Time for I.T. workers to unionize?
[Time and a half? For a SysAdmin? … what a concept. I.T. workers may consider themselves professionals… but they’re abused in ways very few others would put up with. I know what being tied to a pager means… oops, I guess Thanksgiving dinner is going to have to wait. Sorry Mom, I guess you don’t get your mincemeat pie this year. Someone’s gotta do the dirty work, but your company shouldn’t subsidize itself via uncompensated labor on your part. -Thomas]
Want to stop your job from being outsourced? Join a union.
At least one systems administrator has had enough: It’s time to hit the picket line.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joel Keller
Nov. 6, 2003 | When I was a kid, my dad’s pager was the least favorite item in our house. When he was on-call, my family couldn’t go to dinner or a movie or Grandma’s house, for fear that the contraption would go off and call him away to the office. When it did go off, and there weren’t many weekends when it didn’t, my dad would trudge to the phone, speak into it using loud and profane words, and then, if needed, put on his coat and shuffle off to the location of the latest emergency. Things got so bad, I seriously considered running over his beeper with my neighbor’s Big Wheel.
Was Dad a doctor, volunteer fireman or paramedic? Nothing of the sort. He was in I.T., before the term “information technology” ever existed. As a mainframe technician, he would be called in at a moment’s notice to replace a defective board or swap large DASD units in order to keep a customer’s big iron running.
Although he endured many lost weekends and dirty looks from his wife and children, he did so knowing that his sacrifices would be rewarded with overtime pay, at time-and-a-half rates on many occasions. His sacrifice enabled my family to live a comfortable middle-class existence and provided my brother and me with quality college educations. In fact, both of us have followed in his footsteps, working as system administrators to pay the bills.
[…]
