From Wpusa501c3 at aol.com Tue Jun 4 15:06:15 1996 From: Wpusa501c3 at aol.com (Wpusa501c3 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 18:06:15 -0400 Subject: America Needs a Raise Message-ID: <960604180614_407225616@emout07.mail.aol.com> Dear Friends, The South Bay Labor Council and the non-profit economic development group Working Partnerships USA is sponsoring a town hall meeting this Monday, June 10 at 7:00 p.m. at the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Chambers (70 West Hedding Street, San Jose). The event is entitled "America Needs a Raise" and is intended to provide a forum for people to speak out about concerns over wages and working conditions in the community. As you know, a number of people working in high tech in Silicon Valley and throughout the Bay Area are doing quite well. Stories of impressive signing bonuses and stock options travel quickly. But a whole lot of people I have spoken with who are working in high tech are not doing as well. A number of high tech companies are using a lot of temporary help, avoid paying benefits, and terminating the contracts of any worker who speaks up about anything. We are looking for a couple of people who would be willing to tell their own story of the challenges and candidly the downside of life working in high tech. The people would speak for 2 to 3 minutes to a gathering of a broad cross section of the community including residents, temporary workers, computer professionals, union leaders, and elected officials. Please send me an e-mail if you or anyone you know seems to fit the bill or would be interested. If you would prefer you can call me at (408) 266-3790. Also, you and your membership are encouraged to attend the town hall meeting. Thanks for your help. :-) --Toby Rogers Working Partnerships USA San Jose From trant at shire.corp.sgi.com Tue Jun 4 16:19:02 1996 From: trant at shire.corp.sgi.com (Ken Trant) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 16:19:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: America Needs a Raise In-Reply-To: <960604180614_407225616@emout07.mail.aol.com> from "Wpusa501c3@aol.com" at Jun 4, 96 06:06:15 pm Message-ID: <199606042319.QAA06120@shire.corp.sgi.com> What Union do you represent?. Having been a member of several unions, including Teamsters, and CWA, I firmly believe that unions are BAD. They promote a lack of personal responsibility, and serve the lowest common denominator. You want a story of "the challenges" or "the downside", let me share mine with you. I worked for Western Electric for several years. I had been promoted and was getting recognition for my work ethic during that time, but I couldn't get any pay raise since that was controlled by the Union Contract. Then came the layoffs. In my department we had one person with almost 40 years on the job with very strict medical waivers so his only job was to sweep up the work areas after crews had been through. His kids were grown up leaving just him and his wife. I was married and had 3 children. Guess who got laid off and who kept his job?, it shouldn't be hard to guess since it was a union job. His seniority counted for more then the work he did, or the quality of my work, and he didn't want to "retire". I was lucky enough to find a job at National Semiconductor after about 8 weeks. NSC doesn't have a union, and during the 9 1/2 years I was there we went through at least 8 layoffs. The criteria for who was let go was based on performance and business requirements. It was not decided by some union negotiator who never met me, and whose only experience with my job was handing out flyers in my work area. Unions as a concept were a good idea, who's time has passed. I won't be fooled again when someone starts talking about the benefits of collective bargaining. What it meant to me was pay money to join the union, pay monthly dues to stay in the union, go on strike when the union says for a raise you would have gotten if the company was allowed to reward you for your personal efforts. They take money from me to push union goals and support more "Union Marketeers" who go out and hard sell more people. And if you think people don't get their butt kicked for asking the wrong questions at a union meeting you are mistaken. I would rather earn my own way. I take personal responsibility for what I do and how I do it and I think everyone would benefit from doing the same. Please do not send this BS to me again. K Wpusa501c3 at aol.com Said to me: ;; ;;Dear Friends, ;; ;;The South Bay Labor Council and the non-profit economic development group ;;Working Partnerships USA is sponsoring a town hall meeting this Monday, June ;;10 at 7:00 p.m. at the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Chambers (70 ;;West Hedding Street, San Jose). The event is entitled "America Needs a ;;Raise" and is intended to provide a forum for people to speak out about ;;concerns over wages and working conditions in the community. ;; ;;As you know, a number of people working in high tech in Silicon Valley and ;;throughout the Bay Area are doing quite well. Stories of impressive signing ;;bonuses and stock options travel quickly. But a whole lot of people I have ;;spoken with who are working in high tech are not doing as well. A number of ;;high tech companies are using a lot of temporary help, avoid paying benefits, ;;and terminating the contracts of any worker who speaks up about anything. ;; ;;We are looking for a couple of people who would be willing to tell their own ;;story of the challenges and candidly the downside of life working in high ;;tech. The people would speak for 2 to 3 minutes to a gathering of a broad ;;cross section of the community including residents, temporary workers, ;;computer professionals, union leaders, and elected officials. ;; ;;Please send me an e-mail if you or anyone you know seems to fit the bill or ;;would be interested. If you would prefer you can call me at (408) 266-3790. ;; Also, you and your membership are encouraged to attend the town hall ;;meeting. Thanks for your help. :-) ;; ;;--Toby Rogers ;;Working Partnerships USA ;;San Jose ;; -- ----- Ken Trant / I think that I shall never see http://reality.sgi.com/trant / A billboard lovely as a tree Information Services, / Indeed, unless the billboards fall Silicon Graphics, Inc / I'll never see a tree at all PGP KEY: 56 E1 91 84 E3 4A 44 48 CC B3 50 A6 C0 1F A6 39 From tommy at big.att.com Tue Jun 4 17:26:48 1996 From: tommy at big.att.com (Tom Reingold) Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 20:26:48 EDT Subject: America Needs a Raise In-Reply-To: Message from trant@shire.corp.sgi.com (Ken Trant) of Tue, 04 Jun 1996 16:19:02 PDT <199606042319.QAA06120@shire.corp.sgi.com> Message-ID: <199606050026.UAA03974@peerless> > > What Union do you represent?. Having been a member of several unions, > including Teamsters, and CWA, I firmly believe that unions are BAD. They > promote a lack of personal responsibility, and serve the lowest common > denominator. > [...] > Unions as a concept were a good idea, who's time has passed. > [...] Perhaps these mailing lists aren't the right place to discuss the merits of unions. So forgive me: You cite a typical example of the abuses unions make these days. I would not categorize them as bad, however. I would fear their disintegration. There are many job types that use unskilled or semi-skilled workers. A person can be replaced by another generic person at the drop of a hat. This is why union rules can be valuable. Seniority should count in places like this. (Relative performance on the job should count too. You cite where it wasn't weighed at all.) Since you and I can get a good job fairly easily because of our skills, we don't need unions. But other people seem to benefit, and I think you should acknowledge that. Disbanding unions basically says that management has the first, last, and only say. The existence of unions says that labor has a say too. If that say is too big, you have a problem, just as you do when management's say is too big. But it's more difficult to build labor's power than management's. Think of that next time you propose to dismiss a union. Tom From gherbert at crl.com Tue Jun 4 18:36:28 1996 From: gherbert at crl.com (George Herbert) Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 18:36:28 -0700 Subject: America Needs a Raise In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 04 Jun 1996 16:19:02 PDT." <199606042319.QAA06120@shire.corp.sgi.com> Message-ID: <199606050136.AA17321@mail.crl.com> I hate to say this, but this discussion is mostly a) inappropriate for all these lists, and b) I don't know about the rest of you, but *I* am getting four or five copies of each of these messages, so stop sending it to every list under the sun at least. Replies are set to me personally, not any of the lists. -george william herbert gherbert at crl.com From robjen at access.digex.net Mon Jun 24 05:34:42 1996 From: robjen at access.digex.net (Rob Jenson) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 08:34:42 -0400 Subject: Locals in Seattle, Chicago, or Baltimore? Message-ID: <31CE8B62.4966@access.digex.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hello folks, On behalf of three friends who are also USENIX/SAGE members, I am interested in gathering information about local SAGE groups being formed in any of these three cities' metropolitan regions: Baltimore, MD - I know about dc.sage ( http://www.access.digex.net/~robjen/dc-sage ) which covers the metropolitan DC area and has a great bunch of UNIX sysadmins from the region, including a few Baltimorians. However, a friend and former co-worker is interested in seeing a local group that is less geographically inconvenient, perhaps with some Windows NT as well as UNIX folks. Chicago, IL - There must be a lot of admins in the Windy City. Has anyone undertaken the effort to start a SAGE local there? I know of at least 30 people who would have a strong interest in seeing one formed, and I think I've just met one who could get one rolling, if the effort has not yet begun. Seattle, WA - Again, this is the result of a question I received this weekend that went along the lines of "Is there a SAGE group in Seattle," and my response was "I don't know, but if there isn't, why don't you start one?" Any information about ongoing attempts, false starts, etc. in any of these three areas would be highly appreciated. In a similar vein, if you are living in one of these three areas, and you would like to participate in [what might be the formation of] a local SAGE group, please contact me and I will put you in touch with the person in the region making it happen. For the sake of everyone's (well, everyone minus one perhaps :)) sanity, please respond to _me_ (robjen at access.digex.net). I will gather up all the information and summarize what I find to sage-locals. We all get enough daily E-mail that there is no need to flood yet another list (IMHO). Peace and good bandwidth, _rob_ - -- Rob Jenson - UNIX systems administrator specializing in security and networking issues. E-mail: robjen at access.digex.net Web: http://www.access.digex.net/~robjen PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) Public Key: 1717/E7A75FC9 1995/10/25 Rob Jenson Key fingerprint = D8 4E 05 2D 98 1B D5 79 D1 27 AB A3 93 E5 75 25 If you were using PGP, you'd know that this message was genuinely from me. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQDsAwUBMc5EMZ+zdHXnp1/JAQF1awa1FLYJwchbdIdcNdrmdEX10bdDm888F5Jc WnvdnjweKoCV2vNqGolWhA3286cNkkml85Ehkxzr+bS1J96HPJwHF5jqAegmL7nW nIty5LidFm6oID7WVBJQgB4Q04AHsh0cyC4XuEqnymSPjzPlDl4ivmMKmAcFb6ct 5qJLef/I61W2B65M2AKrabgnu+gzlMO14xS9NA5wxTSOI1bK2Xx2Sw8fcE41r0/P SXXQaKFv3LmZ7mbclWZD5047LNSC4YchgK3fAyjxPj9gke78nfbNb7ee6lcp4nA= =oQ/Z -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----