Microsoft salaries on display

"One thing. If “the man” is oppressing you, why can’t you just get another job? "

Oh please, not a simplistic 'answer' to unions.

Tech sector is different than most labor re labor issues, but ignoring history isn't cool.

( You calling Paul Harvey the most respected radio voice in America gives me a good idea of your take on american issues)

Stick to tech on your blog.

Washtech has been trying to unionize MSFT since my early days there in the early 90s. The problem is they attack issues that really don't hold up. Sure salary isn't top drawer for a number of MSFT employees, but when you start to look at things like health insurance you realize it was a pretty sweet deal. And a union would probably botch that all up.

I quit.

But, therein lies the key - I could quit and easily found another position elsewhere - after 7 1/2 years I was tired of being subject to political winds of change - oh and Microsoft lays people off, but it's all hush-hush and on the Q/T - just ask people who used to be in Microsoft Consulting 2 years ago. But, again, if you own your own career at Microsoft - my position was at risk a year ago and I read the writing on the wall. In February last year, I switch roles - in July, my old role was eliminated. Since I had already switched, I didn't have to work the 'annual job fair' - I mean MGB - to get a job when my peers did.

Is Robert looking for a raise?

;-o

Where are these companies that are hiring? I'll take a job starting Monday since my current contract ends tomorrow. Doh! I'm even willing to be oppressed if it pays well enough. Ha!

I don't think I've ever gone to "work for the competition", but I've found new jobs a few times in the past when I wasn't happy with the pay -vs- working conditions and been able to increase both the pay and the working conditions to levels that I am happy with. I would never think of joining a union. I've been able to do very well negotiating for myself in the past and would be terrified putting any portion of my "contract" in someone elses hands on my behalf.

Maybe I'm still spooked from relatives that work for Caterpillar and go on strike every few years.

I recall a union approaching engineering/software employees in my department back in the 80s. As management we made no attempts to dissuade employees, yet they showed no interest as they were content with salary, conditions and benefits.

Years later, the company got itself in trouble, and all those folks lost their jobs. I'd be interested to hear how a union could have contributed to keeping a money-losing company alive in such a situation.

And fortunately, other companies quickly absorbed the employees.

Man, Scoble, I do admire your willingness to stumble blindly into contentious political debates. I mean that sincerely, by the way.

Anyway, I do hope you're only directing your "just get another job" suggestion solely at highly-skilled tech workers. As your post implicitly makes clear, labor markets, like all markets, are subject to the laws of supply and demand. High tech happens to be a seller's market (for now). Less-skilled laborers don't have it so lucky, and collective bargaining is one of the few provably effective tools for putting positive pressure on wages.

Also, please don't be seduced by any simpleminded notions of "retraining" unskilled workers who are dislocated by shifts in the economy. Such notions are almost always wishful thinking.

This comment might make it sound as though I'm unreservedly in favor of unions -- I'm not. Truthfully, I see unions and management as fairly equivalent vested interests duking it out over the division of corporate profits. In general, I view this tug of war as a healthy process, as long as neither side becomes too dominant.

I agree with your assessment on the value of unions for the most part, Robert, but today's anti-compete climate makes switching jobs a more difficult consideration. I love my job at MS, but if I wanted to leave, I couldn't work in a similar technology domain without risking an injunction or lawsuit, even if I avoided transferring IP. The Search guys have shown that.

About that new building... I think my best friend from high school is the architect for that building. Kind of a cool coincidence.

I agree with Scoble on this one. I'm a true believer in loving what you do. If you don't like what you are doing for work and are not happy (and can't make things better), then leave.

I've been getting several jobs a week from employers looking for good .Net developers in the Boston area (in case anyone is looking in the Boston area, I put them on my blog at: http://jasonhaley.com/blog).

However, I do believe that the tech sector is aging and will be facing this issue more and more. If you have 30 years experience and your salary isn't growing because you aren't working 80 hour weeks anymore then people start to look at easy ways to 'fight the man' - which is usually organized labor. I don't believe unions have any place in knowledge work of any sort ... otherwise you cannot compete in today's global economy.

That's my opinion anyways.

i think Mr. R. Scoble Izer has a valid point, and I don't think he was talking about the everyday person.

Scoble is right. The way to stick it to the man is to not play his game. To be above the man, to tell the man, i work for no one, you can't fire me, I Quit!

Scoble is right. The health benefits are awesome. I wish I had a job that paid heath benefits period. Many people don't think that their heath insurance is any good for them because they see the doctor once a year, if that. Until they come down with illness and disease that need constant month to month visits that they realize, holy crap. i'm glad I have health insurance. Then they realize that a small pay raise is just that, and they've got a sweet deal already.

And if you're talking about assembly and other what you called 'unskilled' labor, or what most people call blue collar jobs, then why would these people be working at MSFT. MSFT probably has, ought to, and will, outsource this to other companies so they don't have to have freeking unions.

One of my first memories of union was as an entry-level tech job working for the state...didn't make much money and figured I could do better than use some of my money to pay union dues. Gained skills, moved on, moved up, and have done significantly better financially than had I stuck it to the man early in my career by unionizing.

It's hard to find good geeks these days. I'm still in high school and it's almost impossible to get the geeks in our class to do any work whatsoever.

While there are definitly geeky people out there today, there are not that many geeks that are actually willing to work hard. We need stronger geeks.

Unions suck. My stepdad was out of work for 2 months because the unions wouldn't let the company hire anybody after they fired one of their union guys. Then he had to join the union - which takes money out of his pocket - and doesn't get squat in return.

Union is still just a cover for the mob - never forget that.

Unions, the people that brought you the weekend.

I think history has shown times and places where unions had their value.

However, I think most unions these days do more harm than good. It's an opinion, and not one that I am confident in enough to argue about it. But it's what I believe based on what I've seen.

As for hiring in the tech sector - my team is dying to find great candidates for all product development disciplines (Dev, Test, and PM).

Actually, the incredibly fast rate of hiring in the Windows/WindowsLive/MSN division (particuarly in Live and Search) has actually made it difficult to find space for new hires - thus the aggressive office building expansion plans Microsoft is persuing.

It may not be the dot-com era where you could work for two years and retire. But I think our industry right now is starved for talent - and that a smart, motivated, competent geek should have no trouble at all finding a great job doing something they love.

Scoble... tell a few of those friends of yours who are hiring to setup shop up here in Maine. I know a few folks who wouldn't mind a better position, but are not willing to relocate.

Another vote against unions here - they just seem to get in the way of doing business. How many times have I heard in an airport "We have to wait for x crew to come in and do y thing because z crew (who is there, available, and sitting on their butts) isn't allowed to do it." Your job becomes so regimented that you aren't allowed to cross-train or learn other skills, because of union rules. And you're paying for this "benefit." Not my cup of tea.

Now, while I LIKE the idea of "love your job or leave" but I do certainly understand that it's not an option for everyone, especially people with families to support. However, union membership does not seem like the way to accomplish change in an organization.

BTW, Robert, I'm in the middle of your book and I wanted to tell you that I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=3013

"MySpace is trying to entice Yahoo employees to defect. "

MySpace failed miserably. Yahoo must be doing something right.

With Microsoft I don't think it's purely about money. Microsoft has a certain stigma attached to it through the years.

Gentoo Linux founder quits Microsoft
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39...

Why did Microsoft hire Dan Robbins?
For the wow factor right? "We can twist anybody with some green, even linux people."

This is not a good long term strategy and ends up looking worse for the image in the long run. Now it looks like he quickly grabbed some money from MS to fund more linux work.

Case in point #2
Mark Lukovsky

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/05/chair_c...

Who's going to want to work for a place that has a CEO like this?
As the register put it, he has a potty mouth and flares with temper tantrums.

Sometimes money isn't the deciding factor behind career choices. I don't make that much money, and I could in a cubicle, but I don't. I think alot of people now have that choice with widespread networked computing.

When some people think of working at Microsoft, the first thing that pops into their head is "ick"

There are lots of geeks out there. They live all over the country. The problem is that most of the jobs are on the west coast and a select few east coast cities.

Oh yeah Robert. When you're in your 40s or 50s, you just go and find a new job in the IT industry. Oh wait, you're not in that, you're in PR.

The age discrimination and refusal to retrain older workers in the IT arena is blatant beyond belief. I've had, in the last 15 years, two jobs that required less than 60 hours a week. Overtime? HAH.

Thanks to HSAs, companies can now skimp on insurance and other benefits and make you pay the diff. I haven't had a vision plan in three years, and if I spend less than $500 a year at the doctors, I effectively DON'T have insurance, yet I pay FAR more than that as "my share" of the insurance premiums.

"Just get another job". Sure, oh wait, I can't afford a pay cut, i'm a single parent with custody. My parents are dead, no help from them, so I can't just up and move.

That "Just get another job" line isn't as effective as you think it is.

Chris: >As the register put it, he has a potty mouth and flares with temper tantrums.

Do you believe everything the Register writes? They outright lied about me.

There are always two sides to every story. You've only heard one.

Personally, I want a CEO to get mad when his ass is being kicked. I want him to CARE about the work we are all doing. I think it's a GOOD THING if he got pissed at losing a top employee to a competitor.

ok Robert.
But if you work for x company, and you tell them you want to leave and the boss throws chairs and loses his temper, would you be ready to change your mind and stay?

Do you think Mark Lukovsky was tempted to stay after seeing a chair fly in front of him and hit a desk?

I'm not saying every employee at MS experiences this, or gets that type of personal attention, but stories like that must deter people.

John: if you really have great coding skills and can demonstrate that, you should be able to get a job. I'm not saying it'll always be like this, though. I remember 2002 when I laid myself off. It wasn't easy finding a job in that environment (and I was a single parent back then too).

Regarding training, yeah, that'd be nice. I find that you really need to do your own retraining anyway in this industry. Even if you're on the soft side like marketing/PR. How many of the PR or marketing practitioners in this industry have a blog? Not many.

>would you be ready to change your mind and stay?

No, but then if I decide to leave a company I'm probably not gonna stick around no matter what happens. Quitting is the end of a process, not a beginning.

And, Steve Ballmer has said over and over he didn't throw a chair. But, who's gonna believe him, right?

OH YES. I agree. As a matter of fact, I am looking for a new job as we speak. And you are correct, there is no better way for a Network Security Analyst to get back at the man, then to leave and go to work for that mans competition.

P.S. you're hiring like crazy? I need to check out your HR page :)

"Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay"

These are quotes from Mark Lukovsky in a deposition. So if it was the end of a process, why would he bother to ask him to stay?

Of course you are going to try to change the person's mind if they are trying to leave to work at a rival company. Yahoo's email guy got courted by MySpace, but they got him to stay at Yahoo.

I was making the point that your aren't going to be able to bully people into staying by getting violent with them. Dr. Lee also mentioned a type of intimidation at the end of his employment at MS as well.

While your joe average employee will never get that type of personal attention, it sends a message to even them in my opinion.

What you just described is called Capitalism.

And yes, you have the right to join a union if you so desire, with full knowledge that you will actively be "encouraged" to not work too hard or be too good at your job.

The only thing that's wrong with unions is the government telling businesses that they have to negotiate with a union and that employees must join a union at a business if it exists (Canada does this, I don't know if the US does) And that unions get away with breaking the law while they're on strike and never get fined for it.

Balance the scales and Unions do minimal harm...

But in the tech industry, the great thing about it is that socialism has not had any effect on it because it moves too fast for the government or socialists to respond and adapt.

Oh and the people in the industry generally are individuals that don't want to be defined by the group. Hence the term "geek".

Here's to the Rush loving, freedom loving, individual geeks that make technology so damned interesting and so much better than almost every other field in the world.

offtrack:

Scoble, you'll like this :) http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/08/switched-on-...

>Yahoo’s email guy got courted by MySpace, but they got him to stay at Yahoo

So? Yahoo's search guy got courted by Microsoft and they didn't get him to stay.

In business you win some and you lose some. That doesn't mean you don't stop trying.

In Sweden I had lunch with a stock trader who told me about the day his firm lost about $1 billion in value before lunch. That just motivated him and his team to work smarter and harder. He said they made most of it back before trading ended.

He told me "if you're in a car wreck, always keep working the problem. One little decision you make, even when it looks pretty dire, might save your life."

Dude, how long have you had your job? My typical gig lasts 18 months or so. That's how long the VC money (or contract programming project) lasts before the idiot board members your VC saddled you with burn the company into the ground.

One thing we tech workers are most definitely is the new migrant labor force and I'm pretty damn tired of moving every year. Its hard on the furniture, hard on the wife, hardest on the kids.

"That’s how long the VC money (or contract programming project) lasts before the idiot board members your VC saddled you with burn the company into the ground."

Several people including Paul told me that accepting VC money is no longer a good thing to do(esp if they insist on controlling the board). I'm taking our business plan to the bank. If the corp defaults, it's on the corp as an entity. Companies may start doing that. 18 month stints doing any type of job can't be good. Not like the IBM days where people would work there for 50 years at a time. Those were better times for IT than now.

Innocent: My work history:

Microsoft: three years (almost).
NEC: one year.
Laid off: two months.
UserLand: eight months.
Fawcette #2: two years.
Winnov: one year.
Fawcette #1: three years.

Scoble: "And, Steve Ballmer has said over and over he didn’t throw a chair. But, who’s gonna believe him, right?"

Steve Ballmer wasn't under oath either. The guy telling the other side of the story was.

More to your post, I completely agree with you. I've seen people that just say "it's your job, just do it" and suck it up. I believe that if you're not enjoying your work then look for something else, and when you do find something you like, leave!

You spend so much time at work during a lifetime, why would you want to stick around a place where you feel deflated from the time you get up in the morning because you're not looking forward to going to work? I'd rather be enthused about work and look forward to going in every day.

Any jobs out there for a good developer? ;)

Diego: yeah, I know a few teams hiring. Wanna send me your resume?

Robert, I'm not a programmer. I'm a sysadmin with tons of heterogenous experience and better leadership skills than most of the people called "manager". However, in spite of two decades of experience, the fact that I never got around to finishing my bachelor's degree means that unless I know someone, my resume gets halted at HR.

And considering how much your company is advocating bringing over programmers from overseas to work for peanuts, I'm glad I just never liked programming. I find Bill's arguement that there aren't enough smart people in the US despicable and dishonest. He doesn't want smart people with experience. he wants kids who are too stupid to realize that working 80 - 100 hour weeks isn't dedication, it's getting taken advantage of.

Finally, considering that MS senior executives have been busted either lying (Gates and Allchin) or acting like they're utter morons (Gates) while under oath, pardon me if Ballmer's word is worth less than the spittle that flies from his mouth when he's yelling.

>he wants kids who are too stupid to realize that working 80 - 100 hour weeks isn’t dedication, it’s getting taken advantage of.

Weird. I walk around here and seeing kids in their 20s is getting to be a strange sight. I know I play up Sanaz a lot, but she's the exception rather than the rule.

There are about 5000+ jobs MS may or maynot be hiring for. The silliest thing companies do is have an HR person sift through IT resumes. They never know who/what they are looking for or they take too long. So the real fact is that you have to know someone at the Company and then you have to interview well.

Here Scoble sign me up for this one: http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/det...

As for Unions, they are very similar to relgions. A place to organize and control a group of people from doing there own thing. We all have great ideas of how the world should work. The really hard part is finding the balance between what we want and need. In the case of Unions you tend to trade one set of managers for another.

Oh well, I'll join the crowd. I believe the subject is unionizing technical staff at Microsoft. Due to the diminishing and limited blue collar workforce, unions are driven to recruit white collar and clerical workers. This is not appreciated by management of large corporations for obvious reasons. The previous commenters have pointed out a number of reasons that technical white collar people don't appreciate unions, either. So I don't think Robert has anything to worry about besides the speculative reporter's wild theories.

I experienced work as an engineering union member for over eight years (the Wichita Engineering Association, or WEA). It was basically the only way to find out where you stood in a union shop, since the salary statistics were available to union members, plus some other information. I call it a union shop because everyone was subject to the union contract even though membership was voluntary. Membership also gave a heads up on strike actions and entry to some company/union strategic projects (some interesting stuff). WEA eventually joined the Machinists, and now the Boeing plant has been sold to a Canadian outsourcing firm.

I imagine any white collar union situation will be different from another. My experience was that Boeing was able to apply a lot more downward pressure on salaries when they could negotiate three year contracts and hold the line, typically with a bit of cash on the front end without much money for raises later. But they have also experienced regular engineer strikes.

Considering today's job mobility and the unionization requirements, it doesn't seem that many large technical staffs are likely to turn union. On the other hand, entrenched tech unions such as Boeing's SPEAA haven't gone away, either.

" Cause there’s no better way to mess with “the man” than to walk off the job and work for the competition."

Absolutely. I continue to work for Da Man (while perhaps biting his hand, too) because I Believe. Though I have issues. And nothing is better than to shed light on the issues.

My biggest hope is that Microsofties who disagree or are disgruntled or are dis-somethin'-else put some quality time into crafting their updated resume and discover for themselves: is there something better out there?

Maybe they'll do their own comparison shopping and find out that their current job is pretty sweet. Maybe they'll find opportunities elsewhere. Hopefully, for me and my little agenda, lots of them find lots of opportunities elsewhere.

Microsoft will get by. And I can't imagine unionizing. I can only see that if truly we come into maintenance mode only for our two cash cows and all the poor people fixing heaps of Prefast and FxCop bugs decide they need a little bit of justice to go with the mononity.

Cheers,
Mini.

Maybe I’m still spooked from relatives that work for Caterpillar and go on strike every few years.

Actually it's been a decade since the strike. But Thank God for that, was able to squeeze-in during the early 90s strike as a "scab" and made a good careerish run, well until the (future ill-fated) outsourcing clip was unloaded. Unions have their place tho, but have massive abuses too. Unions like WGA work, but unions like NEA and UAW strangle.

But Microsoft is just coddling in the same tech con games every other techy company does, free perks, good benefits, billionaire CEOs preaching wealth for all, but in reality just a choice few got in on that gravy train, but used as a MLMish come-on for the masses to work under market-level. Ponzi-scheme Microsoft style.

Robert, Microsoft has what, 60,000 employees? Pardon me if I don't take the few you see as "not being in their 20s" as statistically significant for an industry I work in and you do not. As well, I'm so far unimpressed with your telepathy skills, so you telling me they don't "look" in their 20s is meaningless as well.

I worked for Microsoft for 6 years and ended up not being happy with "the plan". So I left and started the world's first podcasting company (www.thepodcastnetwork.com). Life's been a hoot ever since. Unions are for people who don't feel like they have other options. Smart hard working people make SURE they ALWAYS have other options.

If microsoft falls to a union, so will the rest. I like being able to be a free lance programmer, or even an employeee, any time I want, anywhere I want, and to charge what I want when I switch jobs. Pay is a conversation between myself and my employer, I really don't want a third party mucking around in there, do you? And I don't want to be told I can't work at company "X' because I'm not in their union. Screw that.

The world would have been so different if matters were of just two categories/colors, the way you seem to think. "Just leave if you don't like it" type of recipes appears to divide the world neatly in such binomial categories...

Real problem now will be with those (made by this disclosure) unhappy campers whom MSFT cannot afford to lose. In short term MSFT may have to take a (5 to 35 percent) cut in productivity due to employee chatter and annoyance over the pay-scale subject. Then, in medium term, management will have to restore face for all the stories employees had been told about promotions, pay scales, and bonuses, stories that are now being contradicted by this "leak." Last but not least, maybe you have an equally simple recipe (hence, easy to follow) for the MSFT management as well, Mr. Scobleizer.

I'm one of the people who contributed towards a Mini-Microsoft by leaving. In principle, I agree with the notion that if the job sucks, leave. However, there are a few obstacles for a lot of people:

1. If you have been at Microsoft for a while, you have a life,wife,kids and other ties to the area. If you don't want to relocate, your options are limited because Microsoft does pay better than most other companies here. You could take a gamble on a startup, but maybe you're past that stage in your life. What's wrong with wanting a job you like doing, but that's not in crunch mode for 3-4 years at a stretch, with a good chance of no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow ?

2. If you are waiting for you green card, you could be stuck for 7 years or more. The security that a green card affords most immigrant workers is immeasurable.

3. Related to point 1., there simply are not enough companies in the Seattle region to support a mass exodus from Microsoft. If this were the Bay Area, you would not need all these new buildings. Trust me, I research the job market here(northwest) for a while.

Of course, your answer to those points could be "We don't need older, experienced people" and "We don't need no damn H-1Bs".Good luck with that.


Have you ever considered that maybe most of the people you are attracting to Microsoft today are the ones looking for a safe, secure job, not the ones looking to change the world ? Those other guys are going down to Silicon Valley, and not to the SVC either.




All that being said, I still believe if your job sucks so much that you are spending your day Ctrl-R-ing minimsft's blog and bitching to anyone who will listen about how life is unfair, LEAVE.

Unions are not the answer. But don't be too smug about Microsoft's future either.

Of course, if you walk off your job to another one, you could risk getting sued by MS, depending on the circumstances.

I know I spend everything I make, so that makes it tough to walk off the job, but the truth of walking off the job is still...true. I'm trying to get to a point where I'm living on 70-80% of my current salary so I can walk away if my employer gets too demanding.

As for the talk about good tech workers, maybe you can be more specific. Are you talking about developers? Help-desk? Network Admins? Unix admins? Microsoft sys admins? I don't see to many non-contract or non-developer jobs being advertised officially or through my network of colleagues. Is that just a problem in the midwest?

Oh yeah...thanks for mentioning that Garrett....so Robert, care to comment on how "great it is to be able to just quit if you don't like" when you work for a company that likes to sue people to keep them from working anywhere else?

Hmm...how's that word spelled again..h-y-p-o-c...

"If “the man” is oppressing you, why can’t you just get another job?"

Because I have a life long illness that requires expensive healthcare and the only way to get good coverage/care is to stay in the big companies that haven't yet gone completely mercenary? Although the benefits get a little crummier every year, the copays go up, and they cover a little less - the way to keep the Drs working and my family fed is to find a spot in your big machine and just coast. I hate my job but I need the health coverage.

You want to drop dead weight? Vote for non-trivial national health care like all the other industrial countries have.

They outright lied about me.

No, scobleizer. The register most certainly did not lie about you. You wrote that IE 7 disabled your google toolbar, then you took the post down and denied ever having written that.

The whole event is what prompted you to switch from radio.weblogs to your current blogging service provider, wordpress.

Sometimes I lose hope I will ever see any integrity from you.

Working 80-100 hours weeks at MS doesn't make any sense at all. I know. I did it.

My manager and manager's manager were very, very impressed with all that I accomplished and contributed to the team but it wasn't reflected in the bonus. I was rewarded well, but not well enough to justify the effort that I put in. Consider that such a schedule is more 2x more hours than many other employees and the pay wasn't 2x as much. Instead my co-workers basically thought I was being dumb for being so passionate and driven, and they were right. It was sapping the fun that I used to have at my job. So I did the sensable thing and left.

So far it has been an excellent choice. I got a job that paid better. I feel like the people I work with are much more passionate and in general I've been more humbled/amazed by a much large percentage of co-workers than I've been at MS in a long time. My one regret about leaving MS is that I didn't do it a lot sooner.

The sad thing is that MS used to be a great place to work, but so much has deteriorated in so many ways as the company growth rate has slowed.

Here's one way of summing it up. At MS, do you feel like a profit center to be enabled and empowered or an expense to be minimized?

You are one of the best known geeks in the world ... and you don't make six figures. In your case that isn't a matter of unionization, it is a matter of negotiation. You just aren't demanding enough perhaps. On the other hand ... you probably have some great stock options and other perks, not to mention all the other great stuff.

By the way I need a copy of vista to test for a book I am working on. Any leads on that? You have my email obviously.

Last, it sure would be nice if you had a subscribe to comment feature as I lose your threads after a day or two sometimes.

Have a great weekend even if you are underpaid for your talent and recognition level ...

Don - there is an RSS feed for every comment thread linked right above the comment form. Scoble currently cannot add any plugins because he's using the hosted version of Wordpress. Then again, Matt Mullenweg has done some custom mods here not available to other hosted WP users, so he might be willing to do that too.

Cocomment.com might be another option, although not everybody commenting here uses it, but at least you could track where *you* left comments easier.

First off, let me address the topic at hand -- unions. My dad works for Valspar. The plant where my dad works is still unionized and is very much one of the most dysfunctional places on this planet. My dad pays $70/month for dues (which amounts to a lot for some people in this world). These fees are paid simply because if he doesn't join the union, the union will do whatever they can to make my dad's stay a shorter one. The union actually doesn't do anything good anymore -- they simply don't do anything "bad" to you if you keep paying your dues. Sounds like racketeering to me.

So why do union organizations want to unionize employees anywhere -- Microsoft or Ford or US Steel or otherwise? What interest do they have? Its obviously financially motivated. If you think its hard now to get things done at Microsoft with two different viewpoints (Microsoft vs the employee), try throwing a third greedy hand into the pot and you have complete chaos.

The best way to fix things at Microsoft is to bring excitement back to the company. Excitement comes when teams work together and innovate as though they were start-ups. Excitement comes when you take on competition (which means you have to actually recognize competition when you see it).

Until last week, I had a very successful business. Things couldn't have been better for me financially and otherwise. I closed up shop and moved to Redmond this week. I start work at Microsoft Monday. Why? Because I'm in a great position to make a difference -- I don't have finance to worry about and I'm feeling pretty confident in my skills after my own business success. I may be naive, but I plan on making a difference in my job-- something I cannot do with a Union getting in my way and complicating the equation to success.

It's interesting to note that all the people espousing "Just get another job, even if it means moving across the country" are all the people who are able to do that with nary a moment's thought.

When you're 40 with a family, it's a little more complicated, and I speak as someone with far too much experience in having to move for a job.

Oh silly Innocent Bystander, in Robert's magical world of "just work somewhere else" there's no such thing as long term illnesses, or obligations that keep you from moving. All jobs provide top-tier benefits and relocation expenses.

All houses are mushrooms, and watch out for that Jokey Smurf, his presents are quite the festive explosion.

John, Having a family is a personal life decision that some people make and some people don't. There are pros and cons to every decision in life. The problems with Unions is that they attempt to protect those decisions for you (negating your "con") by taking away the benefits away from those who didn't make that decision (negating my "pro"). Forced corporate socialism at the hand of a third party who really is just in it for the money isn't the answer to anything. Ultimately, if you make the decision to have a family, IMHO, its your responsibility to figure out how you are going to feed them. This isn't as hard as you make it out. I know plenty of families that have made a moral decision to quit their jobs and move to another area for a better job. Also, don't get me wrong. I very much admire people who have decided to have families and do everything they can to protect them. I just fail to see how sticking around at a job where you aren't happy is good for anyone.

Tobin..do you like having, in theory, a 40 hour work week?

Unions did that.

You like not being forced to buy all of your food and clothing from your employer?

Unions are why the lyrics from this song: "I owe my soul to the company store" are an anachronism.

You like quite a few of the things you evidently think have always been there thanks to "the open market?"

Thank Unions. Yes, they are sometimes a pain in the ass, but lets understand something...most of the freedoms you enjoy as a worker came from people who died to give you those rights, in some cases killed by agents of the Federal Government.

However, in your world, evidently, the only reason for staying at a job you may not like is because you're stupid or incompetent. It couldn't be for things like stability, or an uncertain job market caused by companies like Microsoft doing everything they can to bring in cheap foreign labor because, according to Gates, "There's no smart people in the US", or companies not hiring people over the age of 40 in the tech sector.

Right now, I think it behooves anyone in the tech sector to be as mercenary as possible, because with rare exception, (and no, Microsoft isn't one), that company you work for will dump your ass in the street in a heartbeat if they can replace you with someone working for a dime on the dollar.

This of course makes changing jobs less of a step up, and more of a deal with the devil. You just hope when the note comes due, you can get SOME of your soul back.

Tech may be hiring, but they still aren't even interviewing well-qualified candidates in wheelchairs.

Tobin, you must be, what, 25-ish?

You'll see.

"Steve Ballmer wasn’t under oath either. The guy telling the other side of the story was."

The guy telling the other side of the story had incentive to lie. Well, he works for the other side.

Unions are great. I only wish the tech sector was unionized. In fact, I wish this country had a third political party - something akin to what they have in Europe - the Socialist party. I would love to have universal healthcare, a guaranteed retirement salary, and other perks. And yes, before you ask, I'm willing to pay up to 60-70% of my salary in taxes to get that kind of security like they enjoy in scandinavia. No CEO, no matter how good, deserves millions while the people who actually do the work make maybe 60-100k. No matter how visionary someone is, they don't deserve to get rich at the expense of the worker class. Police and firefighters deserve to make three times what they do because they put their lives at risk.

yeah...no shit, I'd love to not have to have made some of the deals with the devil I've made. It would not suck at all to have a job not be the ONLY WAY you can get affordable health insurance.

I find the anti-union writing here very sad. As far as I'm concerned it misses the point of a modern union. (I work in the UK, but as I'm writing in a private capacity, I won't say where. My union is Prospect.) As an employee of a large company, I am one of that company's stakeholders. My union membership allows my stakeholderhood (if such a word exists) actually to make a difference, because all the other stakeholders can no longer ignore me. As a stakeholder, I want the company to do well so that I can share in its success. My union membership gives me a voice, and that helps to balance the equation between employer and employee.

Ask yourself why the adversarial system is used in the legal system, even for people who are patently guilty. FWIW, my answer is that if you personalize the defence then you put your greatest efforts into it. A guilty verdict in the face of a strong defence is worth FAR more than one in the face of a token defence. A company with a good, strong union representing a workforce who feel that their contribution and opinions matter is FAR stronger than one with an attitude of "if you don't like it then leave". How can you do worse with a wider range of options to draw on?

To the people who think that union membership is about closed shops and "protectionism" I would say that a good modern union is not like that any more. I hope that a newly unionized company would not be so regressive. I can't guarantee that, of course, but as the union is nothing more than the sum of its members, they (i.e. you) could guarantee it. Or don't you feel that you are stronger when you work with your colleagues rather than in competition with them? Aren't you a team player?

One of the responders noted the age-discrimination in the tech industry. I'm almost 60, and have never found it difficult to get a good job. I've done a wide range of cool things with smart young'uns :), and learned a lot in the process. I think you start getting old when you think somebody younger than you really can't teach you much. Tech is about results - did your project rock or suck? It's not about "even though your project kicked ass, did the old guys on the project drag you down with their lack of modernity?"
Unions are antediluvian relicts of past industries. They may still have a place in the third world and in some industry/manufacturing sectors, but I've watched unions in the health care sector and the teaching profession tear apart their own members' best interests in the name of "making a difference." Example, a union at a local consumer-directed HMO sent its members out on strike (and, like sheep, they went), they remained out for months, and, in the end, they received essentially the exact package that the company was offering in the beginning, with differences on the order of "your co-pay is now 8 dollars instead of 10". That sort of thing. Calculate the cost to the employees of being out of work for that length of time and it would take advanced healthcare indeed to keep them alive long enough for their efforts to deliver any rewards. Oof - ok, flame off. I just don't care for unions. I believe in merit, and unions, for all their rhetoric, believe in seniority.

John C. Welch is obviously one of those professional MS-bashers and an Anti-MS freak. I see his posts criticizing Microsoft EVERYWHERE. Including here and Slashdot. Don't listen to him. He's apparently too sour and doesn't live a gratifying life, so he spends all this energy MS-bashing. BTW, I'm a twenty-something new grad foreigner who was hired by MS and moved to Redmond, and I'm making more than my friends make working for Apple. I am really happy to be in such a great place to work, with great pay, and great benefits. Sure, there are lots of bad apples, but you make your own life and work environment. Personally, I love it. Too bad John is so pissed off. Typical fanboy behavior I guess.