andy@polya.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) (06/21/88)
Unions almost always oppose home work; some businesses do as well because home workers may have fewer expenses. (A biz that contracts with home workers doesn't have to buy factory space.) I suspect that union opposition to home work isn't disguised sexism as much as a power struggle. It is harder to organize and discipline home workers. (It is harder to "discourage" home-working scabs.) There may also be safety issues (it's hard to see how this is relevant in hand kniting; I've forgetten how the recent Vermont Home Knitters case came out) and something to do with break-time, vacations, and the like. Home work is almost always piece-work which is almost always contrary to union philosophy. There was/is a recent court case involving insurance home computing; I don't remember how that came out (either), let alone what the issues were. Home work in certain kinds of computing may also have failed because home work is harder to coordinate; some of those meetings are actually useful and being able to talk with people can definitely help sometimes. I suspect that huge mainframe-style computing in the days before cheap modems also discouraged home work computing. I see more stories involving home work computing in the media every year though. It used to be that most of them would be about home work computing but they're disappearing and home work computing is just another thing mentioned. (Some of the people in an article in last Sunday's SF Chronicle about people who work more hours do home work computing and then go into the office.) One of these days I'll send a coherent posting instead of just spouting opinions. -andy usenet ucbvax!jade!violet!skyler arpa skyler@violet.berkeley.edu
fay.UUCP@seismo.css.gov (Peter Fay) (06/22/88)
In article <11168@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> andy@polya.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes: >Unions almost always oppose home work; some businesses do as well >because home workers may have fewer expenses. (A biz that contracts >with home workers doesn't have to buy factory space.) > >I suspect that union opposition to home work isn't disguised sexism as >much as a power struggle. It is harder to organize and discipline >home workers. (It is harder to "discourage" home-working scabs.) >There may also be safety issues (it's hard to see how this is relevant >in hand kniting; I've forgetten how the recent Vermont Home Knitters >case came out) and something to do with break-time, vacations, and the >like. Home work is almost always piece-work which is almost always >contrary to union philosophy. There was/is a recent court case >involving insurance home computing; I don't remember how that came out >(either), let alone what the issues were. In article <11167@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> ecl@mtgzy.att.com writes: > 3) labor laws often made it difficult to employ people > who worked primarily at home > 4) OSHA laws often made it impossible to employ people > who worked primarily at home Unions oppose "home workers" (otherwise known as cottage industry) because it has always been a method to freely exploit workers (almost always women) and evade health and safety laws, child labor laws, and minimum wage laws. For those who are a little weak on their labor history, it was largely women in the labor movement who fought home work and lobbied to make it illegal (or restricted). This is especially true of garment workers (yes, knitting too). Cottage industry was used for over one hundred years purposely to lengthen the working day, reduce wages, bust unions and employ child labor. One need only review Congressional testimony or read some labor history to understand this. Although computer people are almost entirely non-unionized, there is not yet a large surplus of these workers available to depress wages, and the industry is not as troubled as, for example, the garment industry, to entice companies to resort to these tactics. Yes, it is nice to be able to work from home on occasion (I do it), but as an industry-wide trend, especially for women, one can surmise it will be used to worsen conditions. (This is not to say there are not exceptions.) This could be a boon to empoyers: fewer benefits ("part-time or temporary employee", women can now work during pregnancy leave), longer hours (nights, weekends - yes, I know we already do), reduced chance of ever being unionized, reduced wages, etc. -- peter fay fay@multimax.arpa {allegra|compass|decvax|ihnp4|linus|necis|pur-ee|talcott}!encore!fay
ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (06/28/88)
Of course the difference between home computer programmers and the cottage industry is that we would like to believe that computer work falls into the "professional" category rather than "piecework" and hence less subject to the abuses that the cottage industry provides. Doctors and Lawyers have traditionally operated out of home offices. As a matter of fact, the main reason that professionals are pushed out of the home where I used to live is that several influential developers got the zoning rules to be interpreted strictly to forbid people from doing such so that they had to go rent office space in an office building. -Ron
rosa@uunet.UU.NET (06/30/88)
I read an article in "The Gaurdian" a few months ago that quoted the following statistic for computing home-workers: the majority of home workers earned at least a third less than their contemporaries in the work-place. This was partly due to the overheads of self-employment insurance costs, re-rated home costs and lack of security for sickness, to say nothing of the running costs and telephone bills. Many earned under half!