IT & Unions

I fully differ from Rajan regarding the reason for the non-existence of Unions in IT. The following is my reason why it does not exist in our industry. First of all, you have to examine the hierarchical structure of the IT industry vs a traditional industry. Unionism started off as an offshoot of Marx's communist idealogy where he asked for the oppressed(workers in industrial age england) against the oppressor(factory owners). So in such a set-up there was a clear demarcation between the workers and the management. The maximum position a worker could go was till the Foreman level. So when management and workers were strictly divided thus, it was in the self-interest of the workers to group themselves as a union for collective bargaining. If you see Unions in universities, it is again the same principle where the student cannot directly become a Professor or the Dean and the students have to have a representing body. Now if you see the IT industry, well, our own company, the Project lead is almost half-management and ca surely become management within a few years. Also, the compensation in the IT setup was attractive enough right from the initial stages to kill any desire for a union. The other reason is that in the IT industry, people move to a different company if not satisfied with the pay/role since the industry allows this movement, that too in a beneficial way. So, all these things combined never allowed the concept of Unionism to evolve. So, it is wrong to say that the typical IT guy is less social and more aloof than a factory worker. So the clear demarcation between management and worker and difficulty of movement across factories/industries made sure that Unionism thrived in other industries.