Trade Unions in the IT Industry

mdebets

I'm just looking into joining a Trade Union. I work in IT and there is at the moment no Trade Union in our company.
In my investigation, I found the following Trade Unions, that apply to my industry
Amicus
SIPTU
prospect

Has anyone experience with one of these in an IT environment.
Does anyone any other Trade Union that take on IT professionals?

gurramok

I'm in IBOA.
Not sure if we had automatic right to join them as fellow employees on a different site found themselves working indirectly for a bank hence they chose IBOA and as we are part of same company, entitlement stretched to us non-bank workers, all IT of course.

mdebets

Thanks for the tip, I checked out their site and I saw, that they actually are in contact with a small part of our company that is doing some work with banks. I'll get in contact with them in the new year.

How do you find them? Are they effective in regards to the IT workers. I'm a little bit concerned, as their main members are from the banking industry, so that people in non-banking jobs might not be too important for them

Stephen

IT is fairly un-unionised. Where I work, most of the non-IT staff are SIPTU members, so IT people in the past have joined SIPTU and gotten help from them when they got into sticky situations with the employer.

Rebeller

Have you any prior experience of union organising?

I was involved in an organisation campaign in the last company I worked for (major multinational computer and software manufacturer).

Although you have a legal and constitutional right to union membership and action your employer will try subtle and not so subtle means to discourage and dissuade you.

I would advise you to carry out a general sounding out of your work colleagues (making sure to avoid anyone too close to management or with management ambitions) to get their opinions on union membership. Union representation will not have much impact if you are the only member (apart from the right to have union rep present at disciplinary hearings etc).

However, forming an entire union section (comprised of several if not all those working in your department) will give you a lot more punch.

Be prepared to be met with extreme resistance from management once they realise that you are organising including subtle bullying (constant criticism of work performance, nit picking examination of all aspects of your work, no leeway application of schedule adherance (e.g. applying disciplinary mechanism for 1 minute lateness etc).

There will also be an attempt to buy you or fellow employees off through employee satisfaction surveys and meaningless, workplace improvements which are intended to demonstrate concern for employee welfare etc.Such "improvements" will almost never include substantive, meaningful chnages such as pay increases etc.

You will be ostracised and intimidated and are facing a very lengthy, uphill battle.

Notwithstanding this the benefits of union membership are numerous.

Good luck and stay strong. Don't lose heart because your employer will make life VERY difficult for you over the next few months if you decide to organise.

parsi

Also be wary because there can be times when your union treats your branch like rubbish and starts parrotting managements lines.

TempestSabre

Its only useful once you have the same interests as the union.