[consulting] Unionizing Drupal

[Sam Cohen]

The problem I have with talk about a union is that it's not at all obvious
that the rules that apply to other industries apply here.

If you take the car industry as an example, it seems to me that Drupal
consultants are not at all like the line workers that build cars -- and I
definitely believe in unions for line-workers.

It seems to me Drupal consultants are more like the thousands of auto repair
shops and the mechanics they employ.

If this analogy holds water then it's not at all obvious to me that a union
would be beneficial to the   "repair/web" shops or to the
"mechanics/developers" that work for them.

 In fact, a union could have the opposite of the intended effect, make it so
expensive to be an independent web shop or developer that the only folks who
could afford to be in the web shop business would be large corporations.

Maybe I'm missing something but it seems to me the current model is
working.  And if it's not broke why fix it.

There seems to me that there is more than enough work to go around.

Sam



On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Eric Goldhagen <eric at openflows.com> wrote:

> At 6:31 AM -0300 8/7/10, Victor Kane wrote:
> >I am so excited that this line of debate has been started.
>
> I'm excited as well to see this discussion and debate.
>
> There's already been a certain tone of disrespect in the thread that
> I hope it can be brought back on topic and turn more productive.
>
> Unions are a valuable and important part of society. Unions gave us
> the weekend;  collective bargaining created a more level playing
> field that as a result gave birth to the middle class.
>
> As labor see the erosion of those gains, we see the middle being
> pushed down, the gap between rich and poor grow. Since the beginning
> of the decline of the power of organized labor in the US (1979), the
> salary of the executives has grown by 281%, while that of the
> middle-class worker has grown by only 25% (and lower down on the
> economic scale, the lower the increase).
>
> Not all regulation is bad. All of us that use Free Software are
> already bound by a regulation we all take seriously -- the GPL.
>
> One critical part of our agreement to be bound by the GPL is that we
> agree that the end product of our labor can be used by anyone, for
> any purpose. So, essentially we agree to put our politics aside and
> work where we have common ground.
>
> Let's have a lively debate, but let's not say things we might regret
> or that will impact our collective labor on Drupal itself.
>
>  From my perspective, the existence, prevalence and quality of Free
> Software tools and communities like Drupal, shows clearly that
> alternatives to traditional free market capitalism exist and are
> viable.
>
> The level of cooperation and sharing of resources and information
> between those that also compete with each other is rather radical in
> and of itself.
>
> I encourage individual freelancers to join together as cooperatives,
> and I see unionization as a potential outgrowth of that.
>
> There are a number of unions in different countries working to
> organize freelancers. I'd say that where those exist we should try to
> figure out how to make those unions more powerful and useful.
>
> This would only be a small part of what is necessary, I agree with
> Victor that since capital can so freely cross borders, labor
> organizing should be international as well. Organizing such a thing
> is a massive undertaking that I unfortunately can not commit to. So,
> really I have no answers, just a desire to see collaboration and a
> level playing field.
>
> --Eric
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------
> Openflows, Inc.
> a technology workers cooperative
> http://openflows.com
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-- 
http://samcohen.com
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