On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 19:17:21 GMT, Mike Coslo wrote:

Dave Head wrote:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 00:36:08 GMT, Mike Coslo wrote:


And what a short-lived phenom that was! Now at the university level at
least, the Techies and Engineers to a large extent are not from the US,
while our kids are busy getting MBA's and becoming lawyers!

- Mike KB3EIA -


Ya' go where the money is! Engineering is great, but the law, and management
is greater if you're talking from a money angle.

Engineers are workers. They should probably have a division in the UAW, 'cuz
sure as you're born, if you're a worker (employee), you're going to get abused.

Those doing the abusing are the guys with the MBAs.

There are no longer enough jobs to be had to simply leave if you get abused,
you mostly have to take it. If you do leave, chances are you'll just get
abused by different people.

Lawyers hang out a shingle and charge what the traffic will bear. They don't
have someone else setting their pay rates, nor screwing around with their
health insurance, making them sign away their rights to anything they might be
able to think up and patent, etc.

Look at what's happened to programmers. Their livelihood has been destroyed
both by importation of cheap labor (H1B visas) and export of the work entirely
to places like India, Russia, etc. If you move the needle on the idiot meter
at all, you may just get into programming school. Then you can figure
significantly in the unemplyoment statistics, or the "working poor" statistics.

You mostly can't export what an MBA does, nor can cheap foreign labor be
imported to do it. Ditto for the law practicioners.

So, no need to wonder why the kids aren't falling all over themselves to get in
line to be abused.

I think the kids today are smarter than we were...

I doubt it! Capitalism is a grand thing, but it destroys the people who
practice it if they don't have a guiding principle beyond pecuniary
accumulation.

With 30 million people in this country laboring at equal to or less than the
$8.25 / hr wage that the government defines as poverty level, that would pretty
much say that, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Want to know what happens to us when we are all MBA's and lawyers and
the rest of the world is doing all the manufacturing and the things too
*low* for us? It isn't going to be pretty!

All we have to do is wait - we'll find out. Doesn't matter if its Democrats or
Republicans, nobody's gonna do anything for workers any more. It has to do
with the waning of union power, I think, and the mistake that "tech" people
including engineers make that they don't need a union. If you're an employee,
you need a union. Period. But the IT bunch won't join one, and look what
happened to them.

Engineers are next.

Even people at the top of the pay scale - pro ball players, actors, etc - have
unions. Why do techs think they're so indispensible as to not need one?

Dave Head

- Mike KB3EIA -

In article , Dave Head
writes:

It has to do
with the waning of union power, I think, and the mistake that "tech" people
including engineers make that they don't need a union. If you're an
employee,
you need a union. Period. But the IT bunch won't join one, and look what
happened to them.

Dave,

I partly agree with you. A lot of the problem is waning union power.

But that doesn't mean everyone needs to be unionized. The mere existence of
strong unions benefits nonunion workers, too, because often employers with
nonunion shops will treat their workers better in order to stave off
unionization.

But as the percentage of labor that is unionized decreases, that effect
diminishes also.

73 de Jim, N2EY

On 29 Dec 2003 04:56:55 GMT, (N2EY) wrote:

In article , Dave Head
writes:

It has to do
with the waning of union power, I think, and the mistake that "tech" people
including engineers make that they don't need a union. If you're an
employee,
you need a union. Period. But the IT bunch won't join one, and look what
happened to them.

Dave,

I partly agree with you. A lot of the problem is waning union power.

But that doesn't mean everyone needs to be unionized. The mere existence of
strong unions benefits nonunion workers, too, because often employers with
nonunion shops will treat their workers better in order to stave off
unionization.

Yes, there is that good effect.

But as the percentage of labor that is unionized decreases, that effect
diminishes also.

We're going to be a 3rd world country if workers don't wake up. Very rich.
Very poor. Nobody else.

Dave Head

73 de Jim, N2EY

Dave Head wrote in
:

On 29 Dec 2003 04:56:55 GMT, (N2EY) wrote:

In article , Dave Head
writes:

It has to do
with the waning of union power, I think, and the mistake that "tech"
people including engineers make that they don't need a union. If
you're an employee, you need a union. Period. But the IT bunch won't
join one, and look what happened to them.

Dave,

I partly agree with you. A lot of the problem is waning union power.

But that doesn't mean everyone needs to be unionized. The mere
existence of strong unions benefits nonunion workers, too, because
often employers with nonunion shops will treat their workers better in
order to stave off unionization.

Yes, there is that good effect.

But as the percentage of labor that is unionized decreases, that effect
diminishes also.

We're going to be a 3rd world country if workers don't wake up. Very
rich. Very poor. Nobody else.

Dave Head

73 de Jim, N2EY




Oh, arise ye victims of opression, rise up ye workers from your chains,
Come rally, come rally, sing the Internationale

(Words of the Communist Internationale, a rare instance of a song that
refers reflexively to itself, must have been written by a Unix programmer)

On 30 Dec 2003 06:23:07 GMT, Alun wrote:

Dave Head wrote in
:

On 29 Dec 2003 04:56:55 GMT, (N2EY) wrote:

In article , Dave Head
writes:

It has to do
with the waning of union power, I think, and the mistake that "tech"
people including engineers make that they don't need a union. If
you're an employee, you need a union. Period. But the IT bunch won't
join one, and look what happened to them.

Dave,

I partly agree with you. A lot of the problem is waning union power.

But that doesn't mean everyone needs to be unionized. The mere
existence of strong unions benefits nonunion workers, too, because
often employers with nonunion shops will treat their workers better in
order to stave off unionization.

Yes, there is that good effect.

But as the percentage of labor that is unionized decreases, that effect
diminishes also.

We're going to be a 3rd world country if workers don't wake up. Very
rich. Very poor. Nobody else.

Dave Head

73 de Jim, N2EY




Oh, arise ye victims of opression, rise up ye workers from your chains,
Come rally, come rally, sing the Internationale

(Words of the Communist Internationale, a rare instance of a song that
refers reflexively to itself, must have been written by a Unix programmer)

Well, we've had at least 1 request to end the thread, but I have to come back
this once to say that I believe we can have protection for workers via their
own actions, through unions, without going the communist route. I'm pretty
seriously anti-communist, but do believe that workers are progressively getting
abused and need to do something about it, themselves, since they are the only
ones that do or ever will care about their welfare.

Dave Head

Dave Head wrote in
:

On 30 Dec 2003 06:23:07 GMT, Alun wrote:

Dave Head wrote in
m:

On 29 Dec 2003 04:56:55 GMT, (N2EY) wrote:

In article , Dave Head
writes:

It has to do
with the waning of union power, I think, and the mistake that "tech"
people including engineers make that they don't need a union. If
you're an employee, you need a union. Period. But the IT bunch
won't join one, and look what happened to them.

Dave,

I partly agree with you. A lot of the problem is waning union power.

But that doesn't mean everyone needs to be unionized. The mere
existence of strong unions benefits nonunion workers, too, because
often employers with nonunion shops will treat their workers better
in order to stave off unionization.

Yes, there is that good effect.

But as the percentage of labor that is unionized decreases, that
effect diminishes also.

We're going to be a 3rd world country if workers don't wake up. Very
rich. Very poor. Nobody else.

Dave Head

73 de Jim, N2EY




Oh, arise ye victims of opression, rise up ye workers from your chains,
Come rally, come rally, sing the Internationale

(Words of the Communist Internationale, a rare instance of a song that
refers reflexively to itself, must have been written by a Unix
programmer)

Well, we've had at least 1 request to end the thread, but I have to
come back this once to say that I believe we can have protection for
workers via their own actions, through unions, without going the
communist route. I'm pretty seriously anti-communist, but do believe
that workers are progressively getting abused and need to do something
about it, themselves, since they are the only ones that do or ever will
care about their welfare.

Dave Head


I don't think there has ever been a true communist state, so it's
impossible to say what it would be like, or if it could even be done. The
Soviet Union was a highly stratified soceity, and didn't allow what we
would call unions.