows up and says he's an electrician, but he barely knows how to change a light bulb, let alone install electric panels!
And yes, a union electrician costs more, but the odds are you're going to get a better job out of a union shop. That said, there are non-union shops out there (especially away from the east coast, where there is less organized labor) that do great work. But even then a good shop is going to cost more because in the end, you get what you pay for.
One last thing, this all pertains to more physical, blue collar work, construction and maintenance of data centers, not the programming and operation of the equipment in it.
And no, I'm not in a union, but I use them. And I'm good at it!
Re:Result (Score:3, Interesting)
Employers, however don't have to pay extras for contract workers and thus they usually get almost twice as much more per hour, thus it is perfect resonable that you could live an entire year off of a six month employment, especially if that employment time has you working crazy hours.
Americans work more hours at work than any other industrialized first world country. This shows off in our accomplishments: technology, military supierority. But this comes at a price: americans define themselves by their work. I agree with the parent and choose to define myself by the life I live, not the job I have.
Just because parent figured out an arguably better way to live shouldn't mean he should lose karma. In fact parent probably has more real karma than workaholics who do little else than work. And for what gain? Money? At the end of the day what does that get you?
Please mod parent back up.
Re:What's really important for you? (Score:1, Interesting)
I work as a coder for the dept of revenue of a midwest state. In the last two years our tax revenues have dropped by $700M, putting the crunch on everything. The first thing management did was to not hire back the seasonal workers, asking the permanent staff to volunteer to split some of their time between their regular duties and the work the seasonal people did - opening and sorting tax returns and data entry. Many staff did volunteer. So did many of the management. A couple of days ago I was checking some records and noticed the Tax Commissioner's ID in the clerkID field. The timestamp was 7:16PM. I checked with some staff who verified that the TC was doing data entry.
Decent managment won't tell you, they will lead you.
Re:Welcome to America! (Score:2, Interesting)
That's false arrest, and a violation of fire codes. (Ignoring labor codes.)
Re:Result (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes some Unions may have corruption at all levels, but at least the members have the ability to make a change. try that with Enron or Worldcom.
I belonged to a union (CWA), heard a lot of members complain, but it was mostly those that really didn't come to meetings, or vote in electons.
The Union belongs to the members, they are responsible.
AlricTheMad
Re:Some questions and observations... (Score:2, Interesting)
Negotiation is the Key (Score:2, Interesting)
The real issue is not whether to leave or not, but rather to negotiate with the bosses to get the respect and working conditions you want. There's lot of "gambits" you can use like good-guy/bad-guy, higher authority, nibbling and a host of other tactics
For example. the company I'm currently working at desperately needed some fixes to their commercial accounting system. Rather than say "Yeah I can help you" I phrased it as "I might be able to help you, but what are you going to do for me?". Two weeks later I'm sitting in my own office with a $4500.00 PC and a 22" monitor using only Linux - a dream job!
If geeks would learn some basic negotiating skills, Linux would eventually rule, the world would be a better place, and we'd all make more money. (Don't believe me? Talk to an accomplished salesman)
Re:as good as it sound.... (Score:3, Interesting)
a. Checked the day's date
b. If Today() greater than xVarDateInHex then
- Figuartively roll 20 sided die
- If date less than roll then end
End if
It was pretty obvious because the call was something like winsock.0pen where the "0" in "0pen" was a zero (which didn't compile because it was a function call that started with a number, which is how we found it).
If this would have worked, the program would have seemed to abort abnormally with no error call, but would work better and better as the month went on, until it always seemed to work from the 20th onwards... only to stop working on the 1st of the next month, then repeat the cycle. Very hard to troubleshoot. If it would have worked.
________________________________________
www.punkwalrus.com - What hath God wrought?
Go work for somebody else! (Score:3, Interesting)
In this market, be grateful you got a job.
NEVER quit job "A" until you have job "B" lined up! NEVER.
If you want to try strong-arm tactics against your employer, form a union.
A couple things follow:
If you can't come up with job "B", that means that you should probably keep working at job "A" and deal with it as best you can. Work slowdowns and other means of "giving management the finger" may make you feel good for the moment. Don't screw yourself.
If you can't get enough support from your co-workers to form a union, that's a pretty good indicator that your brilliant plan to "show management whose boss" is going to fail.
An note to employers here: Loyalty flows both ways. If you're screwing your employees, you can be sure they are going to screw you back. And you, as the employer, have to be the first to show respect. Most employers would prefer to use manipulation and intimidation than respect. Fact is, intimidation is a better short-term solution.
I must say this comes from a voice of experience. I left my previous job mainly because I did not respect my boss. I will not iterate his shortcomings here; just say that he did not meet my criteria for respect. I hired on with another (much smaller) company whose leader I did (and do) respect.
In tough economic times, the company I work for has had to cut back on some benefits simply because the money was not there. Some employees would have dragged out their offer of employment and cried "FOUL". No. Most employers will give you some song and dance about "we have to face reality her...we are no longer able to..." Fine, that's probably true. But when economics improve, does management restore vacations? Benefits? My boss did.. When money got even tighter, the management cut salaries, too. Their own salaries, that is. And that means president, veep, etc. Not "project managers", etc. The people with the power to make the cuts cut themselves first.
Listen up, bosses reading this: This is respect. All of these "Who Cut My Cheese" books won't tell you the simple truth: "If you take care of your people, they will take care of you". And if you screw them, don't expect any better back.
Re:Let me guess. (Score:3, Interesting)
Long gone are the says of "If you work more than 40 hours a week, your manager isn't doing his job" - Ross Perot
Walkout Fever (Score:2, Interesting)
The IT guy (my best friend) quit immediately. One of the other programmers had quit the day before. I quit but offered to stay onboard and transition a few projects (out of the goodness of my heart - assholes be damned). I got walked out the door. Two of my friends who were in marketing but were not seriously considering a walk-out were bounced out the door a week later with a month's severance and leftover vacation time. Definite house-cleaning.
The company deserved to lose us. They are doing fantastic 4 years later, so I know we didn't hurt them (not that I cared), but I hope at least they got the fucking point.
-Chris
Cool down. Seriously. (Score:4, Interesting)
- If you haven't yet done so, read your terms and conditions of employment, including the small print. Pay especial attention to procedures laid down for handling employee grievances, and disciplinary issues, and over what activities may constitute grounds for disciplinary actions.
- Give your local managers the chance to recognise that they have a problem and to make a sincere attempt to resolve it before moving to the grievance stage.
- Keep a written record of these discussions - make a summary at the end of meetings and indicate to the people you're talking with what you consider were the important points and what you understand to have been agreed (or not) on each side.
- Don't indulge in wishful thinking on a matter as important as this. As others have already noted, it's easy to believe that you're more vital to the enterprise than you actually are, and there's the unpleasant possibility that even if everyone who's unhappy acts responsibly you'll still be identified as trouble-makers and find yourselves looking for other work. I'm not saying that you should wimp out and let yourselves be shafted because of the current state of the job market, only that you are realistic about the situation.
Good luck, anyway.Re:Result (Score:3, Interesting)
No matter how much they talk about loyalty, no boss will ever risk their career sticking up for you.
When directed to cut force (or to increase the workload insanely) no boss will ever refuse to do so out of loyalty to their underlings
Re:Unions - Not a bunch of bull (Score:1, Interesting)
If that software programmer makes a company millions of dollars a year with the code he writes, then he is worth company revenue he brings in * scaling factor which would be about 200k/year salary.
Go work in a real industry like the financial world. Guys who can code software that makes people money (shitloads of money) get compensated for it. But most slashbot code monkeys are glorified HTML fags who think they are leet.
Here's a clue, web design is ghey, and you have no "skillz." You need to learn to put on a suit and tie, comb your fucking hair, take regular baths and become a valuable technical asset to a company.
All you 5/hr. gurus are worth 5 an hour if you're lucky.
Some of us make damn good money, because we make people money and we know how to communicate and play nice with others.
similar question (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets say a person is hired by a company, hourly not salaried, to do system administration. Well throughout the employment the person was asked to do a website for the company. The site isn't finished yet, and still being worked on daily in addition to normal sys admin tasks. The conditions at the workplace have deteriorated rapidly and the pay certainly isn't consummate to the workload. If the person were to leave whether it be by resignation or laid off, what are the legal rights the person has in terms of taking the code for the website with him when he goes? Whether or not the company folds or stays in business seems irrelevant in this case, but if the person leaves and decides to take the website and any other work he's done with him, what are the legal ramifications of doing this? Mind you it's not a contract position, and there is no contract at all, and certainly nothing about ownership of code, project schedule etc.
Re:Result (Score:3, Interesting)
That may be the saddest thing ever posted on Slashdot. There was a time when companies and employees were loyal to each other, even in IT -- IBM and HP come to mind. Companies believed that they owed their success to their employees and did not offshore their jobs at the first quarter-point drop in stock price. CEOs made only two to three times the average worker's pay -- not three thousand times the average employee's wage. Companies believed they needed to give something back to the local communities that had allowed them to prosper. In return, employees felt loyalty to the companies that employed them.
That trust was broken with today's employee-as-widget and offshore-the-HQ-and-jobs attitudes. I hope there is a special hell for the greedy, self-serving MBAs who are ruining not only the companies they *work for* and the country they live in but the lives of so many employees as well.
It all depends on how you play your cards... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's funny that this topic comes up occasionally. Let me tell you a (true) story.
About a decade ago, I was working for a medium-sized computer retailer. I had just joined the technical services group, and work was brisk.
This group was responsible for providing technical support both for internal systems, and for fulfilling external customer support contracts.
This was back in the time when there was still some money to be made selling hardware in a retail environment, but when margins were already starting to fall. It was pretty obvious to everyone that the happy days of Porsche-driving salespersons was coming to a close.
This company had the answer half-right in that they saw computer services as a way to stretch their profit margins on their computer sales. More importantly, though, they saw professional services as a way to get into customers that they would normally have no access to.
Where they still had blinders on, though, was that they were at their root a retail sales organization. Everything revolved around the salesperson's ability to close the sale. If that meant that services - either basic configuration or detailed consulting and programming - had to be provided at a cut rate, that was fine as long as the company closed the hardware sale.
The problem was that the services group had their own P&L and budget. Worse, we didn't get credit for the hardware sale in any form. Add to this, our ability to charge-back our services costs (especially when they were discounted), was minimal. But our compensation was based on our P&L.
We were able to offset this for a while by selling services contracts somewhat outside of the regular retail sales chain, but soon even that was being eaten away when the company brought in dedicated sales people to sell support contracts under a different group.
What all this meant was that we were all working 60+ hour weeks with less and less pay.
So we started to plan.
The manager of the group started delaying the close of most of the support and development contracts 'in the pipe,' at the same time that the services support sales group was doing a great job of selling contracts. He also rented office space and convinced the rest of us in the group that things were not going to get better staying with the company. We could do better on our own.
On July 5th (yes, the timing was deliberate), he had a meeting with the management of the company, where he handed them letters of resignation for the entire group. We had also coordinated our mass resignation with the resignation of the person responsible for supporting the POS system for the company.
So now this company had NO technical support people, a large number of signed support contracts, and a large number of hardware sales contingent on cut-rate support and installation. They had already purchased much of the inventory for these sales, and faced a cash-crunch if they were unable to make the delivery.
We offered them a way out.
All they had to do was transfer all of the previously-sold contracts to us... We would take them over, essentially without compensation, but with the ability to renew the contracts under the new company. All the contracts in the pipe would be 're-sold' to the new company, so that we had an instant source of income. Additionally, we would be available to help the old company's corporate sales division continue to close higher-end customers, in return for ongoing access to their customer list.
So...
It's almost 10 years later, and our original parent company has long-since dive-bombed, folded, and dissolved into oblivion.
If you walk into the front door of our office, you'll probably notice the one out-of-place piece of art in our otherwise utilitarian-geek environs... It's a sculpture of a golden goose that used to sit on the CEO's desk at our old employer.
Sometimes things DO work out right.
It happened during the boom (Score:1, Interesting)
Their offering to stay was pathetic. So the programmers and VP got together and told them they were forming their own company, and would offer support. If they didn't want this deal, that was OK because every one of the programmers had job offers elsewhere. Black mail? I like to think of it as shrewd work politics. Within two years they were a multi million dollar support company. But after the dot-bomb, I've lost contact with them.
Personally I got a job at an ISP and doubled my pay within a year. Which was a lot better than what that company was offering to stay for the same amount of time, a non-guarenteed $10K (you know the old, if-you-do-everything-right-but-we-won't-tell-you-
I tend to think this scenerio worked for two reasons. First, it was an in-house product. You're pretty much screwed for support if you lose the people. Second, the programmers had somewhere else to go. So continued work for that company was purely by choice. That is something we (Sysadmins, tech people, etc) don't have today! I'm still amazed that my current ISP employer pays good $$ to kids, and I mean kids, who can't even look at a log file when there are so many intelligent, responsible people out there who are out of work and willing to work for far less $$ just to stay in the field.
So unless you have a holy grail that only your group creates and supports, I would think twice.
Re:Maybe they should form a Union (Score:2, Interesting)
Not to burst your bubble, but your pension isn't 100% safe either. Plenty of CEO and boardmember fraud could leave your pension penniless, (as one Massachusetts pension program discovered last year).