[consulting] Unionizing Drupal

[Sami Khan]

Khalid,

I personally don't have the time to do a detailed study of the issue. What
it looks like and how it functions depends on your goals as an organized
base of power... which like any base of power has room for abuse by those
people that are on the top of the hierarchy. Further, there may be a
minority of employees that abuse rights given by the unions; this can drag
down the organization as a whole. Further, because certain management is
abusive to employees themselves, they create opposition in unions that
wastes tons of company's resources. These three reasons I think, by and
large, are the biggest reasons people equate unions with something
inherently bad. However, unions have brought workers many rights, rights
that in many cases have now been subsumed by the State; however, as the
State's resources become strained or the State becomes more corrupt, these
duties are abandoned, leaving the workers in the lurch.

One way that this community for instance could attempt to stave off some
competition would be to control the instructional capital of Drupal; it has
been in fact doing the exact opposite; and corporations acting within the
community have been encouraging this behaviour. They want cheap labour to
make returns for their investors.

"Trade unions have sometimes been seen as successors to the guilds of
medieval Europe, though the relationship between the two is disputed.[4]
Medieval guilds existed to protect and enhance their members' livelihoods
through controlling the instructional capital of artisanship and the
progression of members from apprentice to craftsman, journeyman, and
eventually to master and grandmaster  of their craft. A trade union might
include workers from only one trade or craft, or might combine several or
all the workers in one company or industry."

Anyhow give the wikipedia article a read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union

If I have some time in the future I would love to do some research and
theorizing on the issue. We'll see if this ever happens.

Sami

On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 19:48:19 -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:
> Forking this discussion under an appropriate subject ...
> 
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Victor Kane <victorkane at gmail.com>
wrote:
> 
>> We can all laugh our heads off, but the law of falling rate of return
>> (Marx) and the huge efforts being made (even in the Drupal community
via
>> the
>> sanctification of oDesk) to commoditize Drupal consulting work will
make
>> us
>> consultants laugh on the other side of our faces.
>>
>> Only an international union (which we should have done at the cusp of
the
>> curve, not now that it is dropping) can defend our rights as working
>> people.
>>
> 
> Let us for a minute forget the negative connotations of "union" in the
> mindset
> of many in the USA ... That is a bug topic in itself: are unions good or
> bad,
> and why ...
> 
> Let me throw in why this will not work regardless of the above ...
> 
> A union works within a certain geographical and jurisdiction area.
> 
> I can't see how an international union would work. Suppose Elbonians
> refuse to join. What can the international union do to prevent work
going
> to them? Sue them? Under which country's law? Enforcing which laws?
> 
> Unless it is The Hague ...
> 
> Would site owners be punished for not using unionized Drupal? How?
> What stops them from using Joomla then if Drupal has become such
> a pain?
> -- 
> Khalid M. Baheyeldin
> 2bits.com, Inc.
> http://2bits.com
> Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
> Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
> Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci