Trade Unions...

Was reading some articles on the Left call for trade unions in the IT industry. Most IT folks have taken exception to this idea, but I, for one, think it might actually work.

Conditions apply, of course. No political interference. No 'affiliations' to other organizations or an umbrella union. No strike calls by anyone outside the industry.

The reason I think it might work is that IT workers, by far, are much more sensible than the workers in other industries. I can hardly imagine my friends and colleagues protesting on the road and holding up traffic. I cannot imagine them striking work asking for better pay, or protesting against privatization or takeovers. In fact, I cannot think of any of us doing anything for which the unions have earned themselves a bad name!

On the other hand, a union might give us a platform for support when one of us is in trouble. Case in point is the poor management guy who was beaten up on Bangalore railway station. The authorities claim he was drunk and that he has withdrawn his complaint, but his blog tells a different story. Without going into the merits of his particular case, if such a thing were to happen to me or to any of my friends, it would be so much easier if we had a union with clout behind us. Think about it.

So my vision of an IT industry union is the very definition of the word. A coming together of people, with no agenda to pursue other than the wellbeing of its members. Of course, the 'usual' unions were probably formed with the same goal, but they have been traditionally confrontationalist. With a 'we-against-the management' attitude. I'm banking on the premise that IT workers are in a better league. What we need is really just a platform, not a union in the sense that we see it in other industries.

I don't think issues like overtime, working conditions, etc are really anything to discuss about in this context. Overtime makes sense in a call center perhaps, but certainly not in a software development or in a R&D house. This industry is inherently different in that we don't have fixed actions to perform which will generate fixed products which are then sold. I don't have a fixed output of say, lines of code every day. My employment is task or project based and overtime makes no sense. This is captured in my contract which states that I am an 'exempt' employee. The problem with the leaders calling for a union is that they simply don't understand the nature of the beast. Calling for overtime to be paid to software engineers is only going to get them laughed at.