Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

What follows is a longer reply to a long post.

The short version is no one is proposing how a union is a viable way to grow Cisco while eliminating the problem children such that it could provide you with all the additional benefits you want.

So many think it is a way to keep incompetent and bad people from getting drilled and just a sink hole to contributions.

So many of us have seen unions devolve into exactly this first hand:

• Work at a union engineering company where you have to schedule a union electrician to plug in your laptop because "you are not competent as an electrical engineer to perform such actions." I've been able to plug in electrical devices successfully since the age of 3.

• Have an employee who does nothing but make mistakes but they aren't identical so you don't meet the requirement of three identical mistakes to fire them. What you can do is recommend them for an even higher position which can only be filled by a union member. It helps your team but costs the whole (employees, customers, investors and everyone downwind from them) even more.

• Watch union representatives on TV justify the person running the glue g-n around the windshield opening not letting anyone know it's not dispensing glue "because that's not their job" as cars roll off the line with the windshields unattached. Again, as a young child when I knew I wasn't going to succeed at something I engaged others for help.

• See the unionized chain grocery store paying workers less than minimum wage after union dues paying protestors 50% more to picket a weaker "ma and pa" store paying their workers twice minimum wage while the other chain grocery store next to the unionized store is also paying minimum wage and is not unionized. It harms both their own workers and workers who are far better off while doing nothing to help those making minimum wage at the other chain store.

• I don't know how many HVAC, plumbing, electrical, or other contractors are unionized but finding someone who doesn't violate code to the point where it risks your overall property is an act of G-d. Maintain a house, look at Holmes on Homes or watch any home inspection video on the web for more.

Unions in the US are now just like companies: they want everything for nothing, where neither is capable of understanding that there is a balance that requires each to give as well as get. At a time when companies controlled everything unions were essential in moving towards a successful balance point but were not capable of staying there, hoping to capture all the rewards while accepting none of the risk. With top engineers coming out of college at over $100K and real benefits a decade ago at Cisco and other companies you aren't the 12 year olds chained to your desk in a burning building.

Job roles, responsibilities, rules and obligations are clearly spelled out.

The result is Michelangelo and the guy who painted my house getting the same wage for being "painters" where Michelangelo gets more money by working 4 years on the Sistine Chapel rather than four days to paint a few rooms. Defining creativity and innovation objectively and a priori is a recipe for failure, and the dashboard collected metrics which are easy to collect but measure nothing useful will remain as it's clear whether the result is a red or green light.

Additionally, the contract also spells out clear and objective paths and requirements for promotions and compensation increases.

The company tasks Technical Leaders with a full load of bug fixing while the requirements of the position involve actual leadership that benefits more people than the leadership still expected at lower levels. Are they all willing to become Engineer 1s so that they can meet the requirement to take on small predetermined tasks and complete them in one to two days each? The reality is Cisco has massive title inflation and I expect most of you wouldn't want to be graded at the level of your actual work. Effective measures of code quality would bury most of the software staff, even if all were demoted to Engineer 1 first.

...pension...
Health care

Anyone with some systems experience knows these cannot be solved at the level of an individual company.

Organized labor is really misunderstood by most people. So many think it is a way to keep incompetent and bad people from getting drilled and just a sink hole to contributions.

The reality can be very different.

• In a non-union environment, each and every American employee is at at will employee. They can be let go for virtually any reason at virtually anytime. A good union contract, among many things, should (and can) be negotiated to include language and requirements that the company must meet before they can do things like "limited restructuring" or outright terminations.

• Job roles, responsibilities, rules and obligations are clearly spelled out. The language also covers the specific steps the company needs to take before terminating an employee and teeth to help protect the work. Additionally, the contract also spells out clear and objective paths and requirements for promotions and compensation increases.

• Contributions - part of union dues, in a lot of unions, fund defined benefit plans (a fancy way of saying pension) for employees that can and do follow you from one job to another (as long as the job is covered by a union).

• Health care - health care employee contributions have been steadily increasing year after year after year as have employees out of pocket contributions. Union contracts can address these issues and increase the transparency of these types of things?

Unions are not perfect. They have flaws but there are many reasons that despite employers actively and aggressively working to undermine their purposes and results as well as block workers from organizing, they continue more than a century after they came onto the public scene. Odds are that many of your parents and grandparents worked and thrived as union members and their children and grandchildren swallow the corporate bull hook line and sinker than unions are baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad and eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.

ZERO - in our industry, competition and keeping yourself marketable are the key. No union to harbor the incompetent like teachers group does. As much as I disliked what CISCO ELTs are doing, unionized is not what we need. A lot people keeping themselves up to date already quit or getting more interesting things to do.

More regulation from government concerning layoffs would be nice: Here are a few I can think of:

1. Layoff notice: 1yr minimum for companies over a certain size
2. restrictions on hiring overseas after laying of US employees
3. Restrictions on laying off older employees. E.G. for everyone over 45 you layoff you must layoff 3 people under 30.
4. Mandatory 1 yr health insurance coverage for all impacted employees
5. Mandatory compensation cuts for VP and above with each layoff.
6. Transparency for how the impacted person was chosen vs other candidates.

Unions don't work anymore like they used to. Bad idea

Not one dime. Unions in the IT industry are innovation killers. Why would you want the up and comer with great ideas and proactiveness to get kickout out because the clown who couldn't wipe their rear, wants to sit around and draw a check while doing the minimum and complaining? You pretty much have that now without the union dues and a different click ruling the domain.

I would never have anything to do with a tech company that had a union. On a business trip to NY city, I couldn't even unbox the equipment I was to setup without the union workers there and doing all the work. I couldn't plug cables into switches, the union workers had to do it. It's another layer of bureaucratic nonsense that employs additional unneeded workers, raising costs along the way. I'm sure there are industries where a union is needed to protect the workers, but don't believe a high tech company is one of them.

In the days of meaningful stock options and equity between grade levels (irrespective of department or BU), everyone had a chance to be rewarded for their contributions. Now that: Job titles are redefined so that pay and stock have different assignments between a grade 6 here or there, stock grants are lowered, PTO is gone, health care choices restricted, pay gap between the top vs bottom and grades internally grows, why wouldn't a union be a viable option? When the ax falls in tech, you have nothing except for what you may have saved, there's no health care, no pension, no nothing. With a Union, at least there would be a voice for the employees that are increasingly being left behind.

Zero. Hells no.

none/zero/zip/zilch.

But I strongly encourage others to unionize. If you self-organize, it'll save me time on the next LR.

I won't. Sh!tsco is full of self serving prima donnas. I'd leave before I invest anything for another cluster f--k sh!t show.

"its amazing people havent done this in tech. unionize now"

people are too distracted & divided, which made tech stocks a solid investment. too many overworked and underpaid workers

Nothing. It's a really bad idea.

The difference between one's present income and minimum wage minus union dues.

5 bucks per month fror 5000 employees... 25k per month total

My coming bonus

its amazing people havent done this in tech. unionize now