Potentially the most clueless article El Reg has ever published
The workers affected find themselves completely unable to stop the predations of their employers because they too committed an act of willful stupidity, believing that they’d never need the protections of a union.
You seem confused about what unions are, how they work, and what they do.
The biggest lie the tech devil ever told was that the tech sector was somehow different from and better than the old, nasty industrial economy with its divisions between capital and labor - and its need for strong unions to hold the line against the depredation of capital.
Do you really not see the difference?
Lets say I work for the local steel works, port, mine, or ship yard. Its entirely possible that for my skillset my current employer is the only game in town - there's nowhere else I can work without a move to another city.
In tech, that is not now and never will bee the case. If I go onto my current employers roof I can probably pee on more companies than I have time to work for. Yes, an individual employer may treat me badly, but I can just leave and find a better one. Which is exactly what I did when it happened.
Tech workers believed themselves to be better - both better suited to the historical moment, and simply better people - than their industrial forebears, an act of arrogance that finally cost them everything that should have been theirs the final victory laps of their careers.
Sorry but that is just rubbish. I'm no better or worse as a person or employee than my local butcher baker, or candlestick maker. Not only does the world view you imagine not really exist, but it hasn't done that damage you think it has.
I'm in the right age group for ageism to hit. And it does. But that just means I get tech tested far harder than the kids. The good news is I've had more practice at that than the kids have had hot sex, so passing is rarely an issue.
But the way capitalism works hasn’t changed much in a hundred years: people are disposable in capitalism, unless the people say otherwise.
Not half as disposable as they are under socialism or communism! Killing fields, purges etc don't happen in capitalism: they're bad for business.
accepting that they are just workers, and need the protections of unionisation.
Yes, we are just workers, and no, we don't need a union - just like the great majority of the worlds work force.
In the end, both sides will benefit. But never, ever forget that there are two sides - or where your loyalties lie.
And here we get to the root of the problem, which neatly explains your half baked world view.
My current employer and I come together for a period of time - maybe a few years, maybe a lot of years, to achieve mutally beneficial goals. When either of us decides those goals are sufficiently met that the relationship need not continue, then it doesn't.
It's not me vs my employer, its me & my current employer vs the competition, for now. Collaboration trumps adversarialism every time.
I'm in my mid 40s and have already amassed enough wealth that I could feasibly never work again (changes to private pension retirement age aside). There isn't a single unionised industry or employer where I could have achieved that. Maybe if I'd been a doctor, sure, but I didn't get the grades for medical school, and anyway tech has served me very well.
Capitalism isn't perfect, but it is understandable, workable, and potentially beneficial for all participants rather than just the handful in the union.
The reason capital trumps labour is simply that labour is so easy to find in most of the world - almost anyone can provide some form of labour, and much labour can be automated if the need arises, but not everyone can provide large quanities of capital that make many industries work. I can't, for instance, afford my own steelworks. I can afford my own software company if the need arises, or simply find any one of the millions plus employers I passed on my way into work.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
