Re: Unionizing?

Subject: Re: Unionizing?
From: Robert_Johnson -at- percussion -dot- com
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 11:48:43 -0500



At the risk of getting too far off subject, I think someone still has a
good idea of how to make a guild work. Higher education, at least at the
graduate level in the US, still operates very much on the guild model,
sometimes consciously so, sometimes less so. Anyone with a little bit of
experience with graduate education, especially at the doctoral level, and a
bit of knowledge about medieval history, can see how much higher education
still operates as a guild.

Bob Johnson (who has both)




"Jim Doria"
<jimdoria -at- techie -dot- com> To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent by: cc:
bounce-techwr-l-55034 -at- lists -dot- Subject: Re: Unionizing?
raycomm.com


12/03/2002 06:42 PM
Please respond to "Jim
Doria"







The idea of a Technical Writer's union does seem pretty far-fetched, given
that white-collar workers have tended to be difficult to unionize. And I
don't think the general perception of unions is that they ensure a "better
quality worker". Actually, the opposite usually seems to be true in
practice.

But the idea of a guild - now that has merit. Whereas a union is a "you're
in or you're out" proposition, a guild has various levels of achievment,
and
could consequently provide for varying levels of compensation for it's
workers. A properly-run guild can insure the quality of its members in a
way
that a union can't (or won't). Employers can choose to use guild members or
not, but if all goes well, they should choose to do so, just to ensure the
quality of the work.

The problem with guilds is nobody seems to know how to make them work
anymore. To be effective, a guild has to be well-known, and guild
membership
has to be seen as a prerequisite for the production of quality work, by
employers, by writers and by aspiring writers. It could be that
"market-forces capitalism" will prevent modern knowledge workers from ever
forming guilds, just as it has made slavery and serfdom unprofitable.

Or maybe it's that modern knowledge work just isn't that hard to learn and
do. A professional painter in the middle ages needed a good portion of his
lifetime to learn how to paint well, since he had to start by learning how
to make the paint. How long does it take us to learn a career now? Many
companies (at least in the US) even dispense with minimal job training in
favor of a "pick it up as you go along" apporach.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregory Sweet" <Gsweet -at- cdphp -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: Unionizing?



<snip> That's why writers have guilds. <snip>








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