Wow. I cant believe its standing room only in here 🙂

Someone asked about unionizing programmers, DBA’s, network engineers, etc.

Take a look at the Electrical Workers Union. They have network engineers who belong to the union who get paid overtime if they “decide” to work after hours if a server or the network goes down.

It’s a problem because an IT director – not me – has to design systems that are redundant so that they can avoid having to be dependent on unionized workers who are protected from being laid off even if they dont want to come in and work the overtime when servers or the network is down.

If the auto workers or actors union doesn’t agree with the latest contract then they go on strike and the only result is reduced output of manufactured automobiles or movies or scripts in the case of screenwriters guild strike.

But if DBAs, network engineers, and other technologist’s Union – EWU in this case – doesnt agree with contracts with cities and counties then what happens when the City’s or County’s department servers and networks go down during a strike?

The city/county basically shuts down and goes back to paper mode. And who wants to go back to those days?

But if you – as in IT Director – do have to work with Unionized programmers, DBAs, network Engineers, etc then you sure as heck better design fully redundant systems to protect you during those strikes.