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Escapist Calls For Industry Unionization 100

Posted by Zonk from the fight-for-the-right- dept.
amitlu writes "In the Friday edition of the Escapist, Joe Blancato challenges the industry to compare itself to skilled labor of the past, and says it's time to organize. From the article: 'If we continue at the rate we're going, we're either going to be worrying about a bunch of college-aged kids with computer science degrees working at McDonald's, too disillusioned to continue in their chosen field or worse, the position they previously held was moved overseas to a more bottom line-friendly locale. For the sake of trying to save money on production costs, why not ship off art production to Romania? Or customer service to India? But to paraphrase the old cliché: First they came for the artists, and I said nothing...'"
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Escapist Calls For Industry Unionization More

Escapist Calls For Industry Unionization

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  • too bad it won't work... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's going to be cheaper to outsource to india then to hire union labor...
    • Maybe the article was intended for those Indian cogs in the wheel. or rather maybe it should be. The age where location has meaning is eroding. Just because were losing jobs to people overseas doesnt mean that we assume that they should work a sweatshop either.
      • There's wage inflation in Indian outsourcing. There's too much work and not enough labor so companies are bidding up salaries for the really good talent. Heck, there's wage inflation in PRC factories lately. When you lower the price of something, you increase demand. That tends to suck up supply. It's as true of Romanian C programmers as it is of soap. Their wages are going to rise in a very nice arbitrage deal for them.
    • I believe the idea is to orgainize vertically forcing companies to outsource all of their employees or none at all. A union would also have the ability to give outsources bad PR.
    • Simple rule of economics. You can price yourself out of a market. Todays software engineers are the autoworkers of yesteryear. Some old coder will look up one day and realize he doesn't have a field to work in anymore. Pay attention to the world around you and ALWAYS continue education and expansion of your experience. Look out coders, someone's moving your cheese.
      • Very true.

        Further, software jobs shifting overseas are transitioning into not existing anymore for anyone but will be automated.

        The future of human endeavor is in three fields - science, engineering, and art - all fields that lend themselves to entreprenurialism and international markets.

    • Why doesn't the 'Escapist', who can't manage to get enough funding to make a print edition yet seems to think they know the best business practices for a $10 billion industry, try to unionize it's own writers and then let us know how splendidly that improved things.

  • Yea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ClownsScareMe ( 840001 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:25PM (#13794427)
    To curb outsourcing?

    Right, because union workers are much more attractive hires.

    • Re:Yea (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Directrix1 ( 157787 )
      Oh come on, its obviously worked wonders for GM and Ford.

    • Re:Yea (Score:3, Informative)

      by Irish_Samurai ( 224931 )
      You really don't understand how unions work do you?

      You first get a whole group of similar laborers together to stand together against employers.

      Then, when the employers threaten to not hire them, the union goes to the politicians and tells them that their union has enough votes to make or break their election. At this point the union muscles the politician into creating laws prohibiting the outsourcing of this type of labor, or the hiring of non-union labor.

      If the union does not have enough votes to change

      • Re:Yea (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TykeClone ( 668449 ) *
        For the employer, non-union labor is almost always more attractive, but they can't use them. Check out construction workers and Taxi drivers in New York. Or perhaps you should take a look at Bell South.

        That's the difference between right to work states and non-right to work states. Places like New York and Illinois can force you to join a union if you want to work in a union shop.


        • That's the difference between right to work states and non-right to work states.

          Yes, that's true. But even though right-to-work legislation makes it harder to form a union, it does not by default mean a union cannot be successful. I work in a union shop in a right-to-work state, and the union is still capable of successfully negotiating a new contract. The majority of workers here are members of the union, and the beauty of it is that they were not forced to join. It demonstrates to management just how stro
      • Hi there. Wrote the article and thought I'd hop in. What Irish Samurai is saying is correct. The union itself provides a simple means through which skilled workers can lobby legislators, which sadly is the only way to effect change anymore. I briefly alluded to it in the article, but the chunk where I spoke further about how such action could curb outsourcing ended up being cut for use in another article. I realize a lot of the negative connotations unions can take on, but in industries where unions have _n
        • Quite simply, programmers are treated poorly in many situations because they're viewed as expendable.

          So, unionizing changes that how, exactly?

          The reality is that they *are* expendable, to a point. Many outsourced programming jobs have come right back to the states after the companies that thought they were going to be saving tons of money realized the overhead associated with having a remote development team that was not easily supervisable, and might not have been able to communicate effectively with th

          • Re:Yea (Score:2)

            by Hast ( 24833 )

            Quite simply, programmers are treated poorly in many situations because they're viewed as expendable.

            So, unionizing changes that how, exactly?

            By grouping together people it becomes easier (or even possible) to make the situation better for all programmers.

            Now I realise that the idea of thinking of a group of poeple goes against the American "ME ME ME!" thinking; but by being to egoistic you are making things worse for yourself in the long run. Becuase when it comes down to it you can always find someone th

            • By grouping together people it becomes easier (or even possible) to make the situation better for all programmers.

              Ideally, yes. In theory, there's no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there is...

              Now I realise that the idea of thinking of a group of poeple goes against the American "ME ME ME!" thinking; but by being to egoistic you are making things worse for yourself in the long run. Becuase when it comes down to it you can always find someone that is willing to work for less than yo

        • Wow.

          That's probably the best geek moment I have had to date.

          I went and checked your profile, is this seriously the only post you have ever commented on?

      • Check out construction workers and Taxi drivers in New York. Or perhaps you should take a look at Bell South.

        Construction workers! Taxi drivers! Infrastructure maintainers!

        What do they all have in common? None of them can be done by a guy 1000 miles away. New York cab drivers have to work in New York. This is the labor equivalent of a captive audience. So congratulations, unions can make companies that have no other choice pay through the nose. Meanwhile most other businesses will give you the fing

        • Construction workers! Taxi drivers! Infrastructure maintainers!

          What do they all have in common? None of them can be done by a guy 1000 miles away. New York cab drivers have to work in New York. This is the labor equivalent of a captive audience. So congratulations, unions can make companies that have no other choice pay through the nose.

          Leveraging your position to make more money is a mainstay of ANY business, deal with it. why should we feel sorry for the business when it gets put into a compromising posit
          • Just don't expect me to buy into this "we're victims" mentality.

            The whole American economy is a victim of this shakedown bullshit. Thankfully the recent Delphi bankruptcy is going to break the back of the Auto Workers Union and bring some sense into the world. The AFL/CIO splitoff earlier this year was also a good development.

            Not because it is anti-Union (the AFL/CIO controversey was actually pro-worker since the thrust of it was that the International was fucking around with electoral politics instead o
      • Depends on who the politicans are. If you've got someone like Thatcher in, unions are just going to speed the downfall.

        Other industries have large unions, yet jobs are being outsourced there. You can't unionise against economic reality. Just ask the miners.

      • Re:Yea (Score:2)

        by pudge ( 3605 ) *
        Right. Unions hurt the economy. They are anti-capitalist. They are a terrible idea for everyone involved except for the workers who get to be overpaid and the politicians they've bought.

        If there is a serious problem with workers being taken advantage of, then it may be worth it. But that's certainly not the case here.

        Sorry, I believe in capitalism too much, and I am not selfish enough, to believe in unionizing programmers. And there's no way in hell I would ever join. And that's the great thing about
        • That is a very real and interesting social point against unionizing developers. I think in this case though, the author of the article was only speaking about video game developers - who get treated like shit at EA.

          Now, to reinforce your point, there are probably plenty of kids with programming skils who will cross the line just to say they program video games. This social group is very fanatical, to the point that it is their only goal to work in games regardless of the environment.

          My origininal post is no
  • Many development studios are in a somewhat tenuous position. If they suddenly have no projects, they will implode. While there are some developers that will basically ream their employees to turn a quick buck, most developers dont try to deliberatly schedule a death march. But if the cash reserves are low, the dev studio is in a corner. At the end of any contract negotiation between a developer and a publisher, you basically hit a point where you have X amount of Dollars, or Y amount of Time to make a g

    • The only thing I see a union accomplishing is making Scenario B happen more often.

      People too often assume that a union by nature is contrary to the goals of management. Even when workers are upset with their employers over an issue, they rarely want the employer to perform badly in the marketplace. Over the last 20 years or so, we have seen more frequently unions and mangement working toward common goals successfully. Where I work, the union recognizes that management will at times need more hours from it's
    • If Scenario B happen more often maybe the project managers would learn to write a feasible schedule.

      My experience has been that too many project managers take the fact that they can always fall back on Scenario A (death march). In fact, some special a-holes actually schedule the death march from the beginning.

  • Missing the point (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mugnyte ( 203225 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:39PM (#13794515) Journal

    This topic comes around now and then. Sadly, skilled labor is more apt to follow the metaphor that "information wants to be free" than nonskilled labor solidarity slogans.

    The knowledge to write good code isn't a secret. If you can get it better elsewhere ("better" being a very subjective and detailed term) then do it!

    If programming comes outsourced and completely shuffled around to the lowest labor market, I'd be delighted to see requirements/process achieve this capability. And of course, I'd start to look for a newer industry to keep my standard of living. But in the end, there's no bullying a global market into not trying to get the cheapest price. It's doing it now and examining the quality - with mixed results.

  • What about the political donations (Score:4, Insightful)

    by heinousjay ( 683506 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:41PM (#13794526) Journal
    Joining a union is pretty much pledging a portion of your salary to the DNC. I don't need that mess.

    • Joining a union is pretty much pledging a portion of your salary to the DNC. I don't need that mess

      Sigh. I agree, the use of dues for political contributions is a big problem. But we are seeing more often states passing laws that prohibit unions from using member's dues in this manner without their written consent. I hope to see this continue - simply because they are union members does not mean they are all behind any particular party, and therefore their money should be used to fund causes they don't beli
    • What if your wages were higher than they are now even after you had to pay union dues? And then there's less-tangible benefits like job security and knowing you'll get 150% after 40 hours.
      • Can I have a pony with that scenario?

        The truth is that pathologically dysfunctional governments have created a huge labor market imbalance. Every time some country starts getting decent governance, that labor market imbalance is going to get unwound with lower 1st world wages (or lower increases than otherwise if we work our tails off increasing productivity) and better 3rd world wages until the imbalance is normalized for the skills/experience gap.

        A union doesn't help your skills or your experience. It jus
        • "Every time some country starts getting decent governance,"

          Which government? If by "decent government" you mean "turns a blind eye to businesses forcibly putting down organized labor," you have a point. After all, the mighty China is where it is today by converting elementary schools into fireworks factories and coal mines that seem to blow up and/or collapse based on a weekly schedule.

          India may be a democracy, but they still have enforcement problems as Union Carbide was kind enough to point out.

          These bu
          • Decent governance is that you can't be expropriated from your property without just compensation because you actually own it instead of just squatting for decades without any security or inheritability. That's a huge problem in Latin America. Decent governance means that if you have an idea and start up a business to make that idea into a product or service nobody comes up to you and blows your brains out or sends you to prison which was a huge problem all over the communist world. Decent governance means t
      • What if your wages were higher than they are now even after you had to pay union dues?

        No matter HOW much more I then make, I object to a slice of my earnings going to a particular 'wing' of politics that I might not agree with.

        It's a moot point though. The AFL/CIO now knows what the outcome was of fucking around with electoral politics instead of sticking to workers' issues. Hopefully the split-off unions will now focus more on what matters to their dues paying membership.
        • No matter HOW much more I then make, I object to a slice of my earnings going to a particular 'wing' of politics that I might not agree with.

          So you must be self employed then, or work for a small company...because the vast majority of companies ARE politically active at the local, state or federal level.

          It's a moot point though. The AFL/CIO now knows what the outcome was of fucking around with electoral politics instead of sticking to workers' issues. Hopefully the split-off unions will now focus more on wh
    • Working for any sizeable business pretty much guarantees that the work you do will fund lobbying for one or both parties. So do you refuse to work for any company that does political lobbying, or was that just another retarded, boiler plate anti-union argument that doesn't stand up to a few seconds of scruitiny?
      • Actually, I work for myself, and I do no lobbying or political donating at all. The last time I worked for a large company, I was also in a union, so I guess that balanced out.

        I see your point, but I don't agree - mainly because when a corporation uses its own money to do political activity. After all, I don't believe people are in the practice of paying a company for the privilege of working there. You may want to turn your scorn toward customers - they seem to fit the parallel much better.

        Incidentally,
        • I see your point, but I don't agree - mainly because when a corporation uses its own money to do political activity.

          The only difference between a copororate donation and a union donation is the first is direct while the latter is indirect. Either way, the money still comes from your efforts as a worker. And as I added later, at least with a union you get a say in where that money goes.

          Incidentally, using the word 'retarded' to make your point goes a long way toward robbing you of your credibility. If you
          • I see the problem here - there's a fundamental difference in our thinking. You think anyone that doesn't agree with your opinion about the way the world works is retarded. That's all well and good, I guess.

            I still contend you're wrong - the money a corporation has is not the money of its workers. You can try to put forth your opinion, but opinion doesn't influence fact, and what I've stated is a fact in a capitalist economy. In any case, I'm self-consistent, because I work for me.

            I will at least call yo
            • You think anyone that doesn't agree with your opinion about the way the world works is retarded.

              Ah yes, putting words in my mouth. Even the English have straw men, I guess. Of course, your attempt to be clever goes down in flames given the fact that I never actually called you a retard. Only a retard would have missed that.

              I still contend you're wrong - the money a corporation has is not the money of its workers. You can try to put forth your opinion, but opinion doesn't influence fact,

              The "fact" is that
              • Ah yes, putting words in my mouth. Even the English have straw men, I guess. Of course, your attempt to be clever goes down in flames given the fact that I never actually called you a retard. Only a retard would have missed that.

                Cute rhetoric. Doesn't really get you any points, but cute.

                Again, you're arguing to some point that I never made. My original post simply stated that joining a union meant that you were making a defacto donation to the DNC. You haven't refuted that at all, you've just tried to si

  • Worst possible idea (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xenocide2 ( 231786 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:46PM (#13794561) Homepage
    Assume that the workers should own the means of production. Unions promote the status quo, without actually reaching that ideal. The good news is that the cost of starting up your own company and making games can be incredibly low. Every year several people leave EA and all the other big players to start their own company. This form of socialization I think works much better in the end than a union, who's interests are promoting their own existance and resisting changes to industry practices. What the industry needs more of is cheaper, faster and more equal access to consumers. Coming from a fairly socialist/communistic viewpoint, capitalism and entrepeneurship appear to maximize the social value.

    Companies like EA have become large through vertical integration; they have developed retail channels to sell their products in, and it's not easy to get shelf space without EA or someone like EA. The internet helps solve the problem, as Valve is discovering. Whether we end up with a surplus of internet distribution methods for games or whether we get one or two is up to Valve, gamers, and the employees out there with the motivation to do what they want to do for THEMSELVES.
    • Once again, I put forth the idea of worker-owned companies that make it their business to treat their workers well rather than making a good bottom line for shareholders, who in this situation are the workers anyway. Worker ownership solves the labor/capital dispute by placing labor and capital into the same hands.

      U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives [usworkercoop.org]

      For those in Europe, see Mondragon Corporacion Cooperativa [mondragon.mcc.es].
      • You're acting as though shareholders never squabble amongst themselves. The worker coop idea is interesting within the knowledge worker domain, but there's always the battle between returning profits and investing them for the future. If anything, it simply magnifies this shareholder dispute between growth and returns on investment.

        Furthermore, how do you divide up ownership of the profits? Are those not allowed? Do we simply allocate by hours spent on the job, or must we engage in a squabble about who's ti

  • So? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kaenneth ( 82978 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @05:46PM (#13794562) Journal
    Do Americans have an innate right to a better financial situation than others in the world?

    China, Brazil and many other governments are encouraging local software development for their own culture. Pretty soon those cheap tech-support guys in India will be supporting Indians using software written in India. Then the cost of hiring them might rise enough that it will once again be more economical to do things locally. Heck, if you think trying to understand what the Indian guy is saying is hard for you, think how hard your english is for them, all day, every day, for a fraction of your pay.

    I already think it's more economical to use local support people in the long run, what with language barriars, and better accountability. Saving $2 on a support call won't matter when you lose too many paying customers. The bottom line of Outsourcing is that the providing companies make a profit, so that instead of paying $20 to an employee for $40 worth of work (if an employee isn't worth more to your company than you are paying, then you are losing money), you're paying $15, minus $5 for the Outsourcer, minus $5 for long distance, so $5 left for the worker for $10 worth of work. So you just lost money. (YMMV)

    I also think it's our duty to help other cultures to progress in better ways, think of China, then think of the gas-hogging cars of the 60's/70's. If the worlds oil reserves, and the earths atmosphere is going to last for all of us, we had best help them skip over the Gasoline powered cars in every home phase, and go directly to electric/fuel cell automobiles, and the needed infrastructure.

    To me, it boils down to that most americans think america is the best country in the world. I agree, but, I don't think that our Geography, our Genetics, our Religion, or our Language is ideal. What makes us the best is our Ideas, and an Idea costs us nothing to share, except our compedative advantage in other areas. But once they subscribe to our ideas, we win. Like McDonalds in Moscow.
    • Zuh? Automobiles were a step backwards to begin with. They're mechanical horses. Progress is in mass transit. Trains, supported by Aircraft. In this respect, China is ALREADY more advanced than we are (having let our mass transit systems fall into decay and disrepair.) Americans have got to get over automobiles, they are a pointless luxury. I suspect when gasoline prices per gallon exceed the average hourly wage of many employees this fact will catch on rather quickly. Think about it this way, a gal
      • Cars allow for very dynamic changes in labor allocation because each day, each person can go directly to the place of employment of his/her choice. Harder to do with train/buses. This enables the economy to more rapidly shift labor resources when economic conditions change. This is an advantage. You notice that the chinese are buying cars as fast as they can afford them. Why don't they use their "most advanced" public transportation system instead of cars? And the chinese don't strike me as wasteful.

        The rea
      • Automobiles are a step forwards. Mass transit is a poor compromise. It assumes everyone lives in exactly the same places and always wants to go to exactly the same places at exactly the same times, taking minimum baggage and no large or awkward objects.

        Planes are not more efficient than cars except for very long distances. Trains are not a full transport solution as they require transportation to get there in the first place.

        Busses are of little use. They are no use for instance to shift workers, or people
  • So companies are shipping jobs overseas and willing to accept inferior work to save a few bucks, and you want to band together and start demanding better wages, job security and benefits? There is a reason GM, Delphi and Ford are in massive debt, and its mainly because unions ensure people screwing a screw into an armrest on your minivan get $28 an hour. If we unionized, more of the work would simply be shipped off. Why would I as an employer bother negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with my p

  • Unions (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Usquebaugh ( 230216 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:13PM (#13794739)
    There is no way I'll ever join a union.

    I was forced into a closed shop when I was a teenager, never will I be a part of that again.

    I'm all for a more equitable share of money but you don't get that with a union. All union does if give my money to somebody else who in return tells me I have to stop work!

    I think the world needs a radical shake up in the labour market but it will not happen because people unionise. I doubt it will happen in the next fifty years. It will only happen when people grasp the idea of us all being one.
  • Don't they read the news? Last week Delphi declared bankrupcy specifically to get rid of union laborers. All those union workers will now be forced to take pay cuts down to $10. It's a sure bet that other companies will follow suit with similar measures, just as they are now dumping pension benefits in emulation of the airlines. The days of the unions are clearly numbered, and only a fool would join one now.

  • Great Idea! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stevew ( 4845 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:23PM (#13795811) Journal
    I think this is a marvelous idea, especially since it has worked so well in the past.

    Look at how successful the Steal Workers (Unionized) were at saving their jobs!

    Whoops - that didn't work did it?

    They priced themselves right out of a globally competitive market. The same thing is happening in engineering, IT, and programming now-adays. There are well trained individuals willing to take less money that can do the job.

    Uhm - it's called supply and demand. Capital goes to where the lowest cost of production is - simple economics....

    Unionization is merely a method for one to stick one's head in the sand and say Hmmm..Hmmm...Hmmm...I can't hear you...

    Sheesh!

    • The death of American Steel had nothing to do with Unions. The steel industry failed to invest in modernization when the rest of the world did. They completely screwed themselves over in the long term, for better short term gains, and then they lobbied the government for protection against foreign steel, which they got, for a while. The blame here rests squarely on the shoulders of the people running the companies.

      It doesn't matter if you're paying your workers 5 times more, when the other guy can produc
  • Look, you supposedly free-market-fond ninnies. The guys in Romania have just as much to compete for the custom of your employer as you do. Give the rest of the world a chance. How *dare* you compare downsizing with the incineration of millions of Jews? Shame on you, *and* your new SUVs.

    • I don't know if I am pro-union these days or not, but I do know they were sorely needed in their founding days;

      however, the fact that Romanians (hi, guys) CAN compete for jobs, doesn't mean anyone else has to stand back and give them up.

      So are you giving up your job to a Romanian, or are you asking someone else to?
      Or are you asking people not to help eachother collectively keep their individual jobs?

      It's not a case of: don't let the Romanians get any of our candy, #
      it's a case of: lets all see if we can kee
    • Just who exactly compared downsizing to the incineration of a million Jews? Why does it seem like you're just playing the Anti-Semitism card to get your way?

      Eli Gottlieb
  • Looking through the comments there seems to be this constant notion that unionizing or other attempts to gain worker's rights will lead to outsourcing. So what? Are we all supposed to lay low and obey our masters because we're at their whim and could be replaced at any time? Is that the world you people want to live in? The people at EA and other dev houses are being abused beyond what the law permits and you guys are only afraid of outsourcing? They aren't even getting what the law grants them and they are
    • Looking through the comments there seems to be this constant notion that unionizing or other attempts to gain worker's rights will lead to outsourcing. So what?

      Because it defeats the purpose of unionizing. Unless you can organize the entire labor pool of the world, there is no point to unionizing, since it puts you at a competitive disadvantage.

      Are we all supposed to lay low and obey our masters because we're at their whim and could be replaced at any time?

      It's sad that you view companies as our "mas
      • I used the term "masters" because I get the feeling that some people really put themselves into the position of the slave. Fair competition is one thing, people too afraid of outsourcing to report infringements upon their rights is a whole different thing. That's witnesses being essentially blackmailed. And it works only because many people already have that "I'm replaceable" mentality set in their heads. Most people in the games industry aren't nearly as expendable as they believe but the belief is stronge
        • Besides, people forming their own companies because of the treatment in the big sweatshops happens all the time, it's just that fresh meat arrives much faster than the industry can eat it.

          That begs the question, even if you could organize a union, the attraction of the industry to new talent (what young programmer dreams of writing word processor software for a living), means it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the lock on labor to have widespread industry leverage.
          Essentially you will end up wi
          • The advantage of a union over a competing company is that the union doesn't have to pay the sallaries for all its members so it can reach many more people. Though I think the mere feeling of being not as helpless as before will do a lot already because I believe the workers aren't nearly as replaceable as they think. Additionally, the union would most likely contain all of the senior talent in a company.

            Having the number of experienced workers fall too low WILL impact productivity. EA doesn't abuse its lead
  • There is one simple fact about human nature that makes unions inherently bad. The fact in question is that power corrupts people and there is just as much (if not more) corruption at the upper levels of unions as there are in corporations. In the end, union leaders become more concerned about their own ambitions and care more about what is good for them, then what is good for the union as a whole.

    Now, unionizing in a field that is already moving to out-sourcing and off-shoring is going to only make the

    • I hope that workers don't start to seriously consider this, unless of course they like the idea of working at McDonald's....because that is where they will wind up if they form a union. No software company is going to give them a chance to unionize and make a union with the type of power the UAW has.

      This is an excellent example. The UAW was formed in response to employers using strong arm tactics against their workers. The whole reason this country (the USA) has things like OSHA or a minimum wage law is the
  • I've managed a number of game development projects over the last 23 years. It's not compared to herding cats for nothing.

    Now somebody wants to organize thousands upon thousands of game developers, some of the most independent thinking, strong willed, stubborn, quirky individualists out there into a single organzation? I'm not sure if that's even doable.

  • Unions arose historically when there was an oversupply of labor, similar to what we're seeing today. But unionization today, for this industry, just doesn't make sense.

    Why were unions so effective? Because they had their employers by the short hairs. Industries dependent on local labor forces had to give in to the unions, or they'd have no labor at all... and be forced out of business.

    Instant communications has rendered this labor model (for the tech industries, anyway) obsolete. Can't get cheap lab
  • > For the sake of trying to save money on production costs,
    > why not ship off art production to Romania?

    And unionization will slow this instead of actually accelerate it because why again?
  • The best thing that could happen for the U.S. IT economy would be if Romania and India Unionize, not us.

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