RE: You can't go home again

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

I tried to follow the union thread and so I don't 
think I missed the part where somebody is reporting 
actual experience AS a tech writer, IN a union.

A true guild is what a union tries to be. 

It dominates and constrains its own members, sucks 
money out of them, and uses them (either directly or 
by virtue of their numbers) as a weapon of political 
clout to further the aims of those at the top.

It has an intricate and bureaucratically (as well as 
politically) entrenched heirarchy.

At the upper levels, it's members are indistinguishable 
in thought and action from the picture they paint to 
their members (and to the public) of "the bosses". They 
tend to spend more time in the company of those bosses and 
political wheeler-dealers than in the company of the 
plebes in the union/guild ranks.

And, the number one reason the two are basically the 
same:

They seek to obtain the blessing/clout of the "king" 
to use force in achieving advantage over non-guild/union 
workers. That is, they seek to have themselves and 
their rules entrenched in the law of the land.

I wouldn't work in a union tech-writing shop unless I was 
desperate (I escaped from a union into staff jobs, where 
I stopped feeling like a cog or a fodder-game-piece), and 
if/when the STC begins to take on guild-like trappings, 
that's when I start looking for something else.

Guilds/unions follow a pattern that can often be 
seen in immigrants.

In the first and maybe second generations, they are hardworking 
and useful. By the third generation they have become "us", with 
a very select view of what constitutes "them", and thereafter 
they expend considerable effort closing the door to those 
who try to follow.

Eventually, "the rest of us" need countering laws to get us 
past the barriers the unions or guilds have set up.

I suggest that if you are in a union at a company, either 
a local union or a local of a bigger union, then you are 
relatively faceless. Your interests as a tech writer 
are submerged in the generalized, homogenized group interest.
If there are layoffs, you might find yourself dropped for 
your lack of seniority, and not due to your value or even 
the need for tech writers at the company. If you are kept, 
you may find yourself displacing a non-tech-writer due  
purely to seniority reasons (so, how much practice HAVE 
you had at accounts-payable?...:-).

If, instead, you are a member of a trade-union or guild 
(i.e., nation-wide or international), then basically, 
you are paying a chunk of your salary to them to act as 
an agency toward your employer (without the job-search 
or placement services). The differences, though, are 
that a contractor with an agency can quit and go 
work for another agency, if she doesn't like the policies 
of the current agency. But, if the new tech-writer guild 
has gotten itself a legal mandate (like the AMA or the 
teachers union...), then there is no other game in town.  
In other words, by joining them, you gain a lot of clout... 
but a lot of that clout doesn't really work in your interest. 
Some of it may work against your interests, and you are tied in.
If you *don't* join, you can't work (or you can work under 
some scary conditions, where you spend a lot of time looking 
over your shoulder as a "concientious objector"). 

Unions might still be good for the unskilled and the 
unspecialized, i.e., the interchangeable. I don't see them 
being good for educated, flexible, resourceful crafts-persons/
professionals like our wonderful selves.

YMMV.   Be careful what you wish for.

/kevin
kmclauchlan-at-chrysalis-dash-eye-tee-ess-dot-com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pete Sanborn [mailto:psanborn2 -at- earthlink -dot- net]
> Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 2:52 PM
> 
> Re: Union vs, Guild:
> A rose by any other name . . .   For example, what is the 
> difference between
> the Screen Actor's Guild and the United Auto Workers (besides 
> the different
> professions they represent and industries in which they work)?

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