OK, now lets not get upset with labor unions after all unions represent workers. Believe me when I say that programmers and everyone else who works in I/T are labor. We are the work force, by definition the work force is labor. Yes the CWA Communications Workers of America http://www.cwa-union.org You may also want to look at this site http://www.allianceibm.org and http://www.ibmemployee.com/ I'm going to address Mikes concerns in this note as well. ********************************************* 1. There are to many independents You need to know that even contract employees can be in a union, in the same union as the full time employees. 2. off-shore Thats why we need to organize our selves, to stop this off-shoring. ********************************************* Many companies (IBM and ATT for example) are moving jobs from the U.S. to many other countries. What they don't tell you about the 5 dollar an hour jobs is the companies don't pay any health benefits. The places where these jobs are being moved to have socialized medicine. What the companies aren't saying is how much the CEO's have invested in these companies in India, Mexico, Brazil, etc... The CEO's are all about making money for the stock holders, but never forget that the CEO's are HUGE stock holders. What they don't tell you is how they are training people in India to pronounce "speak" American English. They are teaching the people to sound just like a mid western person so the American public doesn't know they are talking to someone on the other side of the planet. Call ATT customer service and ask where they are located. They will tell you "I can't tell you that for security reasons" that is total BS. Did the CEO of ATT tell you the attrition rate in the jobs in India is around 30%. These people work all night because they are servicing American business. Did they tell you they are abusing the people in these countries because the pay is 1/5 that of an American worker. Is that ethical or moral? Did they tell you the people in these countries are not allowed to work over time? I quit my job at IBM because I could not stand by and see people I have worked with for years loose their jobs. IBM brings programmers and dba's from all over the world to the U.S. trains them to do the job and sends them back to their country of origin then fires the IBM employees. No the person who took the job is NOT and IBM employee. IBM has reduced it's work force by 15,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2003 alone. Yes American workers are expensive, yes we are a little whiny, yes WE BUILT THIS COUNTRY! If want to bash unions and say they are bad, first find out about unions. Do some research don't take a stand unless you know what both sides have to say. Get to know the issues then make a decision about what to do. If someone asks how to do something with PhP don't you ask if they have done the research first, tried to learn about the question they are asking? Sam. mike schrenk wrote: >Two factors that will kill any labor movement in IT: >1. There are too many independants, and >2. It's too easy to get work done off-shore for $5.00 an hour. > >--schrenk, > >--- Justin Koivisto <justin at koivi.com> wrote: > > >>I was asked to do a little research and was wondering if anyone here >>has >>heard of any labor unions in Minnesota that cover web programmers? >> >>TIA >> >> > > >===== >http://www.schrenk.com > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software >http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: talk-unsubscribe at tcphp.org >For additional commands, e-mail: talk-help at tcphp.org > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20030905/6c3f1bbf/attachment.html