Cyberlodge" Union Movement for Open-Source Organizing

http://www.cyberlodge.org/

What We're About

Work Today

The workforce isn't what it used to be. Our parents parents went to school, got a job, and stayed at that job for decades. When they retired they got a pension.

Not any more.

Now there's a new workforce - a cyber workforce - that's made up of mobile, self-sufficient workers. Geeks. Us.

We don't work for one company for decades. Hell, most of us don't even work for one company. We go from project to project, job to job, writing code and designing cool stuff. It's a great life when times are good. There's never a dull moment and you don't have to worry about office politics.

The down side? When employer abuse happens, we're the first to get the short end of the stick. We don't get benefits, or if we do they're limited. We have very little job security, if any. Basically we're living hand to mouth, and we're at the mercy of the clients we serve.

Organization is Strength

Why do we get abused? Because individual contract workers have very little ability to protect themselves from abusive employers or market forces that even the best clients can't control.

What if we could all work together to:

Set up benefits packages

Set standards for expertise

Build our credibility as a resource

I'll tell you what - we'd all have better lives.

CyberLodge: An Open Source Union Project

Traditional unions can't help us. We're too scattered across industries and geography. And, let's face it, we like to do things differently. We need a fresh approach.

That's where CyberLodge comes in. Consider us SourceForge.net for the labor movement. We're here to gather requirements for the ideal cyber worker organization. What would your ideal labor organization provide? Health benefits? Standards? Testing? Representation? Or just good advice?

Open Source software gets its strength from the combined efforts of many developers. CyberLodge.org hopes to accomplish the same thing, by creating the foundation of a cyber workers' association through input from you and people like you.

Take a look through the site and think about what would improve your career. Then let us know, so we can all start building a labor organization for the 21st Century.

Cyberlodge.org is a project of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. You can visit us at www.goiam.org.