Author Topic: ULA Union strike May 2018 (now ended)  (Read 21054 times)

Offline psionedge

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I see about 10 people max waving placards which might even include family members. I only hope these people never end up working at SpaceX waiting for the time to strike. Better not as more...
If Tesla is any indication of Musk's treatment of workers SpaceX could benefit from a union. And personally knowing a few engineers at SpaceX the overtime abuse of new and young engineers is rampant. For many it's stick with it to get your stock vested and move on to better paying positions in the LA aerospace scene.

Offline Kabloona

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I see about 10 people max waving placards which might even include family members. I only hope these people never end up working at SpaceX waiting for the time to strike. Better not as more...
If Tesla is any indication of Musk's treatment of workers SpaceX could benefit from a union. And personally knowing a few engineers at SpaceX the overtime abuse of new and young engineers is rampant. For many it's stick with it to get your stock vested and move on to better paying positions in the LA aerospace scene.

Let's keep in mind that salaried workers (engineers, office staff, etc) typically work under a different set of rules than hourly workers (techs, machinists, etc) in the aerospace business, and elsewhere.

It's a given in the aerospace industry that young engineers are going to be expected to work 60 hours per week on a regular basis, and 80+ hrs per week during crunch times. That's just the price you pay for working at a top-tier aerospace company, or even a small start-up.

That's different from the situation of unionized aerospace machinists, who work under a totally different wage structure, management structure, and "rules," whether explicit or implicit.

"Abuse" of young salaried engineers is the expected norm, and they know it when they sign up; "abuse" of hourly machinists is not. ;-)


Offline AncientU

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Hard, challenging work and long hours is not abuse... it is called a profession.
"If we shared everything [we are working on] people would think we are insane!"
-- SpaceX friend of mlindner

I see about 10 people max waving placards which might even include family members. I only hope these people never end up working at SpaceX waiting for the time to strike. Better not as more...
If Tesla is any indication of Musk's treatment of workers SpaceX could benefit from a union. And personally knowing a few engineers at SpaceX the overtime abuse of new and young engineers is rampant. For many it's stick with it to get your stock vested and move on to better paying positions in the LA aerospace scene.

Let's see the data, because spreading anecdotal experience and FUD is easy. On Glassdoor SpaceX has a rating of 4.4, vs ULA's 2.7, OATK's 3.6. Elon Musk has a 97% approval rating vs Tory Bruno's 49%.
Not bad for a company apparently run by an exploitative monster. But this is off-topic here.

Failure is not only an option, it's the only way to learn.
"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the custody of fire" - Gustav Mahler

Offline hopalong

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Quick Question

 Does anybody know what the turnout and the for and against percentages?

 Seems odd to me that they do not appear to been published, it is not on the union website as far as I could see.
 

Offline SWGlassPit

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I see about 10 people max waving placards which might even include family members. I only hope these people never end up working at SpaceX waiting for the time to strike. Better not as more...
If Tesla is any indication of Musk's treatment of workers SpaceX could benefit from a union. And personally knowing a few engineers at SpaceX the overtime abuse of new and young engineers is rampant. For many it's stick with it to get your stock vested and move on to better paying positions in the LA aerospace scene.

Let's keep in mind that salaried workers (engineers, office staff, etc) typically work under a different set of rules than hourly workers (techs, machinists, etc) in the aerospace business, and elsewhere.

It's a given in the aerospace industry that young engineers are going to be expected to work 60 hours per week on a regular basis, and 80+ hrs per week during crunch times. That's just the price you pay for working at a top-tier aerospace company, or even a small start-up.

That's different from the situation of unionized aerospace machinists, who work under a totally different wage structure, management structure, and "rules," whether explicit or implicit.

"Abuse" of young salaried engineers is the expected norm, and they know it when they sign up; "abuse" of hourly machinists is not. ;-)

I'm a salaried engineer in the aerospace profession, and I have never been required to work 60 or 80 hour weeks.  Not once.

Offline SWGlassPit

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Hard, challenging work and long hours is not abuse... it is called a profession.

Expecting 80 hour weeks is abusive.  When you have to choose between your job and having a family, that's not a profession, that's being a wage slave.

Offline envy887

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Hard, challenging work and long hours is not abuse... it is called a profession.

Expecting 80 hour weeks is abusive.  When you have to choose between your job and having a family, that's not a profession, that's being a wage slave.

"Slave"?

Last I checked, aerospace engineers were highly educated intelligent people whose services are currently in great demand. They can, generally speaking, get a job wherever they want. Nobody is being forced to work anywhere.

Offline Kabloona

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I'm a salaried engineer in the aerospace profession, and I have never been required to work 60 or 80 hour weeks.  Not once.

Then count yourself fortunate. When I was a young engineer at Orbital, 60 hr weeks were common at crunch times (PDR, CDR, customer reviews, etc) and 80+ hrs some weeks during launch campaigns.

SpaceX probably operates the same way. For every new engineer they hire, there are 100 others who would gladly bust their humps for the chance to work there.
« Last Edit: 05/11/2018 12:04 am by Kabloona »

Offline LouScheffer

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I'm a salaried engineer in the aerospace profession, and I have never been required to work 60 or 80 hour weeks.  Not once.
Every engineering job I've ever held had periods where considerably more than 40 hours per week were required, in practice if not formally.  For startups that's a normal schedule.  For chip companies, it's the push to complete verification before release.  For software, the period just before a big revision.  For consumer electronics, the effort needed to get the product out by Christmas.   For scientists and academics, the period just before grant and conference deadlines.  You are lucky your work is evenly distributed, but I don't think that's usual.

Offline eeergo

It's really despairing when some people appear to take pride on exploitative work conditions as a status.

Reminds me of when I was in college and there were certain students (usually those with worse grades after all was said and done) who took pride on their lack of life outside their academic career, the insane hours they passed in the library or in front of their computers, the many all-nighters they pulled and their "dedication" to their studies. In reality, they ate like crap (which brought its own set of problems pretty swiftly), had no life balance, were miserable, and generally extremely ineffective in their time management, dozing off in the desk for hours, taking lots of "break times" to smoke or take coffee. End result was, barring some special cases, an inferior long-term comprehension of what they worked on, and getting burned after a few such cycles.

There always will be crunch times, periods of sacrifice of personal life to professional development, and the need to put all hands on deck to bring forward an enterprise. They can lead to 60 or 80h working weeks or even to sleeping in the office, and most people will live through them.

Promoting it as "expected" or "the price to pay" for some perceived prestige though, is just dumb and an insult to hard-won improvements in the treatment of hired professionals. Gross overtime should be totally extraordinary and well-remunerated. Otherwise either your working ways are ineffective and problematic, or the company structure is, and should either hire more people or streamline processes.

In any case, let's keep this thread focused on discussing and keeping updates on ULA's strike and its workers' conditions, not general rumblings.

It's really despairing when some people appear to take pride on exploitative work conditions as a status.

Reminds me of when I was in college and there were certain students (usually those with worse grades after all was said and done) who took pride on their lack of life outside their academic career, the insane hours they passed in the library or in front of their computers, the many all-nighters they pulled and their "dedication" to their studies. In reality, they ate like crap (which brought its own set of problems pretty swiftly), had no life balance, were miserable, and generally extremely ineffective in their time management, dozing off in the desk for hours, taking lots of "break times" to smoke or take coffee. End result was, barring some special cases, an inferior long-term comprehension of what they worked on, and getting burned after a few such cycles.

There always will be crunch times, periods of sacrifice of personal life to professional development, and the need to put all hands on deck to bring forward an enterprise. They can lead to 60 or 80h working weeks or even to sleeping in the office, and most people will live through them.

Promoting it as "expected" or "the price to pay" for some perceived prestige though, is just dumb and an insult to hard-won improvements in the treatment of hired professionals. Gross overtime should be totally extraordinary and well-remunerated. Otherwise either your working ways are ineffective and problematic, or the company structure is, and should either hire more people or streamline processes.

In any case, let's keep this thread focused on discussing and keeping updates on ULA's strike and its workers' conditions, not general rumblings.

Just a counterpoint then I promise I'll stop.

I'm Italian and a relaxed lifestyle is part of our culture. We always take our time, almost never eat on the go and strongly believe that you work to live, not the opposite.

But what does 'work to live' mean? Enduring an unpleasant job to earn money and use it as a means to support your intimate and true passions, aka 'living'.
If the project you're working for is part of your true passions, if it is part of what you want to strive for as a human, then it's more than just 'work'. It falls more in the 'live' part of 'work to live'.

That's why, if I had the opportunity to work at SpaceX I wouldn't hesitate a moment. A good work/life balance is essential for human dignity, but so is the freedom to dedicate yourself passionately to a project that you deem important and world changing.
As long as it isn't a physically demanding job that can affect your health (and engineering isn't), and you're not forced (and people queue to work for SpaceX), being able to choose and sacrifice a bit of your life/work balance for a period of your life for a meaningful project is not only fair, but something to strive for.

And the fact that people strive to work for SpaceX confirms this.
 
« Last Edit: 05/11/2018 10:02 am by AbuSimbel »
Failure is not only an option, it's the only way to learn.
"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the custody of fire" - Gustav Mahler

Offline docmordrid

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Hard, challenging work and long hours is not abuse... it is called a profession.

Expecting 80 hour weeks is abusive.  When you have to choose between your job and having a family, that's not a profession, that's being a wage slave.

Try working health care, especially at trauma units. Very often a 60 hour week would be a blessing.
DM

Offline MaxTeranous

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As they say, if you do what you love then you never work a day in your life.

Offline Oli

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I would say there's a big difference between "being present at work" and "doing productive work". I worked at a software startup where the rule was "no more than 7 hours a day", because the owner was convinced it's impossible to stay productive beyond that. Not saying that's true for everyone, but from what I can tell it didn't hurt the company.

P.S. And no, I'm not French.  ;D

Offline Jim

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Let's see the data, because spreading anecdotal experience and FUD is easy. On Glassdoor SpaceX has a rating of 4.4, vs ULA's 2.7, OATK's 3.6. Elon Musk has a 97% approval rating vs Tory Bruno's 49%.
Not bad for a company apparently run by an exploitative monster. But this is off-topic here.


That isn't "data", it is popularity contest.  Results of a cult of personality.

Offline speedevil

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That isn't "data", it is popularity contest.  Results of a cult of personality.
When determining likelyhood to strike, that's all you care about. (to a large degree)

Offline envy887

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Let's see the data, because spreading anecdotal experience and FUD is easy. On Glassdoor SpaceX has a rating of 4.4, vs ULA's 2.7, OATK's 3.6. Elon Musk has a 97% approval rating vs Tory Bruno's 49%.
Not bad for a company apparently run by an exploitative monster. But this is off-topic here.


That isn't "data", it is popularity contest.  Results of a cult of personality.

In some sciences, opinions are data. Being subjective doesn't make them any less real.

Offline SWGlassPit

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Let's see the data, because spreading anecdotal experience and FUD is easy. On Glassdoor SpaceX has a rating of 4.4, vs ULA's 2.7, OATK's 3.6. Elon Musk has a 97% approval rating vs Tory Bruno's 49%.
Not bad for a company apparently run by an exploitative monster. But this is off-topic here.


That isn't "data", it is popularity contest.  Results of a cult of personality.

In some sciences, opinions are data. Being subjective doesn't make them any less real.

And in some countries, a pint is 20 ounces instead of 16.  This statement is apropos of nothing in particular.

Offline jongoff

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This is unfortunate for both sides. How has SpaceX been able to keep its union happy?
What union?

Yeah, one of SpaceX's many benefits when it comes to labor costs is the fact that they're not unionized. ULA didn't have the luxury of starting from a clean sheet like Elon did, and inherited the unions from its parent companies.

I hope they can find a way to resolve this. I'm generally not a big fan of unions, but I can see the points others are making that it's hard to ask the troops to sacrifice when the parent companies continue siphoning off as much money from ULA as they can. A lot of these sacrifices were sold as ways to reinvest in ULA's future, but so far it seems like the parents have only allowed a small chunk of the money that has been freed up by all of the downsizing and employee sacrifices to be reinvested for that purpose.

As I've said many other times, I wish ULA could find a way to free itself from its current governance structure (ie being a wholly-owned 50/50 JV of two publicly traded defense contractors). Unlikely to happen, but that's their best shot for long-term survival, as events like this strike suggest.

~Jon

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