We need a technology guild, not a technology union

I have some experience working with labor unions as a formerly self employed computer programmer and one of the biggest problems I had to deal with was a lack of respect when trying to find labor organizations to work with. One of the biggest issues that I had to deal with was that I am not a traditional union member within any of the traditional rank and file unions. I started out getting an internship with the Chicago Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO CLC) the summer before I graduated as a Computer Science major. I recieved my internship after being active with United Students Against Sweatshops and making connections with local labor leaders. From there I was able to network with a few other unions, some of whom I still maintain contacts with. As I tried to find new organizations to work with, I ended up spreading myself too thin and found it too difficult to continue. I have also lost interest in what I was doing for the most part, but I still have a lot of my previous work experience in my head and it is hard to give up my own business after being dedicated to what I was doing for the last couple of years. If I were to go back to working with labor unions, I would want to be represented within a union-like organization that represented my interests and helped me make connections with labor unions at the same time. Right now I am very happy with a full time position at a non-profit organization where I can help the organization I work with embrace technology from the inside, instead of being a consultant. At some point I want to return to being a consultant as well as working from the inside of an organization.

To my knowledge, there is one labor union that comes close to representing programmers and I think they are doing a terrible job. That union is WashTech, a branch of CWA based out of Seattle, WA. I do not think their goal of eleminating outsourcing is realistic or possible and in my opinion, I believe that their efforts also alienate a lot of computer science people who might otherwise be sympathetic to labor issues. Their strategy seems to be that if they were to organize Microsoft and IBM and stop outsourcing, then everyone else would be able to benifit from their union. For someone like myself who does not want to work for a large organization like Microsoft or IBM, there is very little incentive to want to join them. The only benifit I ever saw in their orgnization would have been the ability to say that I am a "union member", dispite the fact that the union representing me would not have provided any meaningful union benifits. There is another "union based" organization that claims to represent technology workers and that is the union printers who make a few dollars on the side acting as computer professionals within an already exising union industry.

From my experience in the field, I propose the formation of a technology guild that would help programmers understand how to run their own business and would also act as a resource for finding jobs. As a computer programmer, I own my own skills and can decide who I want to work for. I do not need to have a boss to write programming code and I enjoy the freedom that comes with being self employed. I think that the first group of clients to be approached by a technology guild should be labor itself. There are plenty of local unions that have very little experience with computers and need consulting help establishing a presence on the web. The second area to target would be small organizations that have one or two tech people (or more) within an organization that primarily employs non-technical people. There will never be a tech union within this type of organization, however the tech person at this type of organization would be able to join a guild to network with other people who have to deal with the same sort of issues.

I alone do not have the sort of resources that would be needed to create this organization, however I would be happy to work towards establishing such an organization if there were other people who were also interested in this goal. This organization would have a technology focus and would probably have some simmilarities with organizations like the Graphic Artists Guild (GAG), the Writers Guild, the Newspaper Guld, or even the Screen Actors Guild. One of the funny things that I have noticed when I was looking for an organization that would represnt my interests was that the Graphic Artists Guild, the Writers Guild and the Newspaper Guild all listed computer professionals as members, however it was in the context of art, writing, or working at a newspaper and did not have any sort of meaningful outreach towards computer programmers.

One strategy that I tried while being self employed was to try to work at the state-wide level in Illinois to create a website for every central labor coucil in Illinois. I got absolutely no where with the Illinois AFL-CIO, dispite my contacts with several local labor leaders. From what I was told, under the AFL-CIO voluntary membership rules there can be no mandate telling each CLC what to do, the most I might be able to get from them would be some sort of resolution which probably wouldn't do anything. I have found out that trying to find labor organizations to work with turns into political nonsense. I have created websites for 3 Illinois Central Labor Councils and there are only 4 or 5 Central Labor Councils in Illinois that have their own websites. From what I have seen, at any given level of union heirarchies, there is absolutely no interest in helping smaller organizations (local unions) establish their own communication network online.

I am a grassroots level supporter and I strongly believe that any efforts to bring labor into the 21st century will have to come from the bottom up, not the top down. Until there is an organization that will help connect labor leaders to technology experts at the grassroots level, I think it is highly unlikely that the two will ever really connect.