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Showing posts from June, 2015

To be a Profession or to Unionize in the Software Industry?

Which form of industry growth would you prefer - why? Which path leads toward the culture you desire in a software development organization? This is a wonderful article on the topic - read it and discuss with your colleagues. Programmers don’t need a union. We need a profession.    BY   MICHAELOCHURCH "Unions work best for commodity labor, and I use that term non-pejoratively. Commodity work is easily measurable and people can often be individually evaluated for performance. For example, a fishing boat operator is measured according to the quantity of fish she procures. A lot of very important work is commodity labor, so I don’t intend to disparage anyone by using that term. Commodity work can be unionized because there aren’t large and often intangible discrepancies in quality of output, and collective bargaining is often the best way to ensure that the workers are fairly compensated for the value they produce. Software is not commodity work, however. It’s difficult t