On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 3:51 PM, b_s-wilk <b1sun...@yahoo.es> wrote: > Doctors, nurses and teachers have powerful professional associations. > They're highly educated professionals.
Professional organizations are somewhat different than labor unions, and they try to distinguish themselves from unions. I think that professional organizations place more emphasis on lobbying efforts than they do on collective bargaining as is the case with labor unions. This is not to say that labor unions do not also lobby. Lawyers also belong to professional organizations, but there has probably never been any collective bargaining going on within any law firm. Again, the lobbyist is their big weapon. I do not know how transient computer programmers and coders are in the workplace. From what I see and understand, they seem to move about a bit. If that is the case, unlike a Detroit automobile assembly line worker who will likely make a career of working for only auto manufacturers, unionization may be viewed as not worth the effort since they will not be able to transfer gains made at one type of firm to another. I used to work, here in Northern Virginia, for a company that produced exhibits for trade shows, museums, government, etc. We were under the Carpenter's Union. Numerous other firms of the same type in the area were also union shops. Therefore, there existed the ability of workers to leave one company and go to work at another in the area and be able to realize pretty much the same or better wages, benefits and protections. If programmers and coders wanted the same flexibility, along with confidence that they could get similar wages, benefits and protections were they to change employers, they would have to be able to obtain professional representation in many companies within a given territorial area to help avoid having to move to another locale in order to find suitable work. To be able to gain professional representation in numerous firms is a daunting task and takes a goodly amount of time, and can be especially difficult to achieve when many of these firms are foreign owned and operated. Steve ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
