Ciara | Ciaraíoch 🎨Join, and I cannot stress this enough, a union.
Ronan@Ciaraioch yea, 100%! I'm self employed but joined a union of sorts; Institute of Designers in Ireland. Has been hugely helpful and offered benefits & services I could never have gotten working alone.
dulpit@Ciaraioch I had a chat with my pals about this the other day. Both work in retail as managers. One was complaining that union staff get 4 day weeks and earn more than managers now (who are non-union), and the other was complaining that union staff get up to €40 an hour around christmas. Neither saw this as a reason to join a union. Bonkers...
An_file_i_Limoges@Ciaraioch duine eile ag teacht ón éan!
Luchair@Ciaraioch found myself ranting about this in a meeting yesterday - union has just negotiated a pay rise for all where i work and STILL some folk do not consider joining.
Mark Dennehy@Ciaraioch I wish we had one, but the IT industry couldn't even get Engineers Ireland to file us under anything other than "misc" in their reports for a decade. They've only started talking like we were "real" engineers in the last six months, and even that reluctantly.
Well paid, not well represented and this is the end result 😩
Well paid, not well represented and this is the end result 😩
Jonathan B ✈️🪄👨🏻💻@markdennehy @Ciaraioch Prospect might be a good fit (in the UK) if you’re thinking of starting a group under an established union. They certainly currently represent some groups of engineers and tech workers already. https://prospect.org.uk/
@jmb @Ciaraioch Not a great fit for Ireland as we're not in the UK and are in the EU and there's a host of issues as you cross the EU border surrounding data protection of members' data, international recognition of members' accreditations, international agreements between associations and unions, legal framework differences and so forth.
@markdennehy @Ciaraioch sorry, I missed the fact that you’re in Ireland.
@markdennehy @Ciaraioch there are a few unions that take tech workers in Ireland. Can't remember which, of course. Traditionally, the marginal benefit of using your free time to agitate for better conditions didn't make sense for tech workers - it was easy to change job for better conditions, and the amount of free time you had was limited.
@bigvalen @Ciaraioch SIPTU does - there are some lads in Apple in it apparently. But it's very much an exception.
That whole "quit and leave" thing btw, is a bug not a feature. Look at how the whole industry does promotions for feck's sakes. You quit, go somewhere else at a higher level, quit and come back two levels up. That's *broken* and you lose the institutional knowledge the engineer takes with them.
Richard Turner@markdennehy @Ciaraioch I was looking for an IT professionals’ union earlier today off the back of a similar toot. I’m in the UK, and there Prospect looked like a reasonable choice. A quick search for an Irish option yields Connect: https://www.connectunion.ie/about-our-trade-union/
SeánThey got broken. Not what they were at all.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/18/newsid_2538000/2538439.stm
@Ciaraioch this is the Union for Twitter Users
Jenő@Ciaraioch Software engineers always seemed to have good enough negotiation power, so it's no surprise that I haven't see noticeable union activity. What more I'm not sure if the planet is ready for the unions of system administrators / software infrastructure engineers. Although the idea of getting smart introvert overlords has some appeal.
RustyMcGee@Ciaraioch have you worked out how to add ofher servers on the app? I’m isolated from my people!
ownohmanny@Ciaraioch and also do not think that joining it means you won't have to work for your own branch. The union is its members
Andras Forgacs W. 
@Ciaraioch but not the Soviet Union
Seachaint 
@Ciaraioch Every other courier who comes to our house is happy to grouse about work conditions, having to work in orange weather warnings, being overworked and underpaid. I always return with "Ah that's shit. Have ye a union?"
They never do, but I hope they get the idea soon. If they're overworked it follows that the bosses don't have enough workers (often by stingy design), so a threatened strike would make them sit up, láithreach bonn.
MaryPsych@Ciaraioch Aontas Chiarraí!
Malcolm Wilson 🏳️⚧️@Ciaraioch Also: accept that union leadership can be a little out of touch with members - but it’s our membership and collective strength that matter most.
Hairyloon@Ciaraioch
Good advice, but don't rely on them too much: from my observations, they are too often not nearly as good as they ought to be.
Good advice, but don't rely on them too much: from my observations, they are too often not nearly as good as they ought to be.
Venom of Venus@Ciaraioch go onnnnnnn…..🤔