I realize that it's the article's title, but this seems misleading. The bug testers were contractors working under the temp agency Lionbridge Technologies Inc.<p>After they won their right to unionize, they were eventually laid off because Microsoft required fewer bug testers for their dwindling Windows Mobile app store and their agency, Lionbridge, couldn't find additional work for them.
Honestly, I think we should just unionize everyone in the tech field. A single Union that handles and accepts all software developers, IT operations folks, software testers, etc and we protect our own and lobby for the laws to benefit us and our profession. The things these companies do to get around basic worker rights is deplorable and we need to organize and fight back, and befor you say you make a ton of money and love what you do so why unionize, ask yourself how many hours you worked overtime and didn’t get paid for it. Ask yourself how many times you’ve seen a colleague let go because they had some medical troubles. Ask yourself how many times a colleague on a visa told you they felt trapped. Ask yourself how many times you’ve heard of a colleague get fucked out of their vacation due to a critical issue. Ask yourself how much power you have to effect change when it comes to just general process and how we go about our day to day. Ask yourself how many times you’ve felt you’ve been asked to do something that was unethical and didn’t want to risk the financial implications and consequences of saying “No”. We need a union. Call it whatever you want, a guild, a bar, a union. Whatever. The point is, it’s time to organize and it’s time to start fighting back.
I used to work for LionBridge. They did have quite a few full time positions when Nokia was flourishing, but when things started to go south with Nokia, they put pressure on LionBridge to cut their costs, else lose their business contract. When Microsoft took over Nokia, nothing changed for the better. People who were forced out of their full-time jobs didn't get them back, and the people who had permanent zero hour contracts kept the same deal. This is when I left (because I was only getting a couple of days work a month).<p>I feel bad for LB because it was Nokia and MS that turned the screws, even though I think they had the funds to support LB's employees. I also have no idea why LB couldn't then get the reason Nokia and MS lost their product support, ie. the Android vendors' business contracts.
Big company A wants to pay less for a general service,
Large company A outsources the service to smaller company B.
Smaller company B in order to make the service cheaper than Company A could do it themselves, company B cuts on things like pay, vacation and social benefits. There is no work safety in company B and everything is by demand "contract" work. In fact employees of company B is often self employees.<p>This is usually how it goes around and in globalization it is there is often someone willing to the work cheaper but with no health care, pensions etc.
If these people can form a union, what's to stop them from forming their own agency and finding clients? Software testing isn't exactly a capital-intensive business.
A similar thing happened to SWEs at Lanetix. I was coworkers with several of them at my previous job. <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/SF-tech-company-fired-software-engineers-seeking-12541301.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/SF-tech-company...</a><p>Fortunately I've never worked anywhere that had conditions so bad that organizing was worth thinking about, but I won't rule it out as a possibility in the future.
There is a general lack of empathy for these workers and even for those who get laid off due to globalization and now under a opioid/meth epidemic.<p>Free market proponents always talk about 'retraining' and other up in the air initiatives but there is no follow up or details about how these will actually work in the real world with some base accountability, processes and studies about how well they worked in the past. And yet all these trade deals without exception have claw backs and multiple processes protecting their investments and profits. In this case all the details are covered carefully and it is not left 'up in the air'.<p>There are no easy answers here as opinions will shift depending on which side of the equation you or someone you care about finds themselves in. This is really about the kind of society and community you want to build and how you see yourself as a country.
Could we at least agree that tech workers in the video game industry should be unionized? The anti-union detractors always talk about how cushy engineers have it and that unions are unnecessary. Well how about the notoriously horrendous working conditions in games?
"... gave up on what had been, for people in the software world, an almost unheard of unionization victory"
The 'software world' is not just America, thank you. Almost every other civilized country thinks this is normal.
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" -- attributed to Mao.<p>The union expected to be dealt with fairly and according to the law; the law failed them, because the mechanisms of the law were controlled by politics and Microsoft has political power; the union did not.
Were the bug testers working in conditions where said testers were in physical or psychiatric danger from job hazards? If not, I don't really see an issue with this.
I guess this would explain the low quality of Windows updates recently. Almost every patch Tuesday we patch, and then something that should have been caught by Microsoft QA breaks.<p>The increasingly low quality of Microsoft products makes it hard to use in the enterprise.