Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration
Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration
Some tech workers questioned whether UPS drivers deserved high pay — others jumped in to note the importance of the jobs and harsh working conditions.
cross-posted from: https://yiffit.net/post/1029567
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2936916
Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration::Some tech workers questioned whether UPS drivers deserved high pay — others jumped in to note the importance of the jobs and harsh working conditions.
Everybody's salary needs to increase and the only way we can achieve this is through unions. There isn't one single employer that I've met out there in the IT field that was ever willing to increase my salary beyond 2%. It's always "too much". Meanwhile my cost of living has nearly doubled.
To people who think they "don't deserve it" - if their job is so easy, why don't you get off your ass in your nice air conditioned office and do it yourself?
Actually, I did do it. I was in IT for 20 years, 10 of it doing tech support. Now I deliver mail. Best decision of my life. And it is surprisingly easy for someone with a tech background. Sure, there's a lot of physical labour involved. And winters suck with the massive increase in Christmas parcels and mail on top of the shitty weather. But summers are light and I'm outdoors most of the day.
The sad part is that this job will eventually lead to a 6 figure salary. By the time I left IT, my wage had stagnanted for a decade and I couldn't see any path to 6 figures. It's not that delivery drivers don't deserve that kind of salary...we do for the work during the crunch times. It's that IT workers deserve a union that will back them up and get them that salary.
If I'm up at 2am fixing a crashed server before the 6am reports are generated, and I still put in a full day the next day to do the post-mortem analysis, I deserve more than some encouraging words and a half day at some point in the future that I'll never have the chance to take.
Oof. This is exactly what I am going through right now.
I don’t know if they still do it, or if it’s as lucrative as it used to be, but back in the 80’s when we were around 18-20 years old my brother and I both got 6-week jobs at UPS over the holiday rush as drivers assistants. Between the decent hourly rate and the huge amount of overtime we made a ton of money. But it was a hell of a grind. We’d start at 7 am with a truck packed literally to the gills with packages. We’d get it all delivered then meet up with another truck, load up our delivery truck again, then repeat the process. We didn’t finish most of those days until around 8pm or so…
We all do better when we all do better.
As someone who has only worked freight in an air-conditioned warehouse, moving boxes is not easy work and not many people will be able to do it their whole careers. I'm personally glad I argue with computers for my job now and I have much respect for those lifting things in the elements.
Wages versus other wages isn't the zero-sum game, in fact it's the opposite. When they do better we all do better in labor getting a bigger piece of the economic output pie.
Tech/IT workers in not only the US, but mostly globally, have only themselves to blame though, since there is this weird anti union mindset that has infected the whole sector.
Whenever unions are mentioned on sysadmin related subreddits or communities, almost everyone is very negative, which is a shame.
Globally? The fuck you spouting? In the Netherlands, and especially my employer (IT, >10000 employees) advertises 3-4 different unions and has special offers like paying half the monthly union costs and the other half I can pay with my income taxes.
I'm not saying it is everyone. I'm in It myself and in a union.
But even here (Norway) there is always a lot of tech and IT people who will start with the "I don't need a union, because i can get a better pay etc. by myself" whenever talk of unions in these sectors come up.
The 170k number is also essentially fiction, it's corporate reported and includes all costs rolled into it. There are definitely drivers that make 6 figures, but their w2 is closer to 100k than 170k. Most the reaction is stupid people not realizing this.
So I am in a "Right to Work" State and I have thought about this for a minute now... Given the support is there, how hard is it to start a union in a particular field/industry in a city? I have been in Tech and IT for the last +10 years and I while I havent met too many Union Deniers, no one seems to know why there is no Tech Unions out here. Is there a place I could reach out for guidance?
Unions are bad for job hopping, which is the current method for the dev side. They get good pay and benefits, and generally get stock as part of compensation. The stock is anathema to US Unions which operate in a hostile manner to the companies. The stock is also how a lot of devs have had very good paydays. A software dev union probably looks more like a guild.
On the running cables side of IT, unions do exist. Especially on the ISP side. The IBEW appears to actually help their members more so than say UAW, so if you are doing this work, they might be able to help you unionize if you want that.
I would check in with another local Union. UC grad students are organized under UAW, which was nominally united auto workers.